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5 Tips to start your week with SEO - Part 8
03/11/2014
Author: Creating Media Team

This week is all about how to improve those backlinks. Backlinks are links to your website from any other site (i.e. not an internal link). Your backlink profile is a good ranking factor with Google, but whereas the focus used to be on pure quantity, these days you are better off focussing on quality! Here are a few tips on how to get the most bang for your backlink.

  1. Avoiding going on pages of ‘sponsored links’ or ‘link partners’
    Google frequently gives no benefit to these sort of backlinks, and may even penalise you for them (especially if you have lots!)
  2. Links should be in body text with good anchor
    The ‘anchor text’ is the phrase that people add your hyperlink too. Frequently this will just be the domain itself  (i.e. www.creatingmedia.co.uk) but sometimes people will add your link to some descriptive text (i.e. Monmouthshire web designers). Google uses this anchor text as signal of what is contained on the site (after all it is generally a third-party opion rather than your own opinion of yourself).
  3. Local referrals
    Referrals and links from your own country carry more weight – so if you are based in the UK a link from a .co.uk domain will help you more than a .de, .co.nz or other foreign link.
  4. Links early on in content
    The earlier in the content the backlink appears, the more important it is considered by Google. Also links in sidebars and footers carry less weight than links in main content areas.
  5. Words that frequently appear around links to your site
    If backlinks to your site frequently appear on pages of the same topic it is a good relevancy signal for Google. This is great if people link to you praising your expertise in your field. It’s less good if you frequently appear on spammy websites, or negative write-ups.

Backlink building is one of the most complex and beneficial things you can do to improve your SEO. To help improve your ranking why not give Creating Media a call on 01291 423 234 or email us oninfo@creatingmedia.co.uk

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