Transcript, lightly edited for readability:
Here’s a really easy way to get started optimising backlinks to your website.
But what is a Backlink?
Think about how you might refer a friend to a product or service that you find helpful or useful. That’s a word of mouth referral. And similarly, on the internet, a link from website A to website B acts in the same kind of way. It’s like a word of mouth referral, from the first website to the second.
When you’re linking from one website to another you’re demonstrating that there’s value in the visitor moving from website A to website B. It might be that there’s more useful information, a more in-depth article or resource or there might a product that someone’s recommending, by linking to a site where it can be purchased.
Backlinks & SEO
When it comes to search engine optimisation, backlinks are really important for growing your search visibility. Search engines look for clues about how important and useful your website is compared to your competitors. Backlinks are a great way of demonstrating that you’re an expert, that your website contains information or resources which are really worth visiting. The more backlinks you have the more you’re demonstrating your expertise and becoming more visible for search terms and phrases which are important to your and your business.
A Poorly Optimised Link
For example, a link to zapier.com is not well optimised. It’s literally the domain name. It doesn’t describe anything about the content a user would find if they were to click on the link. Of course, I may provide context for a link like this in the surrounding text on my website, which helps the user understand why the link is there and why it’s important.
A Better Optimised Link
A link to the Website Carbon Calculator is similar, in that it is the name of the website. But it also describes what the website offers – a way of calculating the carbon impact of webpages. So the phrase ‘website carbon calculator’ provides context for the link. It describes to the visitor what they will find if they click on the links, but it also explains to a search engine why this link is valuable. Why is it worth me redirecting a visitor to another website? In this case it’s because the website carbon calculator offers something I can’t on my own website, so it’s helpful to the user.
Managing and Optimising Backlinks
A simple way of optimising your backlinks is to use Bing Webmaster Tools. Many of use use Google Search Console to track things like search impressions, clicks, click through rates and so on, but Bing offers a different suite of tools to webmasters with some nice enhancements on what Google offers. For example, their Backlinks dashboard.
Once you’ve registered your website with Bing Webmaster Tools you can click through to the Backlinks section. First it will give you a list of all the domain names from which your site is linked to along with the total number of links from that domain. For me these are mostly client websites, where I’ve linked back to my own website from a client’s website footer.
Anchor Texts
Another interesting way of exploring the data is to look at the Anchor Texts report. Here you’ll see what text has been used to provide the link back to your website. As I demonstrated above with the link to Zapier.com, links can be valid but without them necessarily helping optimise your site for search.
For me, I’m trying to avoid using just ‘Hello Technology’ because people who already know my business name will have no trouble finding me if they search ‘Hello Technology’ or ‘Hello Technology Whitby’ for example.
Instead, I want to attract customers who don’t already know about my business. For me, that could be people searching for:
- Website design
- Web developer
- Marketing support and so on
So when I’m looking at the Anchor Texts report I’m considering how I might optimise these backlinks to better represent what I offer my customers and improve my search visibility at the same time.
There are a lot of links using the text ‘website design’, but it’s the ones using ‘Hello Technology’ which I’m now purposefully optimising. I’m changing the anchor text to provide a bit more information to the search engines, and also to the visitors who may click on that link so that they might better understand what I offer.
Within Bing Webmaster Tools I can click on the anchor text in question, to reveal a list of pages where that text has been used as a link back to my website. I can use that information to optimise those links, better describing what I offer. I might choose a word which reflects the work undertaken for that client, or something more generic like ‘Website Design Whitby’ or ‘WordPress Website Development’.
Struggling to Get Backlinks?
If you’re struggling to acquire backlinks, think about the businesses you work alongside. Not competitors, but those which are tangential to yours.
If you’re an accommodation provider, why not see if you can swap links with attractions, restaurants or takeaways? You’ll be recommending their website to your visitors, and they’ll be recommending your website to theirs.
If you’re a builder why not swap links with trustworthy plumbers, electricians, plasterers and decorators? Or if you work in professional services of some kind, think about the other businesses you use or work alongside – for estate agents this could be solicitors, accountants and removal companies, for example.
Remember to pay attention to the words you’re using for the anchor text. Make sure they’re optimised for the kinds of words and phrases for which you want to be found. Then go ahead and obtain as many backlinks as you can!
This will boost your domain authority and demonstrate that you’re an expert in your field. You’ll become more visible in search result pages, attracting more visitors to your website who will hopefully become customers of your business.
Need Some Support?
If you’d like some help getting set up with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, or want some help thinking about how you can acquire some high quality backlinks to support your search engine optimisation then please get in touch.