Backlink Profile

A link profile is an evaluation of every backlink (count, quality, variety, etc.) that a website has.

Backlinks are hyperlinks pointing to your site from another site. Search engines are likely to view your website as more reliable and authoritative if it attracts credible backlinks.

Check out this example of our article on brand publishers.

Source

You can see this excerpt features backlinks to Netflix and Salesforce. In the search engines’ eyes, these links increase the targeted site’s credibility as a source of useful, informative content.

Backlinks vs Internal Links

While internal links help visitors and web crawlers navigate your site, make for a coherent reading experience and create content pillars, they are a separate mechanism to backlinks.

Below is an example of internal linking. As you can see in the bottom left of the image, the link references another SODP article.

Source

To learn more about internal links and their benefits, check out our module on the subject.

3.9.2 Do Backlinks Matter for SEO?

Google said in 2016 that backlinks were one of the top three search ranking factors considered by the algorithm. It has not updated this position since, so we have no reason to assume this is not still the case.

If your site has a large number of credible backlinks, it will likely feature higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines use several subfactors in the overall evaluation of the impact and quality of your backlink profile that eventually determines your ranking

Some of the prominent ones include:

• Total backlinks: The total number of external links that point to your site. Typically, the higher the number, the higher the ranking.

• Diverse referring domains: It isn’t just the number of links that matter, but also the number of different sites backlinking to your page. For example, 80 links from 10 high authority sites may be more valuable than 100 links from five lower authority sites. Search engines look more favorably on a higher number of unique sites pointing toward yours.

• Anchor text: The specific text that’s hyperlinked and points to your website should be descriptive and relevant, without sounding spammy.

• Link placement: Placing a link towards the top of the page will mean it’s more likely to be prioritized and crawled more often. For example, the upper section of the body content has greater value than a side widget, which suggests sitewide linking.

As you can see, while the number of backlinks matters, the quality of the source and content is also vital.

3.9.3 Challenges Publishers Face With Backlinks

If backlinks have a direct impact on your SEO ranking, then why isn’t everyone doing it? According to some studies, almost 95% of pages don’t feature backlinks, as shown below.

Source

Here are a few of the reasons why publishers are not using backlinks as much as they should.

Publishers Assume They Can Rank Without Links

The nature of the web dictates that news sites are one of the most trusted sites, with users relying on them for accurate reporting of events. Given their exposure on Google Top Stories, they inherently earn links naturally in an endless loop, as shown in the image below.

As a result, publishers can end up relying entirely on content velocity, forgetting about the importance of backlinks when it comes to improving rankings for underperforming content.

Time-Consuming to Earn

Earned links can help you achieve SEO success, but they need to be a part of an overall strategy that involves planning the approach and identifying the outreach targets.

This process of developing a strategy and earning links from reputable sites can be time-consuming, more so if you’re not clear about the concepts and the mechanism to build links.

However, given the importance and value of a good link profile, there is merit in persevering with the process. Using either an online tool or a professional service can help avoid becoming bogged down with this strategy.

3.9.4 Conducting a Backlink Analysis 

Understanding the difference between a good and bad link profile comes from conducting a thorough link analysis across your site. Too many publishers don’t understand this process and therefore don’t value it highly enough.

Good Link Profile

A collection of several high-quality backlinks makes for a strong backlink profile. The key attributes of a good profile include:

• The link originates from a site with strong Domain Authority, that is regularly updated and is well-sourced.

• The referring domain has high-quality content of its own that readers find valuable.

• The backlink is relevant to the topic and content of the source and the target pages.

• The link’s anchor text is concise and clear, making it easy for users as well as search engines to comprehend its relation to the target article. However, this is not always under your control as what a publisher chooses to use as anchor text on their page is their choice.

Bad Link Profile

A bad link profile can be detrimental to your SEO strategy and needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. A bad link profile includes:

• Spammy or irrelevant content and/or anchor text.

• Paid or sponsored links masked as genuine ones.

• Links originating through sites that have a low Domain Authority or Domain Rating.

• Links from sites with low traffic value or that do not use organic keywords in their content.

Now that you know that backlinks directly influence your site’s ranking on SERP, and that both quantity and quality matter, the importance of backlink analysis should be clear.

If your website has a weaker backlink profile than your competition, your ranking will generally be lower. A backlink analysis helps you understand the areas of improvement and subsequent measures you can take to improve them.

Another benefit that backlink profile analysis provides is the opportunity to build a linking network. When domains refer to your competitors’ content, it means they are finding it valuable. This presents an opportunity for you to reach out to the referring domains, understand the gaps in your content (if any) and plug them.

If you don’t have experience in conducting this analysis on your own, you can use a backlink analysis tool to assess your own backlink profile and those of your competitors.

Here are some options to consider.

GSC’s Links Option

You can use Google Search Console to find out the domains that provide the most backlinks to your pages. It also lets you know which of your pages have the most backlinks on other sites, the specific text string that is linked the most and much more.

Here’s what the GSC report typically looks like.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another popular online tool that offers backlink checking and auditing features. While this tool pretty much does everything that the GSC link report does, it goes a few steps beyond and helps you count the backlinks, check the authority of your domain and the referring domain, as well as also identify the broken internal and external links on your site.

These are valuable insights that not only help you understand the health of your link profile but also give you the means to improve it.

Here’s a sample snapshot of the Ahrefs Site Explorer report.

Source

Semrush

Semrush offers both a Backlink Audit and a Backlink Analytics tool, which perform similarly to the previously mentioned options above and give you a detailed status of your site’s link profile.

The information from the report can help you benchmark your profile against competitors to identify what you may need to do to climb the SERP rankings and drive more organic traffic toward your website.

Using the details regarding referring domains, you can create a targeted outreach campaign to earn more backlinks from sites with high authority. Another useful aspect of the tools is the ability to pinpoint the bad links that are hurting your rankings and may lead to manual actions or violations from Google.

3.9.5 Developing Backlink Strategies

Earning a profile of effective backlinks that improve your SERP ranking is easier said than done. Simply knowing the importance of a link profile and understanding the common challenges may not be enough to build a successful backlink strategy.

With that in mind, let’s look at some useful tips and best practices that you can adopt to earn links more effectively.

Focusing on Content Quality

One of the most natural ways of earning backlinks is through providing quality content on your site that provides visitors with value.

We advise focusing on great content that is original, highly compelling and satisfies visitors’ needs. Not only will high-quality content significantly increase your chances of earning credible links, it can also pave the way for promotion through influencers and affiliates and drive social media traffic to your site.

Embedding and requesting quotes from other experts and influencers can also help earn natural backlinks to your content.

If you’re unsure about how to start developing share worthy content, check out our modules on E-E-A-T, developing original reporting and content freshness.

Digital PR

In today’s SEO world, content is king. The foremost asset that you should have is high-quality, compelling and authoritative content. This can then be pitched to publishers, journalists and other content evangelists to earn credible backlinks in complete compliance with Google’s link-related guidelines.

In fact, Google Search Advocate John Mueller has recognized the impact this can have and mentioned in a tweet that digital PR is as critical as tech SEO.

Source

Tools such as HARO, Terkel, Quora, Qwoted, SourceBottle and OnePitch can help you connect with journalists in order to become a media source.

Have Unlinked Mentions Tagged

In an ideal scenario, any site mentioning your site or content should provide a link to your relevant page. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, resulting in a lost opportunity.

While it’s great that you’ve been mentioned, the first challenge is to identify mentions that don’t supply a backlink to your content. While you can’t do this manually, you can make use of tools such as Google Alert or Ahrefs Content Explorer to help you keep track of where your site is mentioned.

The next step is to gain insights about the referring site to understand its Domain Rating and other attributes that will help you improve your backlink profile. Once this is established, you can reach out to the publisher to request a formal link to the specific resource on your site. This is a win-win for both. While you earn a good backlink, the referring site is able to provide a more enriching experience to its readers.

Broken Link Building

This is another low-hanging fruit that you can use to bolster your backlink profile and simply involves identifying broken external links on other sites, then contacting them to replace the links.

The site is going to benefit from fixing this as the presence of broken links reduces the user experience (UX) and may also negatively impact the site’s SEO ranking.

As you see, we’ve circled back to the fact that your content is of paramount importance and needs to be compelling enough to organically earn referrals using any of the aforementioned strategies.

3.9.6 Avoid These Common Pitfalls

Let’s examine the common pitfalls that may lead to your site containing bad links, and how to avoid them.

Unnatural Links

Google flags policy violating criteria when it comes to spamming or linking misleading content. If its algorithm identifies bad links pointing to your site, then not only will your page feature lower on SERPs, but you may also receive a manual action.

There are several subcategories of these unnatural links including:

• Unqualified sponsored links.

• Buying purely with the intention of boosting rankings.

• Using bots or machine learning (ML) to generate links for cross-linking.

• Advertorials or native ads that don’t have the don’t employ sponsor or no-follow link attributes.

• Excessive use of optimized links in comment sections and forums

A key thing for publishers to remember is to correctly implement link attributes and provide appropriate disclosure and transparency in the process. More information on sponsored and user links can be found in our link attributes module.

Poor or Irrelevant Source/Target Sites

Google and other search engines are constantly emphasizing high-quality content that is valuable and beneficial to users.

If you’re adding links to sites with a dubious reputation, or that are irrelevant to your content, this may result in a negative SEO or the de-indexing of your page. This is important to consider if you’re offering links in exchange for backlinks to your site as part of your outreach program.

Sites that are irrelevant to your content or theme are, in any case, not going to add any weight to your ranking.

No-follow Links From Sites

A no-follow link is one that has informed Googlebot to avoid crawling it. You may build several links from such a site but they won’t provide any value. This is because they are not being crawled by Googlebot. At the same time, this is a natural part of your backlink profile and it can result in other branding and traffic benefits that you might not be able to realize with do-follow links below.

This further exemplifies the value of a backlink profile analysis. Not only should you analyze the link profile of your own site, but you should also verify the sites that you are aiming to secure links from. This will help you understand their Domain Rating, reputation and no-follow status (among other aspects), thereby helping to boost your ratings.

Keyword Loading Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text that a link is embedded within, providing more context about the destination page than a simple URL.

If the anchor text used in an inbound link uses a mix of your targeted keywords then you’re more likely to rank higher in SERPs, as contextually relevant hyperlinks hold greater weight with Google’s algorithm than run-of-the-mill anchors such as “read more”, “click here”, etc.

While you may not have direct control over this, if you’re developing a comprehensive backlink strategy then this is still worth knowing.

However, it’s important to understand that stuffing anchor text with keywords carries its own risks. Google may decide that cases of over-optimized anchor text is a violation of its spam policy and can result in the search engine issuing a warning to the site the links point to.

For example, if multiple publications are using the same anchor text to link to your site then, theoretically, it will improve your ranking. However, there is also a chance that Google may consider this a manipulation of its algorithm.

With that said, Google has acknowledged that “buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes”, noting that these links are fine as long as they use the appropriate attribute tags. See our module on attribute tags for more info.

Over Focusing on Backlinks

Backlink profiles do help your online marketing strategy succeed, but it’s equally important to create content that is worth linking to.

If your content isn’t valuable to readers or other publishers, chances are you won’t earn links easily. Instead, focus on building high-quality content that can organically attract shares on social media and earn links from other sites. You may even seek the assistance of experienced digital marketing agencies for this purpose.

3.9.7 Actions and Takeaways

A backlink profile is the collection of all the links that direct readers to your webpage. It is a critical factor that directly affects your page’s ranking in SERPs, which is why it is important to pay attention to it and build a strategy to improve it.

Search engines can tell that you’re earning your links and authority honestly if they see a healthy link profile.

A good backlink profile focuses on high-quality content, organic link building and topical links from other sites that have a high domain authority in their respective fields. It stays away from spammy content and paid or irrelevant links that are used purely for the sake of impacting search scores.