Should Getting Backlinks Be Part Of Your Content Strategy?

You may be working overtime creating some great content for your blog or you may be spending wisely allowing the experts to do it for you, but when can you do to help this content get found? If you have delved into the world of SEO you have probably come across people referring to article links and content links.

The question asked by many trying to boost the rankings of their content is if content links matter. When they realise that they do, the next question is often around how to get backlinks. If this is something that you have been left scratching your head over, then we’re to help. We’re going to take a look at why content links matter and how to get high-quality backlinks to your site. 

Is Getting Backlinks A Part Of SEO?

Yes, getting backlinks is an integral part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Backlinks are links from external websites that point to your website. They serve as a vote of confidence from other websites, indicating to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. Search engines consider backlinks as a crucial ranking factor in determining the credibility and authority of a website. When high-quality and relevant websites link back to your content, it signals to search engines that your website is reputable and worthy of higher search rankings. Therefore, obtaining backlinks is an essential strategy in SEO to improve your website’s visibility and organic search rankings.

However, it’s important to note that not all backlinks are equal. Quality matters more than quantity when it comes to backlinks. Search engines prioritize backlinks from authoritative and reputable websites within your industry or niche. These high-quality backlinks carry more weight and have a greater positive impact on your website’s SEO. On the other hand, low-quality or spammy backlinks from irrelevant or dubious sources can actually harm your SEO efforts. Building a strong backlink profile involves a strategic approach, focusing on acquiring backlinks from trustworthy websites with relevant and authoritative content. By incorporating backlink acquisition into your overall SEO strategy, you can enhance your website’s visibility, credibility, and search engine rankings.

Which Is More Important Content Or Backlinks?

The debate over the importance of content versus backlinks in SEO is ongoing. While both elements are significant, if we had to prioritize, content takes the lead. Quality content serves as the backbone of a successful SEO strategy, attracting and engaging users, establishing credibility, and signaling relevance to search engines. It not only helps search engines understand the purpose of your website but also keeps users engaged, reducing bounce rates and improving overall user experience. Exceptional content that addresses user intent and incorporates relevant keywords naturally attracts backlinks from other websites, as it becomes a valuable resource worth referencing.

Although backlinks hold value in SEO, they are essentially endorsements from other websites that validate the quality and credibility of your content. While backlinks contribute to the authority of a website, their value heavily relies on the quality and relevance of the content they point to. Without high-quality content, backlinks alone will not suffice in driving organic search rankings and sustainable traffic. Thus, prioritizing the creation and optimization of quality content should be the primary focus, as it establishes a strong foundation for attracting valuable backlinks, thereby enhancing your website’s authority, relevance, and visibility in search engine rankings.

Does Google Care About Backlinks?

Backlinks play a significant role in Google’s search algorithm, as they have long been considered an important ranking factor. Google cares about backlinks because they serve as indicators of a website’s credibility, authority, and relevance. When reputable and trustworthy websites link to your content, it signals to Google that your website is valuable and deserving of higher search rankings. Backlinks are seen as votes of confidence from other websites, and they contribute to establishing the overall reputation and trustworthiness of a website.

However, it’s worth noting that over the years, Google’s algorithm has evolved to become more sophisticated in assessing the quality and relevance of backlinks. Google now places greater emphasis on the quality of backlinks rather than sheer quantity. It values backlinks from authoritative websites within the same industry or niche that naturally reference your content based on its value. Google also takes into account the context of the backlinks, looking for relevancy and natural linking patterns.

While backlinks remain an important consideration for Google, they are just one of many factors that the search engine giant considers when determining search rankings. User experience, content quality, site structure, and other on-page optimization factors also play vital roles. Therefore, while backlinks are significant, it is crucial to focus on building high-quality, relevant backlinks that naturally complement well-optimized content and overall user experience.

Does Your Main Focus Need To Be On Backlinks?

When it comes to your content strategy, article links matter but they should not be the main focus. Does that mean that backlinks don’t matter? Of course not. Content links are still massively important and they still play a role in helping your content to rank better in Google.

Where people often go wrong is by obsessing with how to get backlinks. For one, the chances are there should be more thought going into getting good quality backlinks, but more importantly there should be a focus on building your brand. As you build a top-quality brand by producing top quality content you will see that high-quality backlinks are a natural byproduct. 

What Are Backlinks?

Before we move on much further, it may be worth covering the basics and considering what backlinks actually are. You may also hear backlinks being referred to as inbound links, one-way links, or incoming links. These are all the same thing and they are just where one website links to another.

When a link like this is created, Google takes this as being a positive. Why? It is almost seen as being a vote for the site that is being linked to. The more links that a site has, the more votes it is getting and so Google starts to take notice. What matters as well as the number of backlinks is the quality. That is where DA comes in. 

A Look At DA

You may have heard DA being referred to when people talk about websites and their rankings. DA stands for domain authority. This is a measure that was created by the SEO company Moz. It essentially looks at the number of backlinks that a site has and determines how strong the site is and what authority it has. Alongside the backlinks, MOZ considers some 39 other factors when looking at a site.

The score given can be used as a way of predicting how well a site will perform in the search rankings. The higher the DA, the higher in the results a site will appear. There are numerous tools that can be used to check out the DA of your site as well as similar, alternative measures. The score given is out of 100. If you find your site is lower than 30 then the chances are that you have some work to do.

What Makes A Link High Quality?

Once the importance of article links is understood, people are then keen to know how to get high-quality backlinks. The problem is that often people are not sure what makes a quality backlink in the first place. The practice may be dying out, but there have long been ways of buying backlinks, sitting back, and hoping for a miracle. The miracle rarely comes and if it does it is short-lived.

High-quality links are not something that are bought. They are earned. To get good quality backlinks you need to be considering sites that have a DA of 60 -100. Looking at sites that are around 40-50 could be okay, but anything below 40 is unlikely to bring you any real benefits.

High-quality backlinks are a long game. However, unlike the links that you buy you at least know that when they are in place they are going to last. Those that are bought are either low quality or simply vanish overnight. Backlinks that you earn from a high DA site that is relevant to your niche are by far the most valuable. 

Quantity Vs Quality 

Just as the argument exists with content itself there are those who have different opinions when it comes to the quantity vs quality of backlinks. There are those that would have you believe that it is quality all the way whereas others will swear blind that quantity is king. The truth is that they are both right!

It is clear how the quality of article links matters. By linking to a site with high DA you are gaining link juice from a site that is already trusted. It is a site that Google rates as well as being a site that is trusted by its readers. being associated with this can only be seen as a good thing.

When it comes to those who favour quantity over quality there are two types of people to consider. The first is those who look at how to get backlinks and will go ahead and buy thousands of spammy ones. Then there are those who do it properly! Buying spammy backlinks will not be of any benefit and will even see Google punish your site.

Those who play the quantity game the right way are looking at sites with low to medium DA. These are sites that are easier to get backlinks from. Google does consider the number of content links that you have and so by targeting these you can build your rankings quicker. Getting good quality backlinks will take longer and, overall, the results will likely be the same. Just remember here –  we are not talking about spammy links!

How To Get Backlinks

Whether you are looking at getting good quality backlinks or playing the numbers game, you’re going to need to know how to get them. Ultimately what it is going to come down to is creating great content. This means content that brings value to your readers and doesn’t just try and play Google at its own game. Here are some of the things that you should be considering:

Expert Roundups

These are one of those things that used to be looked at ‘back in the day’. The truth is that even in 2021, it is a strategy that can be used for gaining article links. If you’re not familiar with what expert roundups are then they are pretty much what they sound like – it is about rounding up industry experts to give their opinions all in one place.

The reason that this method proves to be effective is that it plays to people’s egos. By approaching 10-20 people and asking them to contribute there is a good chance that they will all link back. Just be sure that the people you are approaching are actually experts otherwise you risk damaging your credibility. 

Become The Expert

If you become the expert in your industry, then people are going to want to link back to you. It gives them credibility as it shows that they recognise your expertise, and it gives their readers a great experience by furthering their learning.

One example can be seen by us at Content Conga. When writing about SEO, we are more than happy to link to the likes of the blog at Hub Spot as well as Neil Patel. These are both experts in their field and by linking to them we are helping you to learn more. You want to be the person/company that is seen in the same light so that people want to link to you. 

Conduct Interviews

In truth, when it comes to putting interviews together it is going to take time. However, this is time well spent if you do it the right way and you will soon find that you start to get article links. Of course, knowing who is worth interviewing is the first step, but beyond that, you need to know what you are going to be asking.

Any questions that you ask should be capable of allowing you to produce great content. This is the sort of content that brings value to your readers and content that people are going to want to link to. 

Use Long-Form Content 

If you’re looking for article links a 500-word post probably isn’t going to cut it. Firstly, it is unlikely that you can demonstrate your expertise in a mere 500 words. Secondly, Google seems to prefer longer articles with the sweet spot being between 2,100 and 2,400 words.

Ensuring that you are producing posts of a decent length will mean that it becomes easier to get backlinks from content. Your content will start to be ranked naturally and the backlinks that follow will give it a healthy boost. 

Include Infographics

Infographics are well worth considering when looking at how to get backlinks. The reason for this is that infographics take complex information and display it in a way that is easily digestible as well as being entertaining.

It is possible to create your own infographics using the likes of Canva. If this is something that you aren’t comfortable doing, you can easily outsource this task to ensure that what you publish is the very best quality. 

Guest Blogging

A great way of generating article links is to take a look at guest blogging. This sees you approaching other site owners and offering to produce content for them. In return, as a minimum, you’ll receive a backlink to your site. It is also possible that you’ll get to include a photo and a brief bio which goes some way towards helping to build your brand.

Finding where you can guest blog isn’t overly difficult. It is just a case of searching for your niche and publications that allow guest blogs. When you approach other site owners, be sure that you have a great pitch and post idea to increase your chances of being accepted.

Using Testimonials 

If you’ve recently bought a product or service that is relevant to your niche why not leave a testimonial? Often companies are keen to prove that their reviews are coming from real people and one way of adding to this is by leaving a link to your website.

This is an easy way to generate some backlinks and one that everyone is capable of doing just by taking a little time. 

Should I Consider Buying Backlinks?

We have sort of hit on this already but just to clarify, the answer is no, no, no, no, and no again. It may be tempting to head over to certain sites and buy for a whole load of backlinks but the truth is you never really know what you are buying. These links could cause you more damage than good and, even if they provide an initial boost, the effects are unlikely to be long-lasting. The authority on backlinks has to be Google itself. It gives very clear guidance on what should be avoided where backlinks are concerned:

• Steer clear of content that has been generated automatically 
• Don’t take part in link schemes
• Don’t create pages that offer little or no original content
• Don’t try and hide text or disguise links
• No scraped content 
• No creating pages with irrelevant keywords

Content Is king

As is often the case with Google and search rankings, content is king when it comes to getting good quality backlinks. If you want assistance with producing the kind of content that people are going to want to link to, regardless of your niche, we are here to help.

Get in touch now and see how Content Conga can give your content a welcome boost. Let us become the experts on your behalf.