As a blogger who takes Google rankings pretty much seriously, the term ‘backlinks’ wouldn’t be alien to you. Or is it?

Well, backlinks are links from one website to a page on another website. In regards to its influence on the ranking of contents, look at backlinks as votes- votes that tell search engines that a particular page contains credible, valuable, and useful information.

Hence, pages with a high number of backlinks, more often than not, have higher search engine rankings.

However, before diving into the deep- sourcing for backlinks like a fishing tackle looking for its next prey fish- here are five things you should have in mind about backlinks:

Apparent never-dos

Of course, there would be obvious rules anyone should know about when creating backlinks. In case you don’t, a common malpractice you shouldn’t engage in is the trading of links.

Don’t ever participate in backlink trades- buying links from other sites for in exchange for backlinks. Google, and almost every search engine, only love natural links. If it isn’t natural, it is considered spam. Instead of doing this, hire freelancers to put up quality guest posts, containing your backlinks, on relevant blogs.

Also, avoid backlinks from sites with an irrelevant niche and sites that are a dumpsite of links, containing tons of them. In either scenario, such links aren’t beneficial to you.

Make backlinks from reputable sites

Once there’s an outbound link from a reputable or famous site, you might as well refer to that backlink as ‘quality’. Why?

Google, and other search engines, view sites that have established a track record of consistently dishing out good content, while equally ranking for top keywords, as trustworthy. Therefore, when they contain links to other websites, these search engines view the outbound sites as trustworthy, as well.

Avoid anchor text overload

When you use duplicate anchor texts for every single backlink created, you would destroy the credibility of your backlinking campaign. Under normal circumstances, the anchor text is meant to inform the search engine what the linked-to site is all about. When the algorithm spots the same anchor text on several occasions, that could be a red flag!

To be clear, this doesn’t go against the need to use targeted keywords as your anchor text. Instead, mix it up! Using the same keywords, but different phrasing won’t hurt though. If you feel like you are lost in the sea of SEO, use tools like growthrobotics to get back on track with an SEO audit and report.

Avoid links without your targeted words in the anchor text

When making backlinks, most people neglect the anchor text; forgetting its importance in the scheme of things. After all, it is what either makes the deal- or breaks it.

Moreover, if your targeted keyword was used as anchor text instead of your site name, you’d have a better chance at ranking higher.

Come on! It’s a win-win situation here- you would increase your click rate because keywords are usually in the language of the readers, while also boosting your SEO rankings.

One more thing to note: Avoid terms like ‘check this’ or ‘click here’. They are far too cliché to do the job well.

Never get tons of links within a short span.

You don’t want your site to look like a link farm to search engines, or do you?

Link building a process. When making backlinks, keep that in mind. Don’t try building Rome in one day. If you do so, you risk search engines banning your sites from being indexed.

Keep it slow and steady.

Conclusion

On your journey to owning a world-known-blog, be sure to pay attention to your backlinking campaigns. Take it a step at a time- slow and steady, and you’d win!