Authority Backlinks: The Social Capital of the Web

It's important to increase the number of links that direct individuals back to your content. Getting authority backlinks will make it easier to find your content from other sources around the internet and show search engines that your content was relevant or helpful enough to be shared. 

The Value of a Recommendation

Because we use links to navigate the content of the web, backlinks are one of the ways that search engines rank content. They use a bias system to decide if a site has quality, trustworthy content. Essentially, the more individuals you can have recommend your site, the more trust Google and other search engines have for you. 

Search engines are looking for the most relevant connection between an individual’s search and the web content, and the more links there are to you, the more reputable your site will be. You’ll want to have backlinks on the majority of your content so that you can be seen as more of an authority on all of what your site is knowledgeable about, both in niche and widespread searches. 

Link Quality

Search engines don’t want creators to use spam tactics or falsification to increase their own backlink numbers. They can avoid such sites by judging the value of links made to or by a site.

Because of this, being linked to by some sites has more weight than others. If you are a clothing store and get a link from a website about pets, it won't do much to improve your search ranking. However, if you received a link from a fashion blog, Google will increase your site's ranking slightly since it is more similar and more likely to be reputable.

Search engines are wanting your sites to be educational, authoritative, and trustworthy - good enough to e.a.t! If you have links similar to your content, it will prove that you are all three.

Shady Links

You need to look out for links from disreputable sites. Sites can link to you in an attempt to make themselves look more credible when they aren’t the best. Search engines take note of this, and once they identify those sites as spamming the links, they’ll ding those that are related. Search engines may mistakenly begin to penalize your site and its content.

It can be hard to recognize when bad links are beginning to affect your performance if you are not actively monitoring it. We recommend using a professional service to handle your SEO and automatically deal with negative links, mitigating the damage done to your site's reputation.

You, Too!

In your site, you'll also have to put links in your own content to reach out to reputable sources. If you find a good site with information you refer to or use, you can backlink them in your content, and it will improve your ranking. Be careful, though - you don't want to link to a competitor and boost them!

Linking to other sites will also help you to receive backlinks. Getting a link is something site creators can check out. Once they see that you are also a reputable source, they're more likely to use you as a reference in the future and backlink to you!

You also don't want to go crazy with this and link everything. That could actually get you marked as spam! However, you can and should also link back to related information on your own site. This can boost your credibility as search engines see that the content is actually related in some what and feels that it's controlled by an individual, not a bot or virus.

Happy creating! If you would like a consolation for help improving your online presence, or if you need a professional service to handle your SEO automatically, reach out to us to get started.