Link Building Information
Discover the power of strategic link building. Our comprehensive approach helps boost your website’s authority, drive organic traffic, and enhance your search engine rankings. Learn why backlinks are essential and how we can tailor a solution to elevate your online presence. Start your journey to higher visibility today!
What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?
A backlink is a link from another website that points to a page on your website. Backlinks are also known as inbound links, or referring domains.
Generally speaking, the number of backlinks that point to your website, the higher you’ll rank in the search engines (Google, Bing etc.).
Backlinks are essentially “votes” that tell search engines that your website is trustworthy and worth clicking on, because other websites have linked to you. This is how you achieve “authority” in the mind of the search engines.
Backlinks = Authority = Higher Rankings
This is not made explicitly clear by Google, but leaked information about their ranking factors, and various studies on SEO, have revealed that backlinks are extremely important, and arguably the most vital ranking factor.
Rankmate started back in 2016 as a web design company, building beautiful websites for small businesses. It was only when we realised that our websites weren’t getting any traffic, did we realise that SEO was even more important than a beautiful website.
After 5 years in SEO, we made a further realisation that on-page SEO, i.e. changes to a website to optimise for keywords, can only take you so far, and that “authority” is what makes high ranking websites stand out. From that moment, we transitioned into a pure link building agency.
This is the reason that websites like Forbes, that have very high authority, seem to rank highly for everything, including very niche topics, and ranking higher than other websites that seemingly specialise in that topic.
Content Is Not King, Authority Is
This is quite a sad realisation, because in an ideal world, the best content should rank at the top of the search engine. The problem is, Google isn’t capable of “ranking” the quality of each website content, and therefore it uses authority as the overarching ranking factor.
This is understandable, as Google would rather play it safe and put Forbes at the top of the search engines, that 7 times out of 10 serves a good quality article, than take a risk and show a possibly higher quality article from a smaller and less well known website. Perhaps with recent advancements in AI will Google and other search engines be able to better detect the quality of web pages.
However, as things stand, authority is more important than content. Which is why we at Rankmate are so passionate about building links!
Frequently Answer Question
Here are some of the questions we get asked the most. If you don’t see your question listed, feel free to contact our customer support team—we’re here to assist you!
Link building refers to the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. It is crucial for SEO because search engines like Google use these links to determine the authority and relevance of your site, which can help improve your search rankings.
High-quality, relevant, and natural links from authoritative websites in your industry are considered good for SEO. These links should be earned, not bought, and should come from trusted sources.
You can acquire backlinks through methods such as guest blogging, content marketing, influencer outreach, partnerships, or by creating shareable content like infographics or research studies.
Dofollow links pass on link equity (or "link juice") to the linked page, contributing to its SEO value. Nofollow links do not pass link equity and are used when you don't want to endorse the linked content (e.g., in paid ads or user-generated content).
Link building is an ongoing process. SEO is dynamic, and continuous link acquisition helps maintain or improve search engine rankings. Building links over time ensures sustained visibility and domain authority.
To determine the quality of a backlink, consider factors such as the authority of the linking site (measured by metrics like Domain Authority or PageRank), relevance to your content, and the naturalness of the link placement.
Yes, improper link-building tactics like buying links, participating in link farms, or using manipulative methods can lead to penalties from search engines. It’s important to follow ethical, white-hat SEO practices.
Some common strategies for beginners include guest blogging, creating valuable content (e.g., guides or case studies), reaching out to influencers, and utilizing social media platforms to increase your content's visibility.
Broken link building involves finding broken links on other websites and offering your content as a replacement. This helps website owners fix their broken links while earning you a relevant backlink in the process.
Success can be measured through increased organic traffic, improved rankings for target keywords, higher domain authority, and the number of high-quality backlinks acquired over time. Tools like Google Analytics and backlink analysis tools can help track these metrics.