Backlink Building Guide

Version 1.0 / December 2019

Backlink Building Guide

Why Backlinks are important

Backlinks (links) is and has historically been one of the most important
signals for Google to determine if a website or a page content is of
importance, valuable, credible, and useful. If Google deems a specific
piece of content to have higher importance, be more valuable, more
credible and more useful, it will rank higher in their Search Engine
Result Page (SERP).

One of the things Google uses to determine the positions in SERP is

something called page rank, and it’s a direct correlation between the
number of backlinks and page rank. Therefore, the more backlinks a
website has, the higher the likelihood that the site will also rank higher
on Google.

• Backlinks are one of the most importance factors of ranking in

SERP
• Backlinks result in higher probability of ranking higher in SERP
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The different types of Backlinks

Currently there are two different types of backlinks, follow (also called
dofollow) and nofollow.

A follow backlink means that Google's algorithms follow the links and
the page rank on the receiving website increases.

A nofollow backlink is still a link and users can still follow it from one
page to another, but Google does not consider nofollow backlinks in
its algorithms i.e. it does not produce any effect to rank higher in
SERP. The owner of the website decides if it’s a “follow” or “no follow”
backlink. Common nofollow backlinks are links that website owners
have no control over and are produced by others, for example,
comment on blogs, forum posts or sponsored content.
It should also be said that a nofollow backlink is better than no
backlink at all as users can follow the link and contribute traffic to the
website it links to.

Google also believes that it is healthy for websites to have a mix of

both types because it is what a common website backlink profile looks
like today.

• Two types of Backlinks: Follow and Nofollow.

• Follow backlinks are part of Google's ranking algorithm and
increase page rank.
• Nofollow links are not included in Google's ranking algorithm
and do not increase page rank.
• A nofollow backlink is better than no backlink.
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The most valuable Backlinks

Not all backlinks are equally important, which means you always want
to receive, and focus on high-quality backlinks. Generally, a high-
quality backlink can be more valuable than 1,000 low quality backlinks.

There are several indicators that Google believes to be a backlink of

high quality:

• The backlink comes from websites with high authority.

Obtaining a backlink from a high authority domain is considered
worth more than a backlink from a less authority domain. For
example, a backlink from volvo.com is worth more than a link
from [Random Name] blog.com. The authority is often calculated
with something called “Domain Authority” and is a number
between 0 (lowest) - 100 (highest).

• The backlinks anchor text contains the keyword of the page it

links to. All links consist of anchor text, which is the visible part of
a backlink.

Anchor text in blue

Generally, you want the anchor text to contain the receiving

page's keyword or topic related keyword, for example, a backlinks
anchor text to the page
Volvopentashop.com/MarinaDieselMotors would preferably
contain the keyword of the page "Marina Diesel Motors" or topic
related “Boat Engines”. There is a correlation between backlinks
anchor text containing keywords of the receiving page and
higher rankings in SERP of the page its linked to.
• The website and page that is linked from is topic related to the
page its linked to.
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Google likes to see the pages that links to each other relate, so it will
be a natural transition for the users. For example, backlinks from
websites where the topic is about boats and links to Volvo Penta
Marine, is considered more valuable than links from websites that
writes about dog food.

• The backlink is a Follow Link.

• The backlink comes from a domain that has not linked to the
website before.

A backlink from a brand-new domain/website is considered more

valuable than the same website links again, again and again. This
means there is a diminishing effect of getting multiple backlinks from
the same website. It is usually better to get 100 backlinks from 100
different websites than 1,000 backlinks from the same website.

Backlinks is the most valuable when they are:

• Coming from domains/websites with high authority.

• The anchor text contains the keyword of the receiving page its
links to.
• Coming from a topic related website/page.
• Is a follow backlink.
• From a new domain/website that hasn’t linked before.
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Best practice for Backlinks

Best practice for backlinks is that they should look, be placed and link
differently.

1. Appearance
The backlink should not have the same appearance (images or text
only) and all anchor texts that links to Volvo Penta should not only
contain the words “Volvo Penta”. Best practice is to have backlinks
that have a variation keywords, sentences, and length (still relatively
short). Having a variety looks the most natural from Googles
perspective because users write differently.

2. Placement
Generally, the best placement of a backlink is in a text so users can
naturally follow the link and continue to read more about the topic,
product, or company. A good strategy is to not hide the backlinks on a
page, for example, at the bottom of a page. A variety of placements is
also the most natural and contribute to the most page rank.

3. Where backlinks link

Generally, an entire domain/website benefits from the fact that there
is a backlink linked to it, but to get more pages and keywords to rank
higher in SERP, it is best practice that backlinks link to different pages.
This will help spread an effect of authority to more pages if it is directly
linked to them, and result in that they have a higher probability of
ranking higher.

• A variety of appearances but still be related to the page its being

linked to.
• Placed naturally and users can find it.
• Linked to different parts of a website.
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Receive Backlinks naturally

There are many different strategies on how to receive backlinks, but

the best and most basic is to create content that users want and is
worth linking to. It can be blog posts, videos, pictures, surveys, exciting
news, software and more.
• Create content that users want to link to.