Types of Backlinks: Which one to Focus on and Which one to Avoid?

A comprehensive SEO strategy keeps backlinking at the forefront. 

And rightfully so. 

Backlinks are considered as one of the primary factors that drive rankings on search engine result pages since they build your website’s domain authority and credibility. 

They are links from one website to a page on another website. For search engines, these backlinks matter as they essentially consider them as votes of confidence for a specific page. It is backlinks which act as the threads that link the much larger world wide web.

The higher the number of quality backlinks a page has, the more likely they are to rank better on organic search engine rankings, which is why backlink analysis is important.

Role of Backlinks in SEO

Consider how job recommendations or college recommendations work. While you may have a pretty strong profile, you need someone authoritative to vouch for you so you can uplift your profile and secure a higher chance of getting an offer. 

Similarly, while your website may be perfect in terms of content and all the other factors, it needs other relevant sites to vouch for it too. And, that is acquired through backlinks. If there aren’t any quality backlinks redirecting to your website, you’re losing out on targeting one of the primary SEO ranking factors.

Why?

Because Google finds new pages through backlinks.

When Google crawls your page, it discovers all the links on it. It then indexes those pages which makes it more likely to appear in search results. Google considers a site’s backlink profile for determining its ranking. A backlink profile includes the number of links and the quality of those links on a particular page.

Backlinks have been a key ranking signal for Google since it introduced its original algorithm. And while Google has worked towards making its engine more sophisticated with each update since then, backlinks are still an important part of the SEO toolkit. In fact, Google has even confirmed that it is a part of the top three ranking factors.

Backlinks impress the users too. When your target audience notice that you’ve acquired a link from a notable entity within the same industry, it builds their trust in you and helps you establish authority.

For example, if you’re a SaaS firm and an authoritative website in your domain has linked back to your website, it indicates that you have a certain level of expertise and authority in the field.

Types of Backlinks in SEO: The Good and Bad 

Now that you know more about the role of backlinking, it’s important to understand that not all backlinks are created equal. A couple of years ago, link-building was all about quantity. It didn’t matter from where the links came. As long as you were getting them, it worked for sites and Google.

The line between ‘good type of backlinks’ and ‘bad type of backlinks’  was drawn with Google’s Penguin update. This update launched in 2012, and targeted those buying links and participating in content farming — basically, any method that wasn’t legitimate and organic (a.k.a. black hat techniques). The idea was to reduce the growing quantity of spammy backlinks. In 2016, Penguin became a part of Google’s core algorithm.

Now you have a definite differentiation between the two types of backlinks. While the best types of backlinks will influence your search performance in a positive way, bad ones can potentially harm your sites.

Quality backlinks are internal or external backlinks that come from a trusted source, are relevant to your content, and have the potential to send referral traffic. If a link can organically boost your online presence, it can actually do wonders for your SEO.

But on the other hand, there are links that are spammy, sponsored, or completely irrelevant that you should avoid at all costs.

Your focus must only be on generating on the type of backlinks that are considered high-quality. After all, it isn’t a number game anymore. Your one high-quality link is as valuable as 100 low-quality ones. 

So conduct a backlink audit periodically to understand what are the types of backlinks you’re getting from external sources, if keyword cannibalisation is weakening your backlink value, or if you’re pitching to all the right platforms.

So far, we’ve broken down how many types of backlinks are beneficial for SEO and the types that aren’t. Let’s take a look at them.

Types of Backlinks Advantageous for SEO

1. Editorial Backlinks

Editorial links are organic inbound links that are used naturally in an authoritative publisher’s content. Editorial backlinks are the most ideal type of backlinks. For starters, who doesn’t want to be an original source for an established publisher? A link on some of the most read content on the web in your industry means high incoming traffic and enhanced brand reputation. 

So of course, everybody chases an editorial backlink. But how can you secure one?

Your content needs to be worthy. Most commonly, you get editorial backlinks when your own content is cited for specific information, when a company representative is quoted, or your site/product is part of a roundup article. 

For example, consider this roundup article by TechRepublic. It has mentioned its top picks along with a do-follow link to the respective tools. 

The best practice you can follow is to publish original and evergreen content. This can mean expert interviews, thought leadership articles, original statistics, real-life examples and case studies with proof, etc. Any form of content that publishers can use to back their articles mostly works. 

You can pitch for editorial backlinks using digital PR techniques or sign up on HARO where reporters and journalists meet. You can also check what platforms your competitors are using for getting backlinks. A competitor backlink analysis helps you find potential editors and backlinking gaps in your current strategy. 

2. Infographic/Image Backlink 

You cannot ignore the power of infographics. They’re quick to consume, pleasing to the eye, and have high shareability qualities. If you’re creating a well-designed infographic, other articles can share on the right platforms for SEO such as social media, blogs, or websites, thereby earning you a backlink. 

To earn a backlink from infographics, along with valuable and crisp content, you also need to focus on design. The data also needs to be accurate, have an embed code to share, and is not stuffed with keywords.  All in all, an infographic is all about how great of an impact you can make with limited content, stellar design, and user-friendliness in terms of reading. 

For generating the type of backlinks that work, the creator needs to ensure the infographic is suited for the topic and directs the same to a particular target audience. 

3. Guest Blogging 

Studies show that guest blogging is, by far, the most common way of acquiring backlinks. It involves writing an article as a guest author on another website with a link to your website. 

Good content is rare and time-consuming to produce. A lot of sites and brands are open to guest authors who can write content on their websites in exchange for a backlink. However, you cannot just write on any website. The target audience for both the site owner and the guest author needs to be similar. Needless to say, it needs to be from the same industry. 

To secure a type of backlink that is beneficial for your SEO, ensure that the domain authority of the site is high and the site is relevant to your brand. Take help from SEO tools like GSC to find the highest traffic pages and top search queries. 

4. Links from Webinars

Webinars have become an important part of the content marketing mix. If you’re hosting a webinar that provides rich information and is highly valuable in the industry, you naturally have other brands and people vouch for your content. 

Many websites put webinars on their web pages to link to the host company and provide a brief description of what it does. You can secure a backlink similar to those secured from blog promotions. People can share it on their social media, websites, and other platforms, thereby, improving your traffic. 

5. Business Profile Backlinks 

You pick any industry today, they all have their niche directories on the web. There are listing sites for real-estate companies, SaaS tools, food companies, and so on. A lot of businesses generate traffic from these listing sites. For example, check the listings for “top marketing automation tools” on Gartner.

Similarly, you can create digital profiles for your brand on listing sites, industry directories, and social media where you get the opportunity to post a few backlinks. They might be no-follow or do-follow links but it certainly helps with building your brand image online. 

As for Google, it also builds credibility that your business is well-established and legitimate. Try searching for “Top marketing agencies in Sydney” or “Top SEO services in Brisbane” and you’d get accurate results for particular locations. 

Business profiles on My Business Listings help Google uplift its local search and present a good SEO tool for small businesses to get traffic through backlinks. 

6. Free tool Backlinks 

If you’re in the SaaS business, offering a free tool is a great way to market your brand and can enhance your SaaS SEO efforts. If you have faith in your product, chances are the product can market itself and earn you a backlink in the process. The tool can be a basic representation of your premium tool. You can offer limited features but enough for the users to gauge their importance and usage. 

You can also include a call to action button, urging the users to sign up for a full version. A free tool can garner attention and the backlinks generated through it can have a deep and long-lasting impact on SEO. You can promote the tool on sites that have the same target audience and guest blogging site targets to generate backlinks.

7. Badge Backlinks

Most people love accolades. Especially when it’s given by a reputable company in the same industry. The display helps them earn trust and you a backlink. Talk about a win-win situation. 

Consider a situation where you create a badge of acknowledgement and present it to other companies for their performance. For the company that receives the acknowledgement, it is a matter of pride and recognition and they would naturally want to advertise it and present these badges on their sites which leads to you getting a backlink from the same. 

One of the best ways to acknowledge other brands is through a ‘best of’ or ‘top X’ style roundup article on your site. You can do some research, conduct SEO audits, run votes, and polls on social media to get back your opinions. Once you get the results, you can notify the respective sites, and provide them with an acknowledgement badge that they can display on their sites. 

8. Relationship-based Backlinks 

While relationship-based backlinks are more or less similar to editorial backlinks, the difference lies in the efforts of securing them. Relationship-based backlinks initiate a communication even though they’ve already linked you. You can thank them and let them know you’re available in case they want further information about a related topic. Editorial backlinks are straightforward and don’t require much effort in terms of nurturing. Relationship-based backlinks are built over a period of time through digital PR techniques. 

Digital PR is used by marketers to build an organic presence online through online press releases, building relationships with online journalists and blogger, and organising online reviews and interviews. Digital PR activities paves the way for relevant link building to your websites. 

It ultimately benefits the readers with links to more information and boost search engine rankings by getting high authority links to your website. It helps your brand in the long run and has a trusted source for backlinks and encourages authoritative publishers to contact you whenever they need additional insights. 

What are the Types of Backlinks You Should Avoid?

1. Irrelevant Links

While creating profiles in relevant credible industry directories is advantageous, doing so in irrelevant directories is considered spam. Similarly, pitching blogs and publishers just for the sake of backlinks will not do anything for your SEO or your brand image. 

2. Links from PR that aren’t Newsworthy 

There’s a reason press releases are called such. You want to announce something newsworthy about your brand and when you do so, you can actually include your backlinks so that the readers can check them out. But obviously, a lot of sites have misused the power of press releases. 

Spreading the news about your brand that adds no value to your readers and doing a PR just for the sake of backlinks is considered a spammy practice and only harms the reputation and SEO of your website. 

3. Links from Paid Link Schemes 

Practices such as buying and selling links, private blog networks, automated links, and excessive link exchange, all fall into the category of link schemes. Any form of such links, be it inbound or outbound can have a detrimental effect on your SEO and affect the authority of your brand.

4. Discussion Forum and Blog Comment Links

It is tempting to spam forums with a backlink to your site. And it’s quite common too. But they make little to no difference to your sites and do little to uplift your SEO. If you want to place links in the forum, why not do it in a more genuine manner? Only target high-quality forums, and genuine and relevant discussion forums where you can organically place your backlinks. 

Focus on building backlinks beneficial for SEO

Link-building strategies are more sophisticated today. Understanding the dynamics of Google’s linking algorithm gives you a better insight into the different types of backlinks that work for your SEO. At the end of the day, to fulfil the backlinking requirements, it all comes down to creating a strong content portfolio that encourages other credible sites to provide a backlink. 

To focus on legitimate link-building efforts, it’s advisable to take help from an SEO agency that can walk you through the dos and don'ts of link-building activities. Contact us at Supple to know more and we’d be happy to guide you through.