backlinks Archives - Unwired Web Solutions

For those trying to build a website and get traction in SEO, backlinks may be an important part of your strategy. This may be why you have been doing link-building outreach, guest blogging, or producing data-driven content, hoping that other sources will cite. After all, getting more backlinks has been an SEO tactic since the early days. But are they still necessary?

SEO services have long provided backlink strategies for companies looking to gain higher site rankings. So, surely with the number of backlinks that websites have racked up over the years, they must have impacted the SEO, right? Google says, not necessarily. According to John Mueller, a webmaster trends analyst at Google, the total number of backlinks on a website doesn’t matter at all. In fact, it isn’t even something that a search algorithm looks at.

Quality Vs. Quantity

In the link-building world, quantity is now out, and quality is where you should be putting your focus. Just one good link from a high-authority website can be more impactful than thousands of low-quality links. Google really only looks at how relevant each link is to the website that it is pointing to. Mueller suggests that even a page has only one high-quality link from a major news site, that signal would be enough for Google to categorize it as a quality page.

High-quality backlinks have always been the ultimate SEO trump card, so this should not come as a surprise to some people. It seems that many business owners get carried away in practices that only focused on getting more links. SEO experts agree that time and effort should be put into producing content that people will want to link to. Although it is not easy, it will prove to be much more valuable to Google and its user experience-focused future. Google’s page experience update is currently being rolled out, and user experience should now be your top priority as a business owner.

Internal Links

Internal links are also important for the SEO of your website. Unlike backlinks which go from an external website to your site, an internal link points to content within the same domain which can help the user navigate a website. These internal links can help Google index the website’s structure. They help to organize content and will tell search engine “crawlers” to discover and archive more relevant pages. This will help benefit the site’s SEO.

While there is no right or wrong in how many internal links you should have on your site, it should make sense where you are directing your customers. For example, many “FAQ” pages have direct links to a “contact page.” It makes sense for the customer to be directed to one page after the other.

SEO Services

If you require SEO services, our experts at Unwired Web Solutions can help with backlinks or any other concerns you may have about your site. As Google rolls out its new user experience-focused requirements, it is vital to have your site ready for the new changes. This includes ensuring your backlink and internal links are creating a user-friendly experience for your customer. Contact us today to learn how we can make sure you stay high in Google rankings. Click here to learn more about our services.

Once upon a time, anyone could put up a website, add a few keywords, and wait for customers. Although this worked for many businesses, customers often got sent to sites that weren’t exactly what they wanted. Search engines responded to make the user experience better. Today, search engine optimization includes hundreds of elements that relate to the quality of the website to deliver the best results to the user. Understanding the basics of SEO can help you partner with a great agency to get marketing success in search.

Learn What Your Customers Are Searching For

Optimizing your website for search means figuring out how your customers find you. There are dozens of sites that can help you find the right keywords for your industry and business, but you can also use common sense. A little thought can turn up hundreds of keywords to create content that is relevant and informative for your customers.

Assign keywords to specific pages. While you can certainly use two to three keywords on each page, you want to make sure that the search engines know the focus of every page on your site.

Design Pages With Search in Mind

Keywords may be the basis for SEO, but without a good website structure, even the best keywords won’t accomplish much. Technical SEO is the behind-the-scenes optimization that provides good user experience and assists search engines in ranking your pages. Search engines aren’t interested in promoting your business as much as satisfying users. After all, Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

To satisfy this objective, here are some elements of on-page optimization:

Short URLs that are descriptive for the page
Metadata, such as title tags and descriptors that show up in search
Logical structure to each page, using descriptive headers and formatting
Optimization of pictures to help search engines understand what the image is

On-page optimization is complex. Fine-tuning your efforts can help you be more successful. Bottom line, you want to make sure that your site is easy for humans and search engines alike to navigate.

Optimize for Both the Humans and Search Engines Using Your Pages

When developing web pages, remember that humans may be who you want to read your site, but search engine bots are what is ranking your pages. Artificial intelligence has come a long way and now can better mirror human behaviour, but there are still differences you need to account for. The algorithms used by search engines for page rankings are extremely complex. That doesn’t mean you can’t understand the basics:

Make sure your website loads fast: You have about three to four seconds to grab the attention of human visitors on your site. Pages need to load quickly.
Prioritize mobile-friendly pages: More people are using their mobile devices for search. Search engines look for mobile-friendly pages.
Ensure security: Install an SSL certificate, which establishes security. If you’re accepting form submissions or selling items, this protects customer data.
Maintain a sitemap: Consumers may not use sitemaps, but search engines do. A sitemap shows the way your site is linked together. It helps search engines index your site faster.
Create internal links: Point visitors and search engines to important pages through links to other pages on your site.
Create backlinks: Build the authority of your site by getting other pages to link to yours.

Successful SEO Takes Time

SEO is like cooking in a crock-pot. You can’t just put the ingredients together and expect dinner in 30 minutes. With SEO, it’s a long-term plan. There are tools that can help you analyze your SEO strategy to know whether it’s working. Ranking for keywords can be competitive, but it’s one of the most effective methods for bringing relevant customers to your site.

How Backlinks Affect SEO