One of the essential parts of an effective SEO plan is to obtain backlinks. These backlinks tell the search engines whether a site is recognized, can be trusted, or has the potential to be at the top position of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Furthermore, Backlinks with desired and authoritative sites play an important role in deciding whether your SEO will work or not. Every site’s presence on SERPs is based on the quality and the quantity of backlinks acquired by that particular site. While it’s just not the quality and quantity that attracts the search engines but also the types of backlinks.
The worth a backlink brings to your website is decided upon these key elements as stated below:
The location of a link on the website.
The authority and acknowledged quality of the linked site.
How influential a backlink will be on search engine rankings is based on the types of backlinks. To clear your confusion regarding the types of links, here we bring you a blog on 14 different types of backlinks.
Best Type of Backlinks
Editorial backlinks
While talking about the best types of backlinks in SEO, editorial mentions come first. These mentions are the ones you get when some other site links to any of your website’s high-quality content. Editorial backlinks are generated when your content is being cited as the source of certain information like articles or Infographics.
If you’re looking out ways to attract editorial backlinks, you must start creating evergreen content that showcases you as a thoughtful leader in the field. It should be so fine that your brand and site gets the much-needed acclaim.
Try your hands on creating content that is engaging and shareable enough to go viral. For building a strong and effective content strategy, you must take the support of SEO tools that are capable enough to acknowledge popular topics and keywords that competitors have tried and have been successful but you’re still waiting to cover it.
Guest Blogging Backlinks
While you’re providing guest posts to some well-established site, it’s quite easier to attach an editorial backlink to one’s site. Guest blogging must be considered as one of the important SEO strategies to request valuable sites for such big opportunities.
Business Profile Backlinks
Most of the time while people are creating an online profile for a business they tend to attach a link back to their website. These links visible on social media networks, a business listing makes the search engine think that your website has high-quality content and is well-established.
There are several ways of getting Business Profile Backlinks such as creating profiles on popular directories and review sites (Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, etc). Besides this, you can also opt for management solutions like Yext and Synup that manage profiles for you.
Webinar Backlinks
Investing some time on creating a worthy resource for the site is always a good idea as it encourages other sites to link back to it. Generally, websites put their webinars on their page along with a link and mentioning the brand. It is one of the effective ways to get both links and brand mentions.
There are majorly three ways of getting webinar backlinks such as using blog promotion for attracting visitors towards webinar recording, repurposing webinars by putting them across on your websites for people to have look at it and link it, last but not least, looking out for guest blogging sites that might be interested in using the webinar as a resource on their site.
Free Tool Backlinks
Providing a free tool is one of the best ways to provide something worthy on your website and even gain more backlinks. It is considered to be the easiest way of getting both backlinks and attention that also has a long-lasting impact on SEO practices.
While talking about a tool, it could be something as simple as a cost calculator that could be of great importance to people in your industry. It can be a free tool with a paid version tool like Alexa’s Site Overview.
If the tools on your site are valuable enough, people will definitely link it in their respective content. If you still wish to have more backlinks then you must consider promoting your site to websites that have similar audiences as yours.
Acknowledgement Backlinks
There are times when brands make any kind of donation or are sponsoring an event that is when sites issue acknowledgement for them and get an acknowledgement backlink. Generally, these links are not the ones with much content relating to brands instead of they have simple statements about the brand that’s making a donation, having a testimonial for linking the website’s brand, providing information about the person speaking or sponsoring the particular event.
Guest Post Bio Backlinks
There are some websites that do welcome guest blogging but don’t provide backlinks to the author’s site in the main content. In contrast, they let the author attach a link in the author’s bio. Well, these links might not be as useful as a link in the main content but still have a significant impact on the website’s link portfolio.
One of the ways for getting Guest Post Bio Backlinks is to use the guest posting strategies along with a backlink analysis of the competitors.
Badge backlinks
Branded badges is one of the most preferred ways of initiating backlinks by providing value to others. It is an award created by brands for giving it to other websites. There are higher chances of acquiring backlinks here as various websites will put these badges on their sites.
For badge backlinks, you must look out for sites that can get together and create a badge for themselves. There is a tool named Alexa’s Audience Overlap tool which can be of great use in finding alike sites that have the same themes and audiences.
Newsworthy Press Release Backlinks
If your brand is looking out for making an announcement that is newsworthy enough, you must opt for a press release. It has the capability of becoming a great substructure for PR and marketing efforts. It will let the media know about your news and help your website attract more backlinks only when executed properly.
The best way to get newsworthy press release backlinks is to write a press release and use a service like PRWeb for distributing it to media outlets whenever your brand has news.
Comment backlinks
Generally, websites allow people to attach their links when they comment on a blog post. Due to this, it is used by spammers for wrongdoings and then turns it into a negative link building tool. Well, if you’re someone who posts a real comment on quality blogs, there is a ray of hope for sharing links which will drive traffic to your site and also improve your brand’s visibility.
Types of Backlinks to Ignore
Paid Links
Paid links are considered to be one of the easiest ways of acquiring backlinks but you must not opt for paying other websites and publishers to link on your website. In Google’s words, such as buying and selling of links can have a negative impact on the ranking of your site search results.
Non-Newsworthy Press Releases
As stated above writing press releases just for generating backlinks is a spammy practice and can have a negative impact on your SEO practices.
Directory Links
While creating profiles, you must avoid directories that are unreliable and don’t have any goodwill as they are considered to be spam. Besides this, they are also capable of negatively impacting your SEO efforts.
Inferior Forum Backlinks
It has been widely seen that people connect with several forums for the sake of backlinks but that is one of the worst decisions ever. It is advised to join only quality forums where the primary purpose is to discuss rather than creating a spammy thread of posts about your content and brand.
Wrapping Up
As already mentioned earlier, it’s both about the quality and quantity of the links. Without links, none of your SEO strategies will work. There are several types of backlinks with different importance and value.
Are you looking out for the best backlinks for SEO? Why don’t you try Alexa’s Advanced Plan? It will provide you with all the information relating to industry, audience and keyword research tools that will help you in effective link building plans.
We hope this blog on types of backlinks will help you in taking your linking game a step further and plan a better SEO strategy.
If you have any suggestions or feedback, please feel free to share it in the comments.
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