How to Correctly Assess Backlink Quality
“Link building is sweat and creativity” said by Matt Cutts, the former head of the web spam team at Google. The process of assessing your website’s Backlinks needs to be planned carefully, so you won’t risk missing their quality and value”
There is no perfect time to do a backlink quality assessment, but rather it is a necessity. It’s a long and continuous process to have it end up how you planned it. If you have a small website, it’s easier to review the SEO data manually, however, if you have a bigger website, it is harder to verify all of it. Below we have explained some useful tips on how to correctly assess the backlink quality of your website.
Identify As Many Possible Referring Domains Using Several Backlinks Data Sources
Identifying as many linking root domains is a must. The higher the number of Backlinks, the higher the chance to improve your rankings and you can use several backlink tools to get a complete link audit. If you consider a single SEO backlink checker tool then make sure it gives you all the data you need so that you can easily import all the data from other sources. If you are looking for a free tool, Site Explorer is easy to use and offers great results using a free subscription. Another tool to try is Bing Webmaster Tool, it allows you to see your Backlinks through a longer procedure.
Check Domain Authority for Linking Root Domains
Since you are linked to different types of domains the higher the domain authority the better it is. If you have a bigger website, it’s important to have a natural distribution of domains with high influence and no influence. The situation can vary if you have a smaller website with a smaller number of Backlinks because in the long run, both PA and DA are important; the Page Authority where link is placed.
Evaluate the Naturalness of the Linking Page through an In-Depth Backlink Analysis
Make an on-page analysis of your each and every backlink. You need to review each Webpage that is linking to your website using the metrics:
- Where is the position of a link: above the fold, body or footer.
- What type of page is it on: blog post, blog comment, forum thread, author signature, video widget, banner, article, copyright photograph, short paragraph of texts and group of links?
- How natural does that link shows on the page: OK, Suspect or Unnatural link.
- Whether it’s a deep link or a homepage link.
- The HTTP status of the page.
Identify the Social Share Magnitude of Your Backlinks
You can’t miss out on the social component to correctly assess the backlink quality of your website. Analyze the quality of your Backlinks by following the path of social sharing backward. Check if the page where you have Backlinks has shares in social media and engagement.
Social share and the engagement rate are amongst the most important social metrics. Social shares drive traffic to your website and social shares to pages where you have links sends qualitative traffic to your website and can even increase the conversion rate as well.
It is important to never go for shortcuts using link schemes, go for ethical link building strategy that shouldn’t stop after your links go live. This won’t give you the risk of getting your link removed or having lost links. You are not alone in this SEO journey, browse through the best tools to assess your Backlinks and boost the profitability of business on your own.