Many businesses have heard of backlinking already. But for many reasons, backlinks have had a poor reputation in the past.

Perhaps this is because you haven’t actually “seen” the results you wanted from previous backlinking efforts, or because you’ve purchased some cheap links on publishing websites that seemed a bit sketchy. Either way, there’s a wrong way to do backlinking (and this actively hurts your website), and there’s a right way to do it (which helps increase your ranking with Google).

SEO Brand knows that quality backlinking along with your normally scheduled SEO services has never been more important than it is today.

(Relevant) Content is King 

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “content is king” and this is true. But an even more accurate statement should be “relevant content is king”.

This is because many online publishers are only out to sell links. They only exist to post content on their URLs for money. This means they are willing to post nearly anything, whether it is relevant to their website or not.

Google tracks content by relevancy, and if it discovers these paid publishers in the background who have no part in your industry, they punish your ranking. These links take an active part in bringing your website down.

Instead, focus on true, quality backlinking, which means finding publishers who are relevant to your topic and are not out to just get paid. One “natural” type of backlinking, for example, is providing a guest post once a month to a business that is related (but not competitive) to your business.

Follow the SEO Rules 

Your backlink should also follow the same SEO practices that are on your own website. For example, make sure your publisher does not use too many hyperlinks in the article. It would be much simpler to provide one or two links, along with your chosen anchor text. It may also be helpful to provide an original graphic or image with a suggested alt-tag.

By ensuring your links are high quality, you can also assure your rankings remain steady, and that you are never at risk of being de-ranked or blacklisted in spite of the recent, stringent updates by Google.

Be Patient

We know it’s frustrating, but quality backlinking is a waiting game. It takes, on average, 4-6 weeks (or longer) for Google to properly rank a new website page. Those who do not “see” results right away may not be giving the links the time they need to get ranked.

Instead, keep moving forward. Google will see that your content and links are building up over time.

For information about SEO Brand’s SEO and quality backlinking or content marketing services, contact one of our friendly representatives today.