Netlinking: why you should prioritise quality
Inbound links are essential to any SEO strategy. Search engines, Google first and foremost, take this criterion into account when ranking sites. It is one of their main ranking factors, so it is obvious that, when you want to grow your visibility on search engines, you should look to acquire new links. These links, also known as backlinks, have a stronger impact when they are high quality. But should you really be chasing quality links, or should you prioritise quantity?
Prioritising quality for effective, long-lasting netlinking
Netlinking is an organic search technique aimed at increasing the number of inbound links to a site so that it improves its ranking and therefore gains visibility. For this strategy to be effective and long-lasting, it is better to aim for quality backlinks. Google gives more weight to quality links. They are harder to obtain and therefore demonstrate a certain value. The search engine favours sites that have earned these rare links, so it ranks them higher.
The limits of mass netlinking
Conversely, choosing lower-quality sites is a less sustainable strategy that can prove less effective. Getting backlinks from low-value sites can not only be ineffective, but also dangerous. Google penalises sites that overuse poor-quality links. For a long-term SEO strategy, the advice is not to choose low-quality links but rather to invest in strong backlinks, even if it means building fewer of them.
How can you tell a quality link?
In order to judge the quality of a backlink, you should first analyse the site it would come from. First of all, it is preferable that it covers the same topic. You should therefore select blogs and media outlets in the same theme as your own site. The web page itself should also cover the topic in order to contextualise the link using a precise semantic field.
What is more, it is better to steer your choice towards a page with stronger SEO metrics. While PageRank is no longer a publicly available figure, other indicators can help you judge the quality of a site. Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Domain Authority or the number of referring domains can all be good barometers. That said, the experience of an SEO specialist makes it possible to go beyond these simple figures to genuinely assess the quality of a site. The domain name's history, its references, its branding and organic traffic estimates are all relevant data to take into account.
You should also make sure that the link comes from a powerful page on the site: the homepage, a page linked from the menu, and so on. It should also have few outbound links. This is a very important criterion in order to preserve good link juice. In addition, the choice of anchor is crucial. While your overall strategy should vary anchors, your best links will have optimised anchors.
How can you find quality links?
While spotting a good opportunity is easy, actually getting a link on it is another matter. The best techniques for obtaining quality links are partnerships and link exchanges, buying backlinks, buying expired domains, building a network and linkbaiting.
– Partners
The first way to obtain good links is to call on your network. Suppliers, clients and other people in your community may be willing to add a link on their site.
– Link exchanges
Since it is not always easy to obtain a quality backlink for free, adding something in return can make the gesture simpler. All you have to do is propose a link exchange that rewards both parties.
– Buying links
But of course, the best thing to offer in return is money. That is what most easily convinces webmasters to add a backlink. Directly or through a platform such as MisterGoodLink, it is possible to buy links on many sites. However, to get a higher-quality link, the cost is likely to be high, which is why it seems essential to calculate your return on investment (ROI).
– Buying expired domains
Instead of buying a link, why not buy an expired domain? It is possible to buy back domain names that have a track record. These can have undeniable SEO qualities and legitimacy within the theme. The downside is that you have to create enriching content and add appealing design so that the domain comes back to life.
– Building a network
Building a network of sites can allow you to create your own backlinks. It is a fairly time-consuming strategy to set up and one that requires real skills. On the other hand, it lets you keep control of your links and hold on to them for a long time. This system is very valuable in highly specific themes, where finding opportunities covering the same activity is very difficult.
– Linkbaiting
Finally, the last strategy is linkbaiting. The downside is that the outcome is not guaranteed. You need to produce quality content that is likely to get people talking. To make that happen, you have to reach out to media outlets and influencers. The goal is for them to create links. This technique is undoubtedly the riskiest, but also the one that can prove the most rewarding, because it lets you naturally earn backlinks from leading media outlets and blogs that specialise in your field.
