In order to best optimize the natural referencing ( SEO ) of your site, you probably know that it is essential to respect certain criteria established by the search engines . These few hundred criteria, SEO experts have classified them into three main categories: technique, content and popularity.
Between webmasters and webmarketers, we talk a lot about On Page SEO strategies which focus on technique and content. While the “popularity” category otherwise known as “Off Page” SEO is often given less priority. It is however one of the pillars of the optimization of the natural referencing of a site.
The proof is that the Journal du net tells us in its study “ the most important criteria in 2020 according to 133 SEOs” that this is the most essential criterion in SEO.
Popularity is measured through the quality and quantity of inbound links (otherwise called backlinks ) to your site from another site. However, not all backlinks are created equal. We will see in particular that it is better to focus on quality rather than quantity.
In this article we will examine why and how to analyze your incoming link strategy to detect the different areas for improvement.
What is a backlink analysis and why do it?
Analyzing your backlinks means first of all evaluating the quantity and quality of incoming links to your site. This information is available for free on your Google Search Console account .
What is a good quality backlink?
As you will have understood, the challenge – unsurprisingly – is to generate quality links. So how do you recognize a good quality backlink?
A good quality incoming link is a link that comes from a reliable source . In other words, it is a link placed on a site that generates qualified traffic . This feed is generated by a human who enjoys the content of your site. Why ? Because your site provides additional information to that provided by the information contained in its page.
Generally, a good link is a link that has been placed in the editorial content of a popular site that receives qualified traffic. But it is also a link that is in content that deals with a subject close to the theme of your website.
When we have several good links, we can sort them by importance. This means sorting them according to the popularity of the page issuing the link. This technique will help you identify influential sites that have a positive impact on your netlinking and whose number needs to be improved.
You can do this work manually by exporting the data from the Google Search Console . But that can quickly become time-consuming. The optimal solution is then to use dedicated tools such as Majestic , SEMrush or Ahrefs , for example.
During your backlink analysis, you will probably see the tools give you an indication of the number but also the quality of each link. Often the tools tell you about “ Toxic Backlinks ” or toxic links. Indeed these bad links are strongly discouraged because they can be the subject of a penalization.
Google is very clear in its “ link systems ” guidelines . Any link intended to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results is a violation of the Webmaster Guidelines . This includes all operations aimed at manipulating the links directing to your site or the links contained in your site and redirecting to other pages.
Google therefore considers certain inbound linking practices to violate the Guidelines. They can have negative effects on the positioning of the sites . A bad link is a link:
Once a month, or every two months, we advise you to analyze your profile . Use the tools mentioned above and clean up toxic links . You will gain additional notoriety in the eyes of search engines and an undeniable competitive advantage.
Regarding the growth of your inbound links, you also have levers at your disposal. The best way to get other sites to create quality links to your site is to post unique and relevant content . Such content will allow you to naturally gain popularity among Internet users. Nevertheless we will see in a future article that there are totally Google Friendly proactive ways to increase the number and quality of these valuable links.
