Want to find out the 8 vital steps you should take to perform backlink analysis for new websites? Let’s dive into the wonderful World of Seo.
As marketers step into the SEO world with their newly built websites, they realize it is not as easy as it seems. After all, a lot more goes into website optimization than a captivating layout and design. From Penguin to Panda updates, you have to keep up with Google’s ever-evolving algorithms. At the same time, look into crucial ranking factors to secure your position on search engine’s top results.
Today, millions of websites are competing online, which means you have to develop a competent SEO strategy to outrank the competition. One can optimize the site for visual content, URL descriptions, or hop onto the core web vitals. Although these new ranking factors offer higher visibility, link building remains Google’s all-time favorite. In addition to directing users towards your site, it helps Google spiders crawl to your web page readily. Do you want to create backlinks?
You can insert backlinks in your articles and blogs or reach out to reputable influencers and bloggers within your niche. But unfortunately, your job won’t finish after creating backlinks. Once you have an excellent backlink profile, you have to monitor all links closely. Here, a backlink analysis can come in handy. In addition to giving you insights about your links, you can catch sight of unique domains, page performance, etc.
If you don’t know how to conduct an analysis, have a look below.
Here is a list of 8 steps that you need to take to perform a backlink analysis for new websites.
1. Evaluate The Quality Of Links
Usually, new site owners are in a rush to increase rankings and drive conversions. As a result, they indulge in shady practices to double the numbers. More than the number of links, you have to evaluate the link’s quality when creating backlinks. After all, traffic coming from only credible sites increases the chances of conversions. Thus, one link coming from a quality site is far better than hundreds of backlinks from spam web pages. Therefore, begin your analysis by evaluating the link’s quality.
However, manually clicking around every link and delving into analytics can take forever. You can check backlinks with this tool to gather all useful data on any domain’s backlinks. It considers the site’s relevance, page rank, and anchor text to ensure it comes from a reputable source. Likewise, it can also spot suspicious and paid links that can put your web page into hot waters. Besides this, you can also check the link placement to make sure it doesn’t sound promotional.
2. Segment Unique Domains
The ultimate objective of a link building campaign is to get unique backlinks from different domains. And to understand how many backlinks are coming from ‘unique domains,’ you have to create segments. Firstly, look beyond the total number of links and inspect how many unique domains link to your site. Google wants you to have backlinks from multiple, relevant websites instead of the same web page over and over again.
Hence, find all links in a website and segment the links from resource pages, online directories, or media publications. If you are using a backlink tool, you can view each backlink with a unique domain. By analyzing the unique backlinks, you will have a better understanding of their essentiality for generating traffic.
3. Keep Tabs On Page Performance
Next up, you have to breakdown the links per page and see which ones have the optimal performance. You can search for links to a page or generate a list of top link grossing pages per site. It will give you rich insights into well-performing pages and the ones that are not bringing any leads or traffic to your site. You can also check their page authority to determine how the site will rank on SERP.
Generally, the score ranges from 1-100, but only the websites with a 70 and above score are ideal for link building. You can utilize this information to direct your link building campaign in the correct direction. Also, free to remove your links from underperforming pages and look at high-performing sites to streamline your link-building strategy.
4. Assess Backlink Velocity
In the SEO world, backlink velocity determines how quickly your website is winning links. However, this doesn’t imply that you have to maintain a higher link velocity to achieve higher rankings. Instead, you have to ensure backlinks are coming slowly and naturally to your site. Analyzing the backlinks will unfold the rate at which your site historically gained links. Hence, your aim should be to maintain the same velocity with minor changes.
If you are getting 100 visitors per week with 85 backlinks, Google can raise a red flag on your site. Even though you have a significant number of backlinks, the traffic pace seems unnatural. And it only happens when all backlinks are spammy or paid. On the other hand, if you get 900 visitors per week with only 75 backlinks, Google might increase your rankings. After all, a limited number of backlinks bring substantial traffic to your site, indicating quality and credibility.
5. Determine Keyword’s Quality & Usage
Sometimes, marketers are doing everything right – linking to credible sites, using online directories. Still, they end up targeting the wrong keywords for backlinks. In your backlink analysis, assess the anchor text usage and quality. These are the words and phrases hyperlinked to your web page. You can find all links on a website and examine their anchor text. You have to ensure it conveys how the web page is relevant for the related search term.
Let’s say you are backlinking ‘ladies’ handbag,’ the backlink directs users toward your brand’s homepage, where you sell countless accessories. The visitor will feel lost, directing traffic away from your site. Moreover, if you are leveraging an online tool, check the anchor and backlink category. If any keyword doesn’t highlight your brand, update the keywords. It would ensure you are delivering the most value for your content.
6. Differentiate Between Nofollow & Follow Links
Essentially, there are two kinds of links pointing to your sites – no-follow and follow links. Therefore, learn to differentiate between the two and add links that drive optimal results. The follow-links pass equity from external and internal sources. They act as a recommendation vote for your site, building credibility while directing traffic towards it. In short, these links are one of the most crucial factors in determining your site’s SERP rankings. Likewise, if the follow-links come from authority domains, it can boost your site’s overall authority and traffic inflow.
On the other hand, Google discounts the no-follow links, which means they won’t impact your SEO rankings. Even though the link doesn’t influence rankings for search queries, it adds value and significance to your site. Instead of sticking to one of its types, add diversity. After all, adding the same kind of follow links from a few domains decreases traffic generation probability. Thus, focus on inserting no-follow links in some of your blogs and articles to improve the site’s relevance.
7. Measure Penality Risks
Unfortunately, the incompetent link building strategies can land your business into hot waters. All the spammy and paid links coming to your site leave you at the risk of penalties. In addition to fixing these glitches, measure the penality risks in your backlink analysis. Firstly, clean your backlink profile by removing all unnatural links. You can utilize savvy tools to see why some of your links are unnatural or potentially dangerous.
Usually, the unnatural links come from automatically generated content, cloaking, and manipulated redirects. Besides this, there are also doorway pages and scraped content that increases unnatural links and Google penalties. Hence, delve into your content marketing strategy, get rid of such content formats, and create useful content. Once you eliminate all unusual and irregular links, run a test to measure penalty risks. After all, you have to ensure the risk is minimal or next to zero to streamline your SEO strategy.
8. Delve Into Competitor’s Link Building Strategy
Once you have a keen understanding of your backlink profile, spy on competitors link building strategies. Do you know how to check links on their site? Firstly, analyze their link building process and figure out their most trusted linking domains. Likewise, track their successful link-building to gather some ideas for yours. For instance, if they use research papers to get links, you can create some attractive infographics.
Moreover, you can crawl the website for all URLs directing towards competitors’ most authoritative linking domains. Also, discover their most trusted linking domains so that you can also develop robust networks in the niche. Remember, the goal is not to copy competitors but to determine their weak points and learn from their mistakes. In addition to reducing the chances of errors in your campaign, you would know which strategies and content format work best.
Final Words
Link building has always been challenging. Some marketers don’t know how to find all links on a website, while others can’t locate broken and spammy links. Surprisingly, backlink analysis can unfold insightful information regarding your link building campaign. This intuitive data can upscale your backlink strategy by detecting backlink types and assessing domain scores to studying competitors’ marketing strategies.
Author Bio:
Danish Mehmood work as a senior SEO strategist at PNC Digital, Orlando’s leading Web Development & Digital Marketing agency that focus on results. He is passionate about digital marketing and loves to analyze the SEO industry in his spare time and stay in touch with the latest happenings. Follow @InboundDM for more updates.
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