Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways to bring in more qualified website traffic and leads to a company’s website. There are over 200 ranking factors that Google takes into account when ranking a blog, website or service page, and one of these ranking factors deal with technical off-page SEO. 

Technical off-page SEO is the optimization of a website’s pages and blogs where the website’s user would not be able to see this optimization. In the SEO world, there are a couple of off-page SEO strategies that come into play here with meta-data, tags and backlinking. Backlinking is one of the most important factors for ranking in search engines. This is because backlinks are, quite literally, the backbone of technical SEO and rankings. 

Backlinks 101 

What are backlinks? 

Backlinks, also known as link building or inbound links, is the process of getting other sites to link back to your website. The more credible, high authority websites that link back to your website shows Google that your website is worthy of ranking higher in their SERPs. 

While Google's algorithms are always changing, building links remains one of the factors that Google will always find important from referral traffic to how many credible websites are linking back to your blogs. 

Link building not only generates referral traffic to your website but also improves your website's authority. For example, if a certain article cites your website when recommending certain products, it shows you are a quality resource that can be trusted. You need to put genuine outreach efforts in order to get the best results and gain quality backlinks.

Who are the top names in the industry? If one of those companies or persons links back to your website, this would be deemed a highly credible backlink which shows your website’s own credibility. 

On the other hand, there are spammy, bad backlinks on directories that all Omaha SEO companies and experts should stay away from.

 These are “toxic” backlinks that affect a website’s credibility. While a company cannot control when a spammy/ toxic backlink links to them, Google will get rid of those, a company can control who they link to. A website that is deemed to be part of the bad backlinks has been known to perform keyword stuffing, conduct spammy SEO and as the industry calls it, “black hat SEO.” 

What makes a difference between a company that is practicing linking back to toxic or bad backlinks? 

A company that guarantees a first page ranking in x amount of days, weeks or months. Omaha Media Group tells clients it can take six to 12 months to see any real results, but we never guarantee a result and that makes the difference between a bad and the best SEO company. 

Oftentimes, when a company is using spammy/ toxic backlinks they could be buying links as well which qualifies a website for serious penalties from Google. 

Buying backlinks

Purchasing backlinks bring bad mojo to a website, but at first, it is great! The world is great, the website is ranking high and then all of a sudden the SEO ranking tanks! 

Purchasing backlinks is a short-term solution for your SEO campaign. A company who wants to rank over time, increase their brand awareness inside search engines and bring qualified website traffic in, do not buy backlinks.  Most of the time, Google discounts links from websites they do not trust, and using such links can lead to penalties.

Google can also tell if your site purchased links since they have an entire team devoted to investigating web spam, which includes backlinks. Ultimately, buying links could potentially harm your SEO and disrupt everything your brand has worked for in the long run, even blacklisting a website from the search engine. 

So, with all this in mind, why is link building essential for your overall SEO strategy set in place by the best SEO company? 

Its importance in SEO 

In 1998, Google released its “PageRank” which refers to backlinks in its original press release! Yup, since 1998 backlinks have been a critical component of technical off-page SEO. In the last two decades, some of the largest core updates have been made such as Penguin, HummingBird, BERT and every core update in-between. 

The popularity of your website depends on the number of inbound links, which in turn determine your Google Page Rank. If a company is new to blogging and SEO, and if the company has had a website for years, without any history of SEO more than likely the website or blogs will be ranking for only branded keywords. 

While branded keywords are critical for direct search phrases and results, a company wants to rank for non-branded keywords in the industry as well. These keywords are going to be a mixture of short tail and long tail keywords, and backlinking strategies should be utilized for those short tail keywords! 

This is because these keywords are higher density and volume which makes the competition a bit harder. With proper backlinking, a company can notice a ranking in about six months to a year how aggressive their backlinking strategy is for those keywords. 

On the other hand of backlinking in SEO is blogging content! Not all clients need an aggressive backlinking strategy to rank in search engines over time, sure it takes a bit longer sometimes with blogging backlinks, but it still works. This means having quality backlinks inside of blogging content and creating content that others want to backlink to. 

It sounds like a lot of work because it is. It is important to find experts who are easily able to explain the differences to your company.

Hire us

Omaha Media Group has an entire team dedicated to technical off-page SEO strategies. Yup, a whole Omaha SEO team who does this! Good links are time-consuming to find, but with the right strategies, it can help set you apart from your competitors. 

Omaha Media Group can help you with link building to ensure your SEO campaign is successful. Contact us today for a free consultation for our recommendations to get your website ranking in search engines.