FAQ Guide to Use Backlinks For SEO
Whether you’re a newer blogger or an OG blogger from back in the day, backlinks are an important factor to getting found online. So important in fact, that well-known SEO platforms have done studies about them (more on that shortly).
While they’re a pretty big deal, backlinks can also be confusing. Which is why you’ll want to save this blog post & come back to it as you take your blogging game to the next level.
Consider this your go-to resource for all things backlinks, whether you’re a blogger, business owner, or business owner who blogs!
If we’re just meeting…
Hi! I’m Brittany Herzberg, SEO Coach & Lead Gen Strategist. As a solo business owner, it’s critical that I maximize my marketing efforts. (Maybe you can relate?)
Creating daily content for social media just isn’t realistic for me, so blogging is one of my main marketing strategies. Most bloggers & business owners are missing the magic of SEO in their marketing, but that doesn’t have to be you!
SEO (search engine optimization) is thought of as this big, scary monster. But in reality, it’s a time-saving, effort-maximizing strategy that attracts more of the right people to your blog or website. And backlinks are one of the key pillars of SEO.
Keep reading to uncover answers to these common questions about backlinks:
Are backlinks important for bloggers?
I mentioned that studies have been done on backlinks & their importance. A Semrush study found that 8 of the top 20 ranking factors are related to backlinks.
Backlinks are also one of the top factors considered when calculating your domain authority (Backlinko). Domain authority isn’t just a data point for websites—it also applies to blogs. Think of domain authority as your SEO report card score.
The better your score → the more trustworthy you’re seen as for the robots (search engines) → the more search engines show your blog in results → the more people see your name in search results & start to see you as a trusted source on [insert your blog topic here].
If you’re not super familiar, backlinks are links from other websites to your website. These links bring traffic to your blog.
You can “get” backlinks in a variety of ways & do some really smart things with them to help make your blog more SEO friendly & therefore, more findable!
How to do link building for SEO
Link building is the strategy of increasing the number of backlinks to your blog or website. This backlink boost does several things including:
Establish your expertise
Increase traffic to your blog
Help the right people find you
I shared different ways to build backlinks yourself in this other blog post.
You can also lean into any or all of these activities to increase backlinks to your blog or website:
Be a podcast guest
When you’re a guest on a podcast, the host will often ask for your links. People tend to share their social media links, but this is the perfect time to share your blog! When the episode goes live, you don’t just get one backlink—you get a backlink for every single podcast player & blog post that links to your blog. And, yes! This also happens if you happen to be a podcast host. (Mindblowing, I know!)
Write guest blog posts
It’s super meta of me to mention this strategy in a guest blog post, but here we are! I’ve written a few guest blogs at this point, and one really fun benefit is that the posts give me additional backlinks. You could include links in the copy to specific blog posts or just a general link to your main blog page.
Promote your content on social media
Once you’ve got content created, you’re going to want to share about it on social media (if that’s part of your marketing plan). Share links in Instagram Stories, on Threads, on Pinterest, & more! You’ll definitely want to link to your main blog page in all your social media profiles. Search engines like Google read that as Instagram trusts you, Threads trusts you, Pinterest trusts you—see, pretty big deal!
The most ideal frequency for link building will depend on your specific situation. But as a rule of thumb, you could aim to do at least 1 backlink boosting activity each month. The more you do, the more backlinks you’ll get, the more your SEO will improve, & the faster your blog will climb to the top of the search results!
How to use backlinks for blogs (best practices)
You’ll want to be mindful of these best practices when using backlinks to support your blog’s SEO.
Include keywords in hyperlinks
If I’m writing a blog & I want to include a link to a post on another blogger’s site (giving them a backlink), I want to use the keyword phrase that post is about. A quick way to discover the keyword they’ve targeted for that blog post is to look at the URL slug. For example, if the URL slug (the words that come after “.com”) is something like /backlink-boost or /how-to-grow-your-blogs-reach, I would include those phrases in my copy & link those words to the blog post. It would look like this: discover how to grow your blog’s reach.
Pitching podcast topics
Whenever I’m pitching a potential podcast host, I’m thoughtful about the topic ideas I share. Why? Because those words will very likely end up being part of our discussion, the transcript, the episode title, etc. I want to ensure that my blog & website are associated with words that will continue to establish my expertise and attract the right audience. And that starts all the way back at the idea stage.
Pitching guest blog posts
Same goes for guest blog posts. I mentioned I’ve written a few guest blogs & something they all have in common is that the topics are things I talk about often and want my website to become known for. Take a look at your own blog. Are there topics you could approach in a slightly different way? Have you learned something new about a topic? Those would be perfect blog post topics to pitch!
The big takeaway here is to be thoughtful & strategic from the very beginning. If you’re already having times come to mind where you feel like you missed an opportunity, don’t worry! Move forward with the best practices you’ve discovered today.
How to build backlinks into your blog content plan
Getting more backlinks to your blog starts with having quality content people want to link to! I’m confident you’re already doing this, but it’s something you could potentially be even more strategic about.
The best-performing content when it comes to backlinks are:
How-To Posts
These are in-depth guides for people. Think: how to embroider a hat, how to plant an herb garden, how to cook chicken in a Crock-Pot. Give people steps & maybe even provide visuals for them.List (or FAQ) Post
List posts are great resources to attract blog visitors. It’s self-explanatory, but what you want to do here is, well… list things out! Could be a countdown, ranking, answers to questions, or just a list of your favorite things.Recap Post
Think about it… if someone is considering going to an event, or investing in a program, or starting a new adventure, they go to the internet to hear about someone’s experience. This is the kind of post where you’re encouraged to share that!Resource Review
Similar to a recap post, resource review posts are an opportunity for you to share about a favorite tool, platform, or gadget! (Bonus? This can be the perfect place to feature an offer you have or one you’re an affiliate for.)
What do they all have in common? They’re the types of things people are searching for & want to link to!
If you really want to grow your blog backlinks, aim to publish a linkable piece of content once a month.
What are the best backlinks tools
There are different tools for all your backlinks needs! Let’s look at which ones are out there, what they offer, & if they’re free or paid.
Favorite tools for backlinks:
Semrush - free with paid option - This is a beloved tool for most SEO pros, but I don’t recommend paying for it unless you want to become an SEO pro. You can sign up for a free account & get a lot of helpful information from the free SEO tools, so I definitely encourage you to do that!
Ahrefs - free with paid option - Ahrefs also offers free SEO tools, but there are limits to what you can do. Again, I wouldn’t recommend paying for the highest tier, but if you really want to nerd out on the data, they offer a $29/month option (which you can cancel at any time).
Ubersuggest - free with paid option - I encourage my students & clients to download the free Chrome Extension for things like website traffic & backlinks at a glance, as well as keyword research. They do offer a one-time lifetime payment if you find you want to play with more of the features.
Google Search Console - free - Google offers some of the best SEO tools which integrate pretty easily with website & blog hosts. At the very least, I’d strongly recommend you get this set up & check in with your blog site’s data quarterly (if not monthly).
How to do a backlink audit
A backlink audit is how you find backlinks to your website. In a few simple steps, you can see what sites are already sending traffic your way.
This practice enables you to see which marketing efforts are already paying off. Leaving you confident in which ones to double down on. It can also be really helpful to know who you can approach to give you more backlinks.
Below are a couple free tools you can use to run a backlink audit for your blog:
Google Search Console (free)
Go to LINKS
Click on EXTERNAL LINKS
Click MORE
Here you can review a full list of sites linking to your blog!
Ahrefs (free)
Enter your WEBSITE
Review the backlinks listed
For the full report, you’ll have to pay. (Good news: they do have a $29 month-to-month plan!)
Should I buy backlinks for my blog’s SEO?
This is a short answer: no. It’s not worth it and it violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. It’s a much better practice to find quality backlink opportunities. More ideas next ⇣
How to find quality backlinks for my blog
If you want to take something like guest blogging to the next level to ensure you’ve got quality backlinks coming to your site, you’ll want to test out these advanced search operators in Google.
Advanced search operators are a more targeted way to comb through the internet to find sites that are looking for guest bloggers and/or blog posts to link to. You’ll find places you can write a guest blog (in which you can include a link to your blog site).
Search operators (with examples) for Google:
“inurl:”
Example: gardening inurl: “guest post”
You take the entire phrase, pop it in the Google search bar, & hit Enter. The results you’ll see on the page will include that specific word or phrase in the URL.“intext:”
Example: gardening intext: “guest post”
You take the entire phrase, pop it in the Google search bar, & hit Enter. The results you’ll see on the page will include specific keywords or phrases that are found in the content.“intitle:”
Example: gardening intitle: “guest post”
You take the entire phrase, pop it in the Google search bar, & hit Enter. This is pretty much like the “intext” above, except it only applies to the titles of the results you see listed.
The formula to use is roughly [topic you want to talk about] [search operator]: “[what you want to find—a guest blog post opportunity]”
This works really well especially if you don’t have a large network or are newer to guest blogging. Give it a try & watch your traffic start soaring!
Are reciprocal links good for SEO?
This is a tricky one. Reciprocal links are where two blogs or websites link to each other. (Here’s the interesting twisty bit…)
Reciprocal links could be considered more of a link exchange. A “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” kind of agreement to help each other’s blogs. But that is a no-no in Google’s eyes. (Google)
However, if you link to a website & they naturally link to yours (perhaps without even realizing it), then Google gives it a green light!
Word of advice? Look for the natural opportunities to give and get links. With backlinks, yes we want quantity—but not at the sacrifice of quality.
How to index backlinks fast
Google & other search engines don’t necessarily index new pages on your site. It can sometimes be 2-3 months after you’ve published the blog by the time search engines pick up & start sharing those new pages. (Yikes.)
But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story! By adding just 2 extra minutes to submit your new blog post to Google Search Console (GSC), you’ll avoid this problem.
Submitting a newly updated or brand new blog post to GSC sounds hard, but it’s so simple!
More of a visual person? Jump to the 2-minute mark to watch a tutorial on how to submit a page to Google Search Console for indexing…
How to submit a blog post to Google Search Console:
Login to Google Search Console
Copy the link for your blog post (either one you’ve updated or a brand new post)
Paste it into the search bar in GSC (it says Inspect any URL)
Hit Enter
Click Request Indexing
Wait
When you get the green Indexing Requested message, Click Dismiss
That’s it! Now you can celebrate the fact that that page will be indexed quickly by Google.
You can submit several pages in one day, but there are limits. Don’t worry, it’ll give you an error message once you’ve hit the quota. Simply come back the next day if you didn’t get to all your links!
Should I disavow toxic backlinks to my blog
This is a potentially really involved process that typically isn’t necessary. The one time you will want to take steps to disavow a bad backlink is if/when you’re given a manual penalty by Google.
It’s ONLY worth doing in that instance. Otherwise, you run the risk of driving yourself nuts and doing some damage to your blog’s SEO standing.
Build backlinks for a better blog
Creating content is a large part of blogging! But there are steps you can take beyond that to increase your traffic & get more of the right eyes on your site.
Building backlinks takes time & effort, but when you think about the fact that search engines are reviewing those links to determine if they want to share your blog or not… you quickly realize it’s worth it!
There was a lot of information packed in this post! Save it. Return to it. And continue to up your backlinking game.
SEO is all about slow & steady progress, so don’t go thinking you’re behind! Start with a backlink audit of your blog & go from there.
Blogging is an incredibly helpful activity for your SEO—but it shouldn’t be your first step.
The first thing you want to do when getting started with SEO is to create an effective strategy for your core website pages.
Your core (or main) website pages are ones like your Home page, About page, Service/s pages, etc.
→ This is where you need to begin your SEO improvements because they’re home base, where you want to send traffic ultimately.
If you haven’t done this yet, my SEO Sprint is entirely focused on creating & implementing an SEO strategy for your core web pages.
After that, you can explore blogging with and for SEO. 😉
