|SEO| Netlinking and its backlinks, a smart optimization strategy

What is netlinking and its components?

Simply put, netlinking represents all the hyperlinks that can be inserted in a content and that lead to another site or another page. This includes all forms of hyperlinks such as internal linking or backlinking. When creating a service marketplace, managing the SEO of its platform is an essential element to its success, as it is what fuels its visibility.

This strategy, if well used, can have a significant positive impact on the SEO of a content. Indeed, if we want a netlinking to be effective and beneficial to our site, it must be of high quality. It is therefore wise to make redirects to recognized sites, so that Google realizes that you pay attention to the types of links you make, and that it optimizes your place on the search results.

As explained above, netlinking has several components and takes different forms:

• Internal linking: it consists in linking several pages of your site or domain together. For example, when writing content, you will add a hyperlink to another page, which will create a logical link and give the user more information on a certain topic. It is important to maintain a quality user experience and that the transition from one page to another is fluid and coherent: you have to keep in mind the needs of your users and why they go to your platform. It is also a smart way to lead the user to where you want him to go, namely the key pages, such as contact forms or quote requests.

• Backlinking: this is a hyperlink present in a content but which in this case, refers to a site outside the one on which the user is. Once again, it is important to make logical links because otherwise Google will not consider them as coherent and will not improve your referencing.

In the other direction, getting backlinks is also important for your SEO, because if you are mentioned on a page, you will also be able to improve your SEO. Google will consider you as a trusted page if other sites bother to mention you, which will place you as an expert on a topic.

What qualifies a good backlink is mainly its quality and relevance. If you have backlinks on sites with high domains of authority, it will be beneficial for you because you will be associated with them. It is also important to have backlinks in contents that match yours, in order to stay in the same ecosystem and rank on the right topics. The site that mentions you must be of quality and trustworthy, if it mentions you, your page will be valued: you will benefit from their visibility at the same time! Finally, the main element that qualifies a good backlink is the number of clicks and the traffic it generates.

The objective of this strategy is simple: to improve the authority of your domain. If you are mentioned several times or if you make a good internal link, Google will reference you well. Thus, if you appear in the first search results, you are considered as an expert. You are therefore credible in the eyes of everyone and your area of authority is improved.

This credibility is measured with a score that the engine gives to the page, from 0 to 100. The higher your score, the higher you will appear in searches: to have an idea, 60 is considered as the starting score for a better referencing. To develop this score, the algorithm takes into account different criteria:

• the number of backlinks leading to your site or your marketplace
• the quality and relevance of these links
• the quality of the content you publish
• your popularity on social networks
• the quality of your SEO

Finally, if your strategy is well implemented, it will allow you to transmit a good “link juice”: this is a term that refers to the benefits of good backlinks or a good internal mesh for your SEO and your reputation. In other words, if you are a marketplace or a quality site and you mention via a link another page, you transmit “good juice”!

The limits of backlinking

It is important to specify that it is not because you are mentioned or that you mention a page via a hyperlink that it will necessarily improve your referencing. Indeed, when you insert an external link in your content or when you are mentioned on another site, the Google robot will analyze it and qualify it as a DoFollow or NoFollow link.

DoFollow links are beneficial for your referencing and improve it. To be more precise, when the robot analyzes the link, it considers it as good according to its algorithm, and will therefore better reference the site where this link refers. That’s why it is important to get backlinks on other pages, because it will allow Google to recognize your expertise and better reference you.

NoFollow links have no impact on your SEO or on the page to which you want to refer the user. Google will qualify these links as NoFollow for reasons of reliability, because a link is paid or to prioritize one site over another.

NoFollow links are not negative, and it is even important that you have both types of links for Google to consider your netlinking as natural. It is important to keep in mind that your SEO strategy must be smart and that the choice of your backlinks must be logical and thoughtful.

How to get backlinks to improve your SEO ?

Different ways are possible to get backlinks from partners or other content producers:

• Guest blogging, a simple principle based on a win-win relationship between you and your partner. It consists in writing an article about you, which will then be posted on your collaborator’s blog, and vice versa. This technique allows you to get quality content and create backlinks that will benefit you. If your partner has a strong authority domain, you will benefit from it and your SEO will be improved. Thus, thanks to the inserted backlinks that will refer to your site, your credibility will increase even more. Finally, it is a way to benefit from your partner’s audience for free and thus to improve your visibility.

• Sponsored articles, where an advertiser pays another website to publish one of its articles dedicated to it. As for guest blogging, this technique allows to get backlinks, traffic and notoriety if the chosen website has a high authority domain. In order to get a good SEO score, the article must contain DoFollow links but you have to be careful: Google will not accept purchased links if it is not specified that the article is sponsored. So be sure to include it in your page!

• The spontaneous proposal of backlinks, which consists in contacting a site that seems relevant and trustworthy, where its area of authority can have a positive impact on your SEO. You can then offer them on a principle of exchange, the implementation of backlinks to you in their content.

To find good backlinks, it is also wise to use powerful tools such as Semrush. Thanks to its features, you can see which are the most interesting backlinks according to your domain. It also allows you to analyze if your backlinks are of good quality and if they are toxic or not: if it is, it can negatively impact your site and your SEO, that’s why it is important to know what these links bring to your site.

In conclusion, many strategies exist to optimize your SEO and netlinking is an easy technique to implement and requires little or no expense. If you follow all the instructions above, you should see your SEO improve significantly!