Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing your business’s placements within search engine results. As your business moves higher up within the list, more and more web traffic will be directed to your site.

On-Site and Off-Site

SEO can be broken down into two categories: on-site and off-site. On-site SEO involves modifying characteristics of your website to make it easier for search engines to understand. This lets a search engine know the correct audience to show your business to. On-site SEO is very popular, making it difficult for one or two businesses to stand out.

That is why off-site SEO is so important! One of the primary components of off-site SEO is backlinks. Backlinks are links from other websites that direct someone to your own site. Creating a strong collection of backlinks, or link-building, is a very common SEO strategy to boost your placement within the search engine results.

The Two Types of Backlinks

Backlinks can be divided into “follow” and “nofollow” backlinks. A “follow” backlink assists your SEO by showing search engines that this site endorses you. A “nofollow” backlink is written to show that the person or website providing this link does not endorse the following website. A great example of “nofollow” links can be seen all over popular social media sites including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Search Engines Are Smarter Than You Think

• Certain backlinks have more value over others, and search engines will recognize their value based on several criteria, including the following:
• A backlink from a well-established site will carry far more weight than one from a small, undeveloped one.
• 100 links from 100 different sites will be more impactful than 100 links from the same website.The more relevant anchor text on your link, the more value a search engine will place. For example, “black cupcake liners” will have much more of an impact than “See Here.”
• Filling a page with lots of links will decrease the value of each individual link.

How to Increase Your Backlinks

Basically, backlinks are all about finding friends, contacts, and clients who can vouch for you. Whether this is in the form of a review, being listed by your manufacturer as a partner, or writing a guest piece for a local blog, increasing the number of times you are listed on other sites should be an essential component of any business’s SEO plan.

Fasturtle Digital is one of Arizona’s leading SEO experts. Contact us for more information on how we help our clients get seen on the web.