How important are backlinks for SEO? Read our guide to find out how to generate quality backlinks through content creation and media outreach.
What is an SEO backlink?
Put simply, a backlink is a link from one website to another. Google and other search engines place a high value on backlinks because they demonstrate a website is useful and trustworthy. They’re also helpful for users who may click through if they consider the website to be helpful and relevant. The greater the quality of the website giving you the backlink, the greater its value.
At R&Co, we know backlinks are important for SEO, which is why building and earning backlinks are integrated into our PR and SEO strategies and campaigns.
What are the different types of backlink?
Links will be classed as one of the following and offer different levels of benefit to your website, depending on how they are categorised.
Dofollow backlink
Passes on SEO value to the linked website. These are highly sought after because they help a website to increase its authority in search engines.
Nofollow backlink
Doesn’t pass on all SEO value. These are often used by higher-quality websites, such as news websites, which don’t want to ‘gift’ all of their authority for SEO benefit.
Sponsored backlink
Buying backlinks to improve authority and rankings is against Google guidelines, so sponsored links are used to indicate to Google that there is a commercial relationship in place.
User Generated Content (UGC) backlink
Used within forums and comments sections to indicate that content has been published by a third party and not the website owner, and does not share significant SEO value.
While different types of backlinks offer varying levels of SEO benefit, having a diverse link profile that incorporates Dofollow and Nofollow backlinks, or a range of the above, is recommended.
SEO backlinks from PR activity
Earning backlinks to help SEO through digital PR activity – which combines SEO and PR tactics – can take several forms, including proactive link building and link earning, which happens over time.
Link building
- Outreaching a piece of data-led content with news value, which you host on your website and encourage links to. For example, a commissioned survey, data from a Freedom of Information request or some multimedia content. If you provide a useful online resource to a journalist when selling in PR content, they are more likely to give you a backlink
- Media relations activity – in the most literal sense! If you have good relationships with journalists at key titles for your clients, a request to ask for an SEO backlink is much more likely to be granted than a ‘cold’ request
- Reactive PR – this tactic has overtaken big PR campaigns as the quickest way to build links, with journalists linking back to credit or acknowledge the source of expert commentary
- Linking to ‘meet the team’ pages when writing thought leadership/opinion pieces, citing the original author to build trust and credibility
Link earning
- Developing optimised website content that is useful for users and earns links over time
- Useful tools like calculators are evergreen, so they remain relevant and continue to earn links after launch
- Annual events calendars provide a handy resource that can be regularly updated and used as a source
- Statistics or data – optimise these to make them easy for journalists and your audience to find
Gaining backlinks for SEO over time
Creating what we call ‘evergreen content’ is another excellent example of how backlinks help SEO over a longer period of time.
Content with a long lifespan can sit on your website indefinitely and if it is a useful resource on a topic which generates plenty of search traffic, it can earn links over time and be regularly updated.
For example, a page for our client IPP about how to safely load a pallet for shipping will have a long lifespan, isn’t subject to seasonal variations and can be easily updated to reflect changing trends or regulations.
We’re often asked how important backlinks are for SEO and the answer is always the same – they’re very important and it’s beneficial to keep building them, but there’s more than one way to achieve them.
How to build backlinks for SEO
Here at R&Co, our team of experts have years of experience running SEO campaigns for clients and achieving impressive results. To find out more about the type of valuable media coverage achieved, take a look at our SEO services or see some examples of our work.
