Great Inbound Links Are More Than Just 1,2,3…
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Tue, Oct 18, 2011
Sorry folks. Just because you’re getting lots of inbound links doesn’t mean you’re winning the SEO marathon. Not all inbound links are treated the same. The main focus of your inbound linking should be to get healthy inbound links from a variety of authoritative sources. If you’ve got Hubspot, for example, you can use the link grader tool that tells you when you get a new inbound link. The grader actually awards a grade to that link based on how valuable it is. Isn’t that neat?
What does an inbound link look like?
So, how do we know what a great inbound link looks like? We have three criteria for identifying a great inbound link, and defining how strong it will be in terms of SEO.
First, does your inbound link come from an authoritative website? We define authoritative websites as those that are in good standing with the search engines, with no black-hat SEO. Authoritative websites are those that others will look to when seeking news, answers or research. So your friend’s blog on model trains may not cut it. We’re talking the likes of the New York Times, BBC, TechCrunch or Mashable.
How do you display your links?
Does the inbound link have anchor text surrounding it? Anchor text is the text that the link it written in – so does it have a raw URL or are one of your keywords linked with the URL? Anchor text allows the linker to describe the linked-to site in the link itself- and this works in your benefit because search engines now have more SEO data to work on- the hyper-link, the keyworded anchor text and your own website when it follows through. This means that if everything matches up (the links point to the kind of content they say they point to), the search engines will rate your website very well and give you more credibility.
So if we were to link to SiliconCloud or to inbound marketing, which do you think is the better hyperlink in terms of SEO?
Want to learn more about inbound links and inbound marketing? Get set up with our website grader.
