What Is a Robust Backlink Profile and How to Build One

‍This is 2024, and no matter how much everything changes, link building is still there – one of the major parts of SEO.

‍Backlinks do a lot of heavy lifting for search rankings. But modern link building is less about just improving SEO rankings and more about optimizing for search everywhere.

‍What’s more? With all the new changes looking at us (hey there, Google AI Overviews), there have been a lot of fluctuations in search rankings.

‍Now more than ever, you can’t depend on just any backlinks to keep your rankings above water. More accurately, a strong inbound link profile is your first defense and the best weapon to remain relevant.

‍But what is a healthy backlink profile, and what does it take to build one? Keep reading to find out.

‍Your link profile is basically the transcript of backlinks pointing to your site. That’s it. It shows the total number and quality of backlinks from other websites to yours. This way, it’s easy to see vital details about who is linking to you.

‍When it comes to backlinks, the important things to check are the type of the link (e.g., dofollow, nofollow, sponsored, etc.), the anchor text, the relevance of the site, and their domain quality.

‍How important is your inbound link profile? It is exactly what Google looks at to determine your domain authority. You know the thing that tells it if you should be ranked higher in search results pages or hidden somewhere at the back of the pile of similar web pages.

‍Of course, backlinks aren’t the only factor that determines your DA/DR but they sure are one of the most important.

‍Your link profile can be a deal breaker for your budding romance with the search algorithm. So, how do you tell if you are courting it the right way? It starts with a good profile. Here’s how you can tell if your backlink fits the bill or needs some work:

1. Organic quality backlinks. If you just started a news site, you’d be thrilled if NYT or CNN links to a story on your website. That kind of link from a powerful brand (especially in media or in the same industry as you) is a huge deal.

‍A strong link profile has this in abundance, while a bad one might just have a few quality links or even none. Worse, some struggling blogs make the mistake of soliciting links from PBNs and spammy sites riddled with ads and popups. That’s just a turnoff.

2. Diversity. You know what they say about diversity? It is the path to greatness, and the more of it there is, the better. It is the same with a good backlink profile.

‍The links should be from several relevant and at least somehow related sites. Plus, don’t be scared to add a couple of SM links here, some blog links there, and a few PR links on top. It should look like a healthy, balanced dish.

‍While aiming for high-authority sites, a few sprinkles of medium-quality links won’t hurt. Kind of like how veggies are good for you, but the occasional cake is not going to ruin your health or the meal experience.

‍On the other hand, the bad profile is mostly all poor quality links from random sources – a sure sign that someone is involved in a manipulative link-building practice.

3. Natural anchor texts. The anchor texts in a good profile are always well thought out and add relevant context without spamming with keywords. Before you even click, you already have an idea of what the page it leads to is about. You already guessed it. Bad profiles rarely do this.

‍Remember how we said earlier that a healthy backlink profile can impact your search rankings? Turns out the impact goes even deeper than that.

Increased Organic Traffic That Leads to Conversions

‍A nice side effect of better search rankings is higher clickthrough rates and an increase in organic traffic. The backlinks you get signal that you have helpful content.

‍Search engines see this and serve up your content to people who use relevant search terms (aka queries). As your website is exposed to more eyes, you are going to have more visitors who are more likely to engage and convert.

Better Trust, More Sales

‍Building a robust link profile is like having a whole army vouching for your legitimacy. Potential customers are more likely to buy from a site that they’ve already seen somewhere.

‍If you’ve been mentioned on several websites through your links and your leads have already found some of your content organically (because of higher rankings), you have much better chances of converting those leads into paying customers.

‍Can’t say the same for a website with very few endorsements and rankings at 30+ positions in SERPs.

Better Indexing

‍Links usually act as a kind of roadmap for search engine bots. The type of backlink you have can determine how well crawlers are able to discover your site and understand the structure.

‍So, if you have a natural links profile, it becomes easier for crawlers to find your content, which means faster indexing.

Increased Brand Exposure

‍Pages that link to you generally help new audiences to discover you. The more quality links you have pointing to your site, the more opportunities you create for users to learn about your amazing products or services.

Cut Down Your Budget and Make More Money in the Long Term

‍Building a robust link profile is a great way to improve your SEO. This way, you spend less on ads and still enjoy better ROI in the future.

‍All of these sound wonderful, but what does a natural backlink profile even look like? Well, let’s look at the Forbes profile. Sure, it is a pretty big brand, and chances are that your site doesn’t get hundreds of millions of visitors monthly.

‍But there’s a lot we can learn from them.

‍Source: Ahrefs

‍And let’s do a backlink analysis of the same site with Semrush this time.

‍Source: Semrush

‍This website gets 188M visits monthly. The organic traffic is over 99M. That’s more traffic than many sites will ever get to see.

‍Notice that Ahrefs pegs the backlinks at 53M, with 86% of them being dofollow. A closer look at the referring domains shows that some are rated as high as DR 96.

‍But if you scroll down, there are also a few rated much lower (even DR 14!). Now, that’s what you call a natural profile.

‍Source: Ahrefs

‍Of course, you don’t just want to know the backlink profile definition and its benefits. What you really need is a framework you can use to improve the quality of your links. Here are some simple steps you can start with right away:

#1 Do a Backlink Audit First

‍Source: @semrush on X

‍If you are looking to really improve your backlinks, it is definitely a good idea to first take a look at what you will be working with. After all, you wouldn’t expect a doctor to prescribe medication without checking your symptoms, right? It is the same with your links.

‍A backlink audit simply means assessing your current link profile. Some experts even recommend that you do this at least twice a month.

‍Doing this is important for discovering which links can stay and which should go. You will also uncover other vital data that will help you create a more focused and effective profile link-building strategy.

‍Besides, this is a great way to discover which links are no longer live. It wouldn’t make sense to put effort into getting new links when the links you already have end up being lost.

#2 Knowledge Gives You the Power

‍Building a robust SEO backlink profile needs a lot of special skills and careful attention to detail. How can you pull it off if you don’t even know what’s relevant, outdated, or dangerous?

‍There is so much information out there about the proper ways to do link building. There’s even more on quick shortcuts. Yet, every other day, there is a new update to Google’s policies and search algorithm.

‍You can’t afford to be in the dark about the many harmful link schemes out there. It’s also not that helpful to remain stuck in that one tactic that once worked for you. So, keep up with new updates on the best practices that can work for you.

‍Follow popular SEO accounts on social media. You will definitely learn new ways to build great quality links without having to game the system.

#3 Sort Your Priorities Right (More SEO Quality Links)

‍You know what they say about backlinks? Quality first, quantity second. It’s tempting to go with the methods guaranteed to bring the most links in the shortest amount of time and for a very attractive price.

‍But it’s not going to fly if the results turn out to be more spammy links than high-DR ones. So what to do?

‍You may have to make some adjustments in the way you approach link building. Focus more on where the good links are coming from. Maybe even take a peek at what the big names in your industry are doing (more on this later).

‍Once you shift your focus from numbers to what’s more important, you will come up with new ideas for getting more quality links. Who knows? You might even end up pushing yourself to network more and build meaningful relationships with people in your industry.

#4 Invest More in Guest Posting

‍Why should you specifically go for guest posting and not, say, forum commenting? Well, for one, guest posting has the best track record of the two. Plus, commenting is not the best for dofollow links.

‍Still, guest blogging or publishing articles on other websites for backlinks only works when you go about it intentionally. You will have to:

• Find niche-relevant quality websites that are open to collaboration
• Send in your carefully crafted pitch
• Create an insightful, original, and engaging article and send that in, making sure to follow their guidelines

‍Sounds easy, right? In truth, though, you will have to put in a lot of research, time, and cash investment into this tactic. But don’t worry – the payoffs are worth it.

‍Even better, you can ,outsource this process to LinksManagement if you prefer to buy backlinks straight away.

#5 Revamp Your Content Strategy to Attract More Links

‍Quality content is the main star of almost all link-building practices. So, you will need to take a look at your content strategy if you want to improve your backlinks SEO quality. Start by finding new link-worthy content ideas that will act as bait to attract links.

‍Not sure where to find those? Again, your competitors can be a goldmine if you know where to look. Check which of their posts have the most backlinks. Lots of SEO tools let you do this.

‍For example, with the indexed pages report on Semrush, you only need to enter their domains. Here’s what it looks like when doing that for the Backlinko website:

‍Source: Semrush

‍You can see which of your competitors’ topics are getting the most backlink love. This might inspire some ideas of your own.

‍You can create a more updated version of the same topics, maybe throw in new research data or newsworthy events.

‍But don’t just focus on the topics that have the most links. Look closely at the content format as well and take note of which ones have the most engagement. Try experimenting and adding the same formats to your content strategy as well.

#6 Leverage Social Media

‍You want to use everything at your disposal including social media. For every blog post you create, you should share a snippet or a teaser on your SM channels. Add a link to your post that directs your audience to the full article.

‍Do the same thing on all your social media channels. This will boost the visibility of your content. Also, you will drive some traffic this way. Who knows? You might still end up with organic backlinks from other sites if someone else picks it up.

#7 Update Your Content Regularly to Avoid Link Rot

‍The digital content world is constantly changing. Pages that don’t update their content will find their search rankings slipping lower, and a few might just disappear into the void. Why does this happen? Dead links and stale content.

‍Source: @neilpatel on X

‍Search engines will always choose fresh, relevant content over outdated posts. Each time you update old posts, the web page gets crawled and indexed, and that can impact your search rankings.

‍But there’s more to this than just playing to the preference of search bots. Updating content ensures that you can adjust and align to market changes and give your audience the best value content. It’s not hard for others to see you as an authority in your field and send links your way.

#8 Diversify Your Anchor Texts

‍Your anchor texts have a lot of impact on the quality of your links. It’s better to use various anchors that are descriptive if you want a strong backlink profile.

‍Keep in mind that even though it helps search engines understand what your content is about, it can also trigger suspicion. This happens when you focus too much on promotional phrases or keyword phrases.

‍At the same time, you should audit your anchor texts and see which ones you have overused in the past. You can even create a special template for their anchor texts that you can pull out when doing link outreach.

‍If you have read to this point, congratulations! Not only can you explain the meaning of a backlink profile but you are also now an expert in how to improve yours.

‍Naturally, it will take more than 8 tactics to build a powerful profile. So, continue to learn, experiment, and improve on your strategy. In no time, you will be able to see tangible results.