If you've ever been interested in SEO, you've probably heard of " netlinking ". Indeed, just like the content and the technical aspect of a website, netlinking is one of the 3 pillars to be optimized to position a site in SEO.
So let's see all of this together in this post!
What is SEO, or Natural Referencing?
As a reminder, SEO, known as “Search Engine Optimization”, means in good French “optimization for search engines”.
The goal is simple: position a site in Google search results, following a profitable keyword targeting strategy for a site.
The results of a successful SEO campaign translate into the generation of organic, stable and growing traffic, but above all: qualified!
In short, SEO allows beneficiary sites to be positioned where their prospects need them on Google (but also on other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, DuckduckGo, etc.).
Netlinking definition
Now let's move on to the specificity covered in this article: netlinking !
Here is a little story:
Jean, 45, arrives in Paris for the first time, with the aim of seeing old friends again. As soon as he arrives, an illumination comes to him: “Damn! We will surely go out tonight, I absolutely have to cut my hair”. Luckily, one of his friends works in fashion and knows Parisian hairdressers well. He passionately recommends a hairdresser named “King of hair”, so Jean has confidence in this hairdresser and goes straight there.
Here, John is a personification of Google. Google does not seek to trust a hairdresser, but multiple sites that it then ranks in its search results. If we take the element generating a source of trust in the previous example, namely the recommendation of Jean's friend, Google, for its part, takes the “backlinks” into account.
In French, backlinks means “return link” , it is simply a link placed on a page of a third party site, pointing to a page of your site. Your site then receives a backlink , something that Google takes into account to judge the authority of the site, and therefore to rank it in its search results.
What is a “good backlink”?
Starting from the previous explanation, we could then say that to optimize its netlinking , it is enough to obtain backlinks en masse.
Yes but no.
In reality, if Google sees backlinks as recommendations, it also analyzes the quality and relevance of the so-called “referrer” site.
Thus, a good backlink, really beneficial to your site, will be a backlink respecting the following criteria:
Thematic proximity to your site
Site generating traffic on Google, if possible on your theme
Site with developed netlinking (different referring domains)
Site with a healthy link profile (no over-optimization of backlinks, anchors, etc.)
What is the impact of Netlinking on an SEO Campaign?
Coupled with high-level technical and editorial optimization, a netlinking strategy can literally boost your results in terms of SEO positions gained and organic traffic generated.
Just like via an advanced content strategy, a good netlinking campaign makes it possible to target and optimize pages for specific keywords.
Finally, like the internal mesh, the netlinking also allows to bring SEO juice, and therefore to handle the pagerank of the different pages of a site.
How to audit your Netlinking?
Before carrying out any netlinking strategy to boost the authority of a site, it is necessary to make a detailed inventory.
To do this, different tools are available, different points must be taken into account. So let's see all that in this section!
Tools specialized in Netlinking
As for the tools, here are the best known and specialized in netlinking analysis :
Majestic SEO
Ahrefs
Moz
In general, many tools are able to analyze the netlinking of any site, with more or less precision and with more or less relevant metrics.
No matter which tool you can use, the important thing is not to just look at the authority and popularity indicators offered by them (TF, CF, DR, DA, PA…), but to analyze the desired sites from top to bottom.
Netlinking analysis steps
Speaking of detailed analysis, what should be analyzed when you want to have a reliable idea of the netlinking situation of a site ?
These points can be grouped into two broad categories:
Quantitative analysis: number of referring domains, number of backlinks, popularity indicators
Qualitative analysis: the authority of the pages and referring domains, the anchor profile of your site and that of your referring domains, the contextualization of your links, etc.
How to conduct a Netlinking Campaign?
Now that you have in mind the key concepts related to a netlinking campaign, let's see how to carry it out by following a list of simple steps:
Note: for additional tips on creating and managing a netlinking campaign,
Create your Netlinking strategy
Once the detailed netlinking audit has been carried out, you should have identified the objectives that your strategy will meet:
Link profile theming
Anchor Profile De-Optimization/Optimization
Domain Authority
Domain popularity (number of referring domains)
Then, and depending on the available budget, you can estimate the number of monthly backlinks that will be created, as well as the landing pages and their keywords to push in the SERPs.
Source and analyze potential referring domains
Following this previous strategy, you should be able to know exactly which sites you are looking for for your campaign. You can then start sourcing!
To do this, different means are available to you, which we will discuss in the “3 techniques to obtain Backlinks:” section of this post.
Contact the webmasters
Once you have your list of potential referring domains, all you have to do is get in touch with their owners, the goal is to get information about:
The lifespan of the backlink
The positioning of the link within the site
If there is a relay planned on the homepage or not
The anchors accepted by the site
General writing rules
The possibility or not of inserting several links in an article
The possibility or not of adding a backlink on an already indexed page
The price of the backlink with or without writing
When all these points are clear, then you can create the backlinks according to the desired landing page, the desired anchor, etc.
Monitor and track backlink results
But your mission does not stop there! Once the backlink is present on the site, you must have the reflex to check certain points:
The mesh of the referring page within the site
Indexing of the referring page on Google
The context of the link (text around)
Respect for the command (anchor etc)
The potentially nofollow character of the link
3 techniques to get Backlinks:
Now that you have all the keys to conducting an effective netlinking campaign , the question still remains: “How to find relevant backlinks?”.
Here are 3 solutions to answer it:
Buying links
Clearly the most developed solution in France, the purchase of links, in particular via specialized platforms, makes it possible to quickly acquire backlinks themed and sorted according to your preferences.
Even if Google advises against buying backlinks , and defines this practice as a violation of its rules of conduct, it is clear that buying backlinks can always be beneficial for the recipient sites.
Link exchange
A technique that was all the rage before Google's anti-spam updates, link swapping can still be effective, provided it's done in a triangular or natural way.
For example, getting backlinks from partner sites is completely natural.
Link baiting
This is the only practice recommended by Google: link baiting, in other words: “link baiting”.
It's about creating content so good that other sites will naturally share it. In the idea, it is very noble, but in fact, this phenomenon is very rare.
Here is why it is always important to take care to optimize the quality and the value of its texts to the maximum, while having in mind a precise netlinking strategy if one wishes to rank as quickly as possible.
In short: Link Building or Link Baiting?
If you manage to get excellent backlinks in a totally natural way, so much the better! But I don't think that's the case, because you probably wouldn't be reading this article.
Also note that without link building, you don't have control over the netlinking of your site, since everything is at the whim of the sites quoting you naturally.
Thus, a thoughtful link building strategy makes it possible to act on various factors directly impacting its effectiveness (anchors, theming, etc.).