Are you wearing the hat of an e-commerce business owner with questions on how to skyrocket your website’s visibility on search engines? Well, this article, “What Are The Best Practices For Ecommerce Backlinks?” will efficiently guide you. It’s about understanding the power of backlinks in search engine optimisation and leveraging them to your advantage. With best practices highlighted specifically for ecommerce, brace yourself for a slurry of strategic insights, as the digital curtain gets rolled out for you to walk the path of successful online selling. Take the reins of your business’s SEO strategies—come explore the fascinating world of ecommerce backlinks!
The Role of Backlinks in Ecommerce
Whether you’re an ecommerce veteran or a rookie just getting started, you’ve probably heard of the term ‘backlinks’. Essentially, backlinks act as votes of confidence from other sites, telling search engines that your content is valuable and deserves to be ranked highly.
What backlinks do for SEO ranking
In the world of SEO, backlinks are invaluable. Having quality backlinks leads search engines, like Google, to view your site as more credible, which can have a significant positive impact on your site’s SEO ranking. These links from other websites, directing users back to yours, are a sign to search engines that others vouch for your content, and the more, the better – although quality definitely outweighs quantity.
The correlation between backlinks and ecommerce success
You’re probably thinking, “this is all well and good, but how does this translate to ecommerce success?” Well, let’s put it simply. Higher rankings equate to more visibility, which typically leads to more traffic, and eventually, more sales. If your ecommerce site is nowhere to be found on the search engine results page (SERPs), you’re missing out on a significant chunk of potential customers.
Vetting and Choosing Quality Backlinks
The key word here is ‘quality’. Not all backlinks are created equal, and poor-quality ones can potentially harm your site.
Determining authority of the source website
When considering a potential backlink, the first thing you should do is evaluate the authority of the source website. Websites with a high domain authority (DA) are seen as reliable and trustworthy, and receiving a backlink from them adds considerable weight to your site.
Relevance of the content to your ecommerce market
The relevance of a backlink is just as important as the authority of the source website. If you sell sports equipment and you have a bunch of backlinks from gardening blogs, this will not be pertinent to your target audience. Search engines are smart and look for links from sites that are relevant to your content or industry
Evaluating the traffic on source website
The amount of traffic the source website gets is also crucial. A backlink from a site that receives thousands of daily visits is more beneficial than one from a site with minimal traffic.
Organic Link Building Strategies
Building backlinks doesn’t have to feel forced or robotic. There are many organic strategies you can use that will yield results and not compromise your integrity.
Creating high quality content
Producing high-quality, informative, and engaging content is one of the best ways to acquire natural backlinks. If people find your content valuable, they’ll likely share it with their audience, providing you with a backlink in the process.
Guest blogging for relevant sites
Guest blogging is another effective strategy. By creating content for other relevant sites in your industry, you can generate backlinks to your ecommerce store and also position your brand as an expert in the field.
Improving internal linking structure
Don’t forget about internal linking. By linking relevant pages together within your site, you can improve site navigation, distribute page authority across your site, and keep visitors on your site longer – characteristics that search engines love.
Using Social Media for Backlink Generation
Social media platforms offer a plethora of opportunities for generating backlinks. With billions of users across the globe, these platforms can significantly boost your backlink profile.
Leveraging social networks
Use your social networks to their full potential by regularly sharing your content. This increases the likelihood that others will see and share your content, ultimately leading to more backlinks.
Maximising shareable content on social media
Also, optimise your content to make it more shareable on social media. Whether it’s infographics, blog articles or product guides, if it’s share-worthy, it’s backlink-worthy.
Partnering with Influencers and Bloggers
In the age of digital marketing, influencers and bloggers hold a lot of sway. By building relationships with these key figures, you can significantly boost the visibility and credibility of your brand.
Building relationships with key influencers
Reaching out to influencers relevant to your industry can lead to valuable backlinks. However, this isn’t something that happens overnight. Building genuine relationships takes time and effort, but the payoff can be tremendous.
Sharing product samples for review and backlinks
Offering product samples for reviews is another excellent way of gaining backlinks. Not only does this provide you with a backlink, but it also exposes your product to the blogger’s or influencer’s audience.
Making Use of Business Directories and Forums
Directory and forum submissions might feel a little old-school, but they can still be very useful for generating backlinks.
Locating relevant online directories and forums
Begin by identifying directories and forums that align with your industry. Remember, relevance is key here. Irrelevant backlinks don’t generally add much value and can even be detrimental to your SEO efforts.
Best practices for directory and forum submissions
Once you’ve identified relevant forums and directories, get involved. However, spamming your link everywhere isn’t the strategy here. Instead, provide valuable input, engage with the community, and only include your backlink when it’s beneficial to the conversation.
Backlinks through Reviews and Testimonials
Assuming that your product or service is top-notch, customer reviews and testimonials can be a goldmine for backlinks.
Encouraging customer reviews and testimonials
Encourage your customers to leave reviews on their own platforms, like blogs or YouTube channels. Not only will this promote your business to their audience, but it can also provide a valuable backlink to your site.
Partnering with review sites
Similarly, partnering with review sites can also lead to high-quality backlinks. Ensure that these sites are reputable, have high traffic and align with your industry.
Competitor Analysis for Backlink Opportunities
Your competitors can inadvertently help you build your backlinks. Competitive analysis isn’t about copying their strategies, but gaining insights to formulate your own.
Identifying competitor’s backlink sources
With various SEO tools out there, you can identify where your competitors are getting their backlinks from. These might be blogs, directories, review sites, or other platforms relevant to your industry that you could also utilise.
Approaching sources for backlink generation
Once you’ve identified these sources, you can approach them for backlink opportunities. However, note that simply because a particular backlink source works for a competitor doesn’t automatically mean it will work for you. Always evaluate the authenticity, relevance, and traffic of the backlink sources.
Monitoring and Maintaining Backlinks
Building quality backlinks is a continuous process that requires regular maintenance and monitoring.
Regular audits of your backlink profile
Scheduled audits of your backlink profile will help you track the performance of your links and also identify any potentially damaging ones that need to be removed.
Addressing and removing harmful backlinks
Sometimes, low-quality or spammy backlinks can sneak into your profile. These can damage your SEO ranking, so it’s essential to identify and disavow them timely.
Dealing with Algorithm Changes and Penalties
Finally, remaining aware of search engine algorithm updates can save you from sudden ranking drops, as these changes often affect how backlinks are valued.
Staying informed about search engine algorithm updates
Staying up-to-date with search engine algorithm updates will help you adapt your strategies and prevent penalties. Remember, search engines regularly change to provide users with the most relevant and quality content.
Best practices for dealing with penalties linked to backlinks
In case you do face penalties linked to backlinks, don’t panic. Identifying and removing the harmful backlinks, then submitting a reconsideration request to search engines, can help get you back on track. Remember, transparency and honesty with search engines will go a long way.
Whether you’re just dipping your toes into SEO or you’re a seasoned pro, understanding and implementing a solid backlink strategy is critical to your ecommerce site’s success. Quality over quantity, relevance and regular monitoring will help keep your backlink profile clean and impressive, ensuring that your ecommerce site can compete and thrive in the bustling online marketplace.
Hi, I’m Nicholas Bortoluzzi (but people often call me Nico).
I am the Founder and Director at SEO Lynx, an internet marketing agency operating in the UK and servicing clients worldwide.
The article on this page was written and curated by myself.