Why Backlinks Must Be Managed

When it comes to SEO, writing great content alone is not enough; nor is using good keywords or even measures like embedding videos in your text.

All of the above will be very important, of course. But while these will enhance your ranking, the battle to reach page one is the same as trying to reach the top in any area of life; every small detail matters and SEO is no exception. This is why an SEO consultant in Yorkshire can be so invaluable in helping you on your way.

The simple fact is that Google and other search engines use algorithms to rank content and there are scores if not hundreds of elements involved. Exactly what all of them are is their secret, of course, but some are obvious and unchanging.

In one of our previous blogs we discussed how putting links in text to reliable and trusted sources can boost SEO by increasing authority. This, of course, turns each of these links into a backlink that bolsters the score of the other site, as it gets more visits and is seen as more popular. Thus, all this is mutually beneficial.

However, it is also important to manage these well. It can be easy to produce content, add in some links and forget about them. But that can be unwise. Firstly, over time more contemporary and thus relevant content may emerge elsewhere that you could link to, providing better and more authoritative links.

Secondly, older articles you may have linked to may be taken down and broken backlinks can harm your technical SEO.

This also raises another important point. Many of your backlinks will be internal and if you take down content or undertake work like a website migration, this can break links and leave lots of code 404 pages, a big problem for your technical SEO.  

Also, this can ruin any backlinks that exist because someone else has linked to your site, which adds to the loss of ranking.

What this shows is that while linking is important, it is vital that you keep checking and, where required, renewing backlinks and your own content. That way, you can maintain the SEO benefits they bring.