What’s a Backlink Audit and How to Perform One

You must be aware that producing relevant content for your audience is not always enough to get you a better rank on search engines. You need to make your content appear valuable to the search engines as well. Getting backlinks from quality websites is one way to do it.

You can find numerous link-building opportunities through a backlink audit using a backlink checker tool. But before we discuss the auditing part, let’s have a closer look at the concept of backlinks.

What Is a Backlink?

A backlink is a link from another website to your own website. If your blog adds a link to an e-commerce site, this will be a backlink for the e-commerce store. A website generally adds another site’s link to its content when it finds the information on the other helpful website. 

These backlinks are a crucial aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines like Google use backlinks as votes of confidence from other websites. A website or page with more backlinks usually means it has valuable information for the readers. As a result, it receives a boost in its search ranking.

Even though Google has made thousands of changes to its algorithm in the past few years, backlinks still remain a crucial ranking signal for the search engine. However, not all backlinks are created equal; some are more valuable than others.

When a backlink comes from a reputed website that is relevant to your own website, it is referred to as a high-quality backlink. On the other hand, if it has come from a website with a bad reputation that is not relevant to your own website, it is a low-quality backlink. You can learn more details about your backlink profile using backlink audits.

What Does a Backlink Audit Offer?

A backlink audit offers you some valuable information that can boost your SEO efforts. With regular backlink audits, you get to learn the following details:

• The Number of Backlinks

You can discover the number of backlinks your website (or specific page) has received. Since more backlinks generally translate into better search engine rankings, this metric may help you make necessary changes to your link-building strategy.

• The Quality of Backlinks

As mentioned, backlinks from reputed websites with relevant content are more valuable to your link-building strategy. Backlink audits help you separate high-quality backlinks from low-quality ones.

• The Diversity of the Backlinks

Backlink audits also help you learn about the different sites that have linked to your website. A variety of backlinks from other sources is more helpful than multiple backlinks from one website. This also reflects positively on your search engine rankings.

• The Anchor Text of the Backlinks

You can also learn about the anchor text that is used to link to your website using the backlink audits. The use of relevant anchor text for the backlink helps improve the search engine rankings of your website. If you see your website link added to a different site using an irrelevant anchor text, you can take the necessary measures to fix the issue.

When you have access to such crucial information, you can use it to improve your link-building efforts, boosting the search engine rankings of your website.

The Importance of a Backlink Audit

Backlink audits help you find harmful or low-quality backlinks that may be pointing to your blog or website. When you have knowledge of such backlinks, you can take the necessary measures to remove or disavow them.

Since Google penalizes websites with low-quality or spammy backlinks, removing or disavowing such links will help improve your website’s search ranking.

Backlink audits help you improve your website SEO in more ways than one. You can use it to identify and remove harmful backlinks, build new backlinks, and optimize the anchor text of the backlink.

Moreover, backlink audits help you study competitor backlinks, revealing valuable opportunities for enhancing your own link-building tactics. You can use the data from such audits to refine your SEO approach and drive more organic traffic to your website.

How to Perform a Backlink Audit?

If you are doing a backlink audit for the first time, it may seem overwhelming. However, you can easily navigate the process if you are clear about your goals.

1. Start by Choosing the Right Tool

There are plenty of backlink audit tools (both free and paid) available in the market. You can compare and select the one with more valuable features.

2. Compare Your Backlink Profile Against Competitors

Comparing the backlink profiles of your competitors against yours will help you find more link-building opportunities that you haven’t used before.

3. Find and Evaluate Every Backlink You Have Received

Use the auditing tool to identify and analyze each backlink. This will help you find out details like the referring domains, overall toxicity score, and more.

4. Decide Whether to Remove or Disavow Bad Links

The backlink audit will give you a clear picture of the low-quality and toxic backlinks for your website. If you want to remove it, you will have to reach out to the linking website and ask them to delete it. To disavow, you need to use Google’s Disavow tool.

5. Find More Link-Building Opportunities

Backlink audits will help you learn what content types attract the most backlinks to your website. Also, competitor analysis is a great way to find out what is working for your peers. You can use these details to find more opportunities to acquire backlinks.

Conclusion

Backlink analysis can play a pivotal role in boosting your link-building efforts and driving your search engine rankings. Now that you have enough knowledge about what a backlink audit is, you can use the knowledge to navigate your SEO efforts in the right direction.