If you are unaware of what exactly a backlink audit is, then let me tell you it’s an evaluation of all links that are associated with your website. It means there is a dire need to identify whether you need to keep them or remove them, and then develop a strategy to deal with them accordingly. As a business owner, you must understand that tons and tons of backlinks do not boost traffic to your website. Only premium-quality backlinks are great for the search engine optimization of your website.
A quality backlink is one which comes from high domain authority website like Forbes.
Image Source: Ahref
On the other hand, toxic backlinks act as kryptonite that weakens the search engine optimization of your website over time. That is why it is indispensable to weed out bad backlinks from good ones. By getting basic backlink auditing done through a full-service digital marketing agency you will only have the links that positively impact your business. You can review all the backlinks manually by simply downloading a complete link using Google’s search central. Your backlink should be highly relevant and naturally placed so that your website can be easily targeted from a high domain authority site.
Image Source: majestic.com
STEP1: Benchmark your profile against competitors
It gives you a fair amount of all the link-building strategies of your competitors and helps in giving reasonable evaluation to your own website. Type your domain and the domains of your competitors. In the ‘overview tab,’ you will find out whether you are going in the right direction or not.
What do you need to look at?
Several backlinks/domains/ IPs: It estimates your footprint in comparison to all the competition out there.
Image Source: Ahref
Authority score: It helps you understand how attractive your domain is so that you can link up the building prospects.
Backlink types: To see whether your content is related to the content of your competitors or not.
Link attributes: For spotting the weaknesses of your rival’s profiles.
Referring domains: To find out whether you would be reaching more domains than now.
STEP2: Find and evaluate each and every backlink you have
First of all, you need to find out all the spammy links that harm the rankings of your websites. However, a digital marketing company also needs to keep an eye on all the valuable links that might be losing the gaps in the link-building strategy. Most people make use of SEMRUSH for finding and analyzing your backlinks. So, go to the audit tool, set the project, and configure the tool by mentioning keywords, categories, and competitors that are well-associated with your domain. This lets the tool comprehend how relevant the link is.
What do you need to look at?
Overall toxic score: A wide range of harmful links are pointing toward your website. Tools like Ahref and SEMRush can help you find toxic backlinks.
Image From Semrush by Semrush Team
High or low numbers of analyzed backlinks: If it’s high and you are not building links or publishing content, it can be counted as a high-rate spam attack.
Small numbers & referring domains: Too many links coming from a similar domain can result in high suspicion from google.
A toxic score of the referred domains: This could either be a result of poor link building or negative search engine optimization.
A high percentage of USG links: A natural profile consists of more than one link, especially if anchors are irrelevant.
Money prevalence and compound anchors: These are potentially considered toxic by the algorithms of Google.
A spike or lost backlinks in a certain period: The interpretation should be done in the same way as the total number of analyzed backlinks.
Step 3: Decide whether to remove or disavow all the harmful links
Getting rid of the toxic backlinks is necessary, and a professional digital marketing agency can help it do this in two ways.
– Reach out to the website owner and ask them to remove the link (removal)
– Consider disavowing it, and then exporting it to the Google disavow tool
Image From Ahref By Derek Gleason
Instead of wasting time connecting with spammers or scammers, divide your links into the ones that you want to get removed, and the ones that you simply cannot remove. For instance, if you are having a high toxic score, you need to figure out the links that are causing it. If you find the displays of so many links you can then filter the list to find similar ones. However, there is a high probability that the links you find belong to those domains that are simply not interested in fulfilling your request for removing the link. Another way of sorting out the links could be done by the primary source of the problem including URLs, titles of pages, and other associated target URLs. It is exceedingly helpful when you are dealing with negative search engine optimization. Move the links you want to remove to the ‘ Remove list ‘ and the ones you cannot remove move to the ‘ Disavow list ‘.
Step 4: Clean up the entire backlink portfolio
Removal: Switch to the remove tab where you have already sent the toxic links. Customize the template in order to request the link removal process. The email address of the recipient might be detected automatically or can be added manually if you find it on the internet.
Disavowing: If you are unable to find the link or the website owner is unable to be reached then disavowing is the only option for you. You need to switch to the disavow tab, export the contents into text, and then upload it to the tool for a highly appropriate domain. This video from Mani Karthik will show you, how you can disavow bad backlinks from your website in few simple steps using SEMrush.
However, the digital marketing company needs to keep one thing in mind Google requests the webmasters to prove that they have made a lot of efforts to manually remove the bad links before sending them to the disavow list.
Step 5: Find new opportunities to come up with the valuable links
Backlink auditing is a lot more than just finding and removing all the toxic backlinks. It helps you in spotting new opportunities so that you can get premium-quality links and improve the entire link-building strategy
– Connect your google analytics to the backlink audit to know about the referral traffic you are getting from the website. This will grant you access to accurate information with respect to traffic landing on your website.
Image Source: https://www.semrush.com/kb/945-backlink-audit-google-accounts
– Add the reputable and popular domains that connect you with your competitors.
– Always pay utmost attention to the lost and found report so that you do not miss any crucial changes to the backlink of your profile. Use the link-building tool for reaching out to the owners so that it becomes easy for you to fix broken and lost links.
FAQs
Which tool do I use for backlink auditing?
SEMrush backlink audit tool is most commonly used for checking the red flags of your website. Then with the help of potential results, you get to know which links need to be removed, and which need help.
How many backlinks can be built in one day?
From one link to five hundred links, you can build as per your time and convenience.
Why is a backlink audit important?
It helps in identifying toxic backlinks that are corrupting the work operations of your business. In fact, it helps you create premium-quality links for your website that did not exist before.