How to discover and monitor backlinks

SEO is a constantly changing beast. With new updates occurring on a regular basis and the weight of factors affecting page rank shifting, it can be difficult to stay on top of the best techniques and tricks.

One thing, however, has remained constant: the significance of backlinks. Back in the day, obtaining backlinks was all about quantity. Today, acquiring hundreds of them could get you penalised; what matters is their quality. Here, we outline how you can discover and monitor backlinks to ensure your SEO marketing remains effective.

Discovering existing links

Discovering your existing backlinks is fairly straightforward thanks to the variety of tools available, many of which are free. OpenLinkProfiler, for example, enables you to view the backlinks of your – and competitors’ – websites as well as basic information such as influence, anchor text and follow status.

This alerts you to the volume and quality of your current link profile. By exploring this list you can identify any links that may be detrimental to your website SEO efforts, and begin to disavow them.

Discovering new link opportunities

Finding websites to approach for links is another integral part of discovering backlinks, and can give a huge boost to your SEO marketing if used in the right way. Start by making a note of authoritative or popular websites in your niche, either through manual research or by using a tool such as Buzzsumo. Pay attention to the domain and page authority for these sites as well as the audience size.

If their content is relevant to yours, approach them with a link to a great resource, or offer to write an article that then links back to your site. The more engaging and relevant your content is to them and their readers, the more likely they are to use it, so ensure you have something unique and compelling to share before approaching them.

Monitoring backlinks

Once you’ve started to improve and augment your link profile, you’ll need to start monitoring your backlinks to see which perform best. Doing this will enable you to streamline your SEO marketing efforts and seek more backlinks of the kind that perform, while disregarding those that don’t.

Automated backlink monitoring tools are a great way to keep track of how your new backlinks are doing. You can use them to discover links that have been lost – such as those on pages that are now 404s – as well as identify links from images.

In addition, you might find it useful to employ a tool such as Mention to find instances where your brand has been alluded to without a backlink. You can then reach out to those sites to request a link.

Find out more

If you’d like help with building or refining your backlink profile as part of your website SEO efforts, contact Digital Carrera today. We offer a wide range of SEO marketing services to build your online presence.