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Amit Raj
Amit Raj from The Links Guy explains how technical SEO audits and link building can complement one another.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a multifaceted discipline that stands on three foundational components: content, technical audits and link building. Today, I’m going to focus on the latter two. Let’s start by understanding what these terms mean. Then we’ll discuss how these components complement each other.
Contents:
- What is a technical audit?
- What is link building?
- The importance of link building
- Factors affecting link value
- Effective link building strategies
- The role of technical audits
- Metrics for evaluating link quality
- Conclusion and future of link building
What is a technical audit?
Technical audits involve thoroughly examining a website’s backend structure to identify issues that may weaken its performance in search engine rankings. They serve as a wellness check of the website, analyzing how well it aligns with best technical SEO practices and what issues might be affecting your site’s search visibility.
What is link building?
Similarly, link building is an essential part of SEO. Link building involves acquiring backlinks from other websites to enhance authority and visibility. Therefore, search engines like Google and Bing may view it as highly authoritative and rank it higher in organic search results.
Search engines treat certain types of links from other sites as endorsements or votes of trust. The higher the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your site, the more trustworthy it can seem.
When combined, these strategies can create a powerful synergy that improves search engine rankings and enhances overall website performance. When no technical issues obstruct your website, backlinks can have a greater impact on the website's SEO. This combined approach ensures that websites possess strong backlink profiles, which drive higher search engine rankings and improved performance.
The importance of link building
Link building is a critical factor in SEO for several reasons. The web marketplace is very crowded, and to stand out, you need high-quality links to improve your ranking and visibility on search engines. Quality backlinks from authoritative, relevant sites can significantly boost a website’s credibility.
While it's not universally true that a page needs links to rank well, in highly competitive niches or for certain specific keywords, having quality links directed to that page is essential for achieving a strong ranking. It should be noted that some backlinks are more beneficial than others; some might negatively impact your rankings, and some probably have zero effect.
Google uses links as an indicator of page relevance and to discover new pages for crawling. John Mueller, Google Search Advocate says in his video while answering about backlinks:
“We try to understand what is relevant for a website, how much should we weigh these individual links, and the total number of links doesn’t matter at all. Because you could go off and create millions of links across millions of websites if you wanted to, and we could just ignore them all.”
While he acknowledges that links are not the sole method search engines use to find sites, they are generally more effective. The updated algorithm emphasizes the quality of links over their quantity. Thus, the more relevant and authoritative the links to your website, the greater your site's authority becomes.
Technical SEO factors affecting link value
The value of a backlink is determined by several key attributes. Let’s understand them in depth:
Site authority
Backlinks from high-authority domains or relevant domains can carry more weight than those from less-known or less relevant sites. Authority is often measured by metrics such as Domain Rating (DR) or URL Rating (established by Ahrefs). Earning higher-quality backlinks not only improves these scores but also helps improve domain authority, making your site more trusted and reputable in the eyes of search engines.
According to Google, quality backlinks can be generated by providing quality content. “If you offer long-lasting, unique and compelling content—something that lets your expertise shine—people will want to recommend it to others.”
“A promising way to create value for your target group and earn great links is to think of issues or problems your users might encounter. Visitors are likely to appreciate your site and link to it if you publish a short tutorial or a video providing a solution, or a practical tool. Survey or original research results can serve the same purpose, if they turn out to be useful for the target audience. Both methods grow your credibility in the community and increase visibility.”
To improve your site authority, start by creating high-quality, informative content that addresses what users are looking for. In addition, a well-structured site with easy navigation will encourage visitors to spend more time on your site and share it with others. This approach can potentially lead to more backlinks.
Be aware that authority metrics like DA or DR when viewed in isolation can be misleading, so I will cover other factors you should also look at when it comes to links.
Relevance
A relevant backlink means that the backlink you are adding is in the niche of the content writer. Search engines, particularly Google, emphasize the importance of contextual relevance when it comes to backlinks. Links should come from sites that are relevant to your content. Google’s algorithms assess not only the authority of the linking site but also the contextual relationship between the linked pages.
Google has stated that "quality links" are necessary for improving a site's authority and visibility in search results. This approach aligns with their goal of delivering useful and relevant content to users, reinforcing that backlinks should be earned organically through valuable content rather than through manipulative tactics.
To make your content topically authoritative, organize it into subheadings and specific themes. When search engines see a well-defined structure with interlinked pages on related topics, it increases the likelihood of receiving relevant backlinks. You can also regularly conduct content audits to ensure that all pages are optimized for relevance and quality.
Structured data and schema are also highly important here, as they can help contextualize the content on those pages for search engines or AI models. It's your way of “speaking to search engines” and giving them a semantic understanding of your website’s content. It goes without saying that if search engines cannot understand the page, then they will likely struggle to determine if the backlink is truly pertinent to that page.
Pro Tip:
Sitebulb allows you to examine a website's structured data and determine whether any pages have search features:
Following good practices with your schema markup can help trigger rich snippets or when there is an industry-specific schema to consider—which can lead to higher CTR and, subsequently, better rankings because you have improved user engagement metrics.
You should also watch out for incorrect schema inputs or typos, as they must align with the standardized Schema.org vocabulary that is expected. Sitebulb’s structured data checker can easily validate your inputs.
Site Structure
Website structure is how our information is laid out and how pages are connected with one another. A well-structured site facilitates better crawling and indexing by search engines, making it easier for potential linking partners to discover and reference the site.
A well-optimized site structure enhances its ability to attract high-value backlinks by improving site authority through quality content and user experience, ensuring relevance through organizing and facilitating strategic link placement within the content. By focusing on these aspects during technical audits, webmasters can create an environment conducive to earning valuable backlinks that significantly boost SEO performance.
At a high level, you can visualize your website’s structure to understand if you have followed good practice. A visualization like Sitebulb’s “Directory map” view for example can be a good way of identifying anomalies or just poor overall structure.
This also ties in with internal links, as you want to ensure you do not have pages that have been buried too deep into the site with a lack of internal links, particularly if you have orphan pages or pages with just 1 link. Where this will affect the site from a link-building point of view is if that page happens to have some good-quality backlinks—then link equity will not flow as well around the site.
Link Redirects & Broken Links
Fixing broken links on your site, or dead (404 pages), because broken pages that have backlinks, will not pass that link equity onto other pages. Redirects should also be appropriately done for the same reason. If a URL no longer exists, but there is a more suitable page that you can redirect it to, then make sure to do so.
Effective link building strategies
Even if you don’t have budget for any creative digital PR campaigns, you can successfully amplify link-building efforts by considering the following actionable strategies:
Creating Linkable Assets
Do substantial research and develop valuable resources such as infographics, research reports, or tools that others would want to link to.
Even when citing secondary sources, make sure that the data is clear and to the point. This will help create a hub of the most relevant statistics in your industry, which will help build and attract quality backlinks. For example, here’s an example from Synup, which put together a new data study about local SERP rankings. This type of resource is based on unique, brand new research, so it will naturally generate interest and therefore links.
Email outreach
You can reach out to other websites and blogs with personalized messages proposing content collaboration. In addition, you can also reach your potential collaborator via social media.
Guest blogging
There might be authoritative blogs in your niche, and you can contribute to them via guest posting, including backlinks to your site. This is a great strategy for successfully getting more links to your website and building authority.
Giving input to such blogs will most likely allow you to bring yourself into contact with their audience and grow your reach. The websites you choose should be trustworthy and relevant to your domain to get the real value out of it.
Placing the link
Where you place the link also plays a role in link building. Links placed within relevant content are more effective than those placed in headers or conclusions. The structure of your content should make the embedded links look more natural to increase their visibility and click-through rates. This can be achieved by placing links in sections that provide additional value or context to the reader and go with the flow of the content.
The role of technical audits
While developing these strategies, technical audits can help you make more informed decisions. Let’s understand them in detail:
Load time
Conducting a technical audit will include analysis of a webpage’s load time, which also affects user experience and SEO rankings.
How your pages perform in terms of speed will not only impact their ability to rank but also whether potential “linkers” will link to or share your content and find browsing your site a good experience. So make sure to also look at the Core Web Vitals and metrics such as Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), First Contentful Paint (FCP), and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
Depending on the tool you are using, it may only analyze a sample of your pages. However, Sitebulb gives you the option to adjust this, but a sample size of around 10% is typically advised.
Easy navigation
When users find a site easy to navigate, they are more likely to link to it from their sites or recommend it to others.
Additionally, utilizing a website visitor identification tool provides valuable insights into user behavior. This can help you optimize navigation paths and pinpoint content hotspots that will lead to link-building opportunities and capture your targeted audience.
Accessibility
A technical audit also helps with your site's accessibility. If the site is accessible, it's more available to a broader audience, including individuals with disabilities. An accessible site not only improves the user experience but also increases the likelihood of earning backlinks from various organizations, particularly those with strict accessibility compliance standards, such as government institutions.
These organizations often have policies that restrict linking to websites that do not meet specific accessibility criteria. Therefore, having proper alt text for images and ensuring that text is readable by visually impaired users is crucial for maintaining these links and enhancing overall site visibility. Sitebulb can also help you conduct an accessibility site audit.
Metrics for evaluating link quality
Domain authority (DA) is a score given to websites that predicts how well they will rank on search engines. The higher the DA, the better. However, it's important to note that DA is not a metric used by Google for its ranking algorithms; rather, it is an independent measure created by Moz based on various factors, primarily link data.
Anchor text diversity refers to the different types of anchor text used in the backlinks. Due to the algorithm, a diverse anchor text profile is better to avoid search engine penalties.
Organic traffic measures the number of users visiting the website from search engine pages. While DA does provide insights into a site’s health it should not be taken at face value. A website with a higher DA does not guarantee good organic traffic. Some sites may have high DA but low traffic due to poor content quality or lack of audience engagement.
A link from a high-DA site that is irrelevant to your content may not significantly improve organic traffic and overall SEO performance. You should focus more on building relationships with reputable sites that share your target audience.
Conclusion and future of link building
Integrating link building with technical audits is essential for long-term SEO success. Search engine algorithms will evolve, so our strategies must be up-to-date. The future of link building will likely see a shift in quality over quantity, focusing on building genuine connections between websites.
In short, your business can remain competitive in an ever-changing digital landscape by aligning technical audits and link-building efforts.
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Amit Raj is the founder of The Links Guy, an agency specializing in link building strategies for businesses aiming to improve their online visibility. With experience across industries like SaaS, eCommerce, and logistics, Amit now shares valuable insights into how link building works hand-in-hand with technical SEO to enhance overall website performance and drive business growth.
