Does The Backlink Quality Or Quantity Matter More?
There is an unsettled dispute regarding the quantity or quality of backlinks that matter more in generating new business and getting customer engagement. As you might have guessed, there are promoters of both these ideas.
Although most of the emphasis is on quality, there are some proponents of the quantity as well. So, is only the quality is adequate and does the quantity not matter at all? We shall learn it in the following precis.
First of all, what is a backlink? It is a hyperlink embedded in a word, phrase or sentence on a website, blog, article, social media or mobile app description. These backlinks are strategically placed in the description or article to give a potential customer more information on a topic or direct them to the sales web page.
As per some SEO statistics in 2020, about 66.31% webpages do not have any backlinks. And 43.70% of webpages have reciprocal links. It implies that having a good number of backlinks is essential.
Just like backlinks, every other marketing strategy works for increasing the ranking and generating traffic.
The following points discuss quality and quantity backlinks and their several aspects.
1- Quality backlinks
Quality backlinks come from a high domain authority. Search Engines like Google and searcher trust the domain authority. Robots and human visitors trust the website alike.
Those who vote that the quality of a backlink are more critical than the quantity, also suggest that the domain authority of a website is in proportion to its trustworthiness; therefore, the link is better.
E.g., websites asking for verification whether you are a human or robot increases the trust factor in the visitor. The ranking value of the backlink increases with the domain authority.
Out of 100, 60+ ranking is exceptional; between 40 and 50 is fine; below 40 does not hold any importance.
Hence, building high-quality backlinks starts from building links from high domain authority websites and trusted by searches internetwide. Make sure to choose the right domain authority websites that are relevant to your industry. Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Success are some companies that use quality backlinks.
There are merits and demerits of quality backlinks and the method of making them. They are as follows.
a- Merits of quality backlinks
One of the reasons why quality backlinks are useful is that they effectively generate the right amount of traffic to a website. They are also helpful with domain authority and SEO ranking.
Therefore, with these types of backlinks, you can rest assured about your website’s rankings. You do not form a relationship with spam and untrustworthy websites, unknowingly. Quality backlinks give the extra set of assurance and trust.
This quality is essential for your link building strategy. It is also the only practical method that guarantees to make your domain authority.
This way, you can get a better ranking with relevant, meaningful and valuable links instead of unreliable practices. Hence, with more high-quality backlinks, you can expect better ranking too.
b- Demerits of quality backlinks
It may not sound obvious; however, quality backlinks also have some share of demerits in some cases. As stated above, you only get the right traffic and conversion if your website has a high domain authority; if not, then building those links will take a long time.
The quality backlinks are valuable but very difficult to get, and they also consume a lot of time. Quality will generate a small amount of traffic with high conversion probability.
The high-quality links are far fewer than the quantity links since building more links on massive domain authority websites in very challenging. Nevertheless, they offer good commitment due to high relevance to the main topic. This helps in attracting only potential customers.
Many companies never venture into building backlinks due to their time-consuming nature.
c- Getting high-quality backlinks
To make high-quality backlinks, you have to create infographics with useful information. You have to ask yourself as to ‘what is the most interesting aspect of my industry’ and ‘how to create an infographic which explains that the most interesting aspect.’
Another method is contacting the bloggers who have made similar blogs in the industry. You can even send free samples for in-depth reviews. This way, you can make sure that all aspects of your products are covered effectively. With the number of fan followers, these bloggers can help you drive more web traffic.
2- Quantity backlinks
Quantity backlink does not mean getting traffic from spammy websites. It means getting backlinks low and medium domain authority websites. They offer at least some level of reliability in comparison to spammy websites.
A spammy, thus, an unreliable website can affect their ranking a lot; therefore, they never deal with them. On the other hand, the low and medium domain authority websites do not offer quality but generate a fair amount of traffic with relevance and anchor text.
This process enables a company to get the proportionally higher amounts of traffic. This traffic is of low conversion probability and has a proportionally low conversion rate; however, the conversion is adequate due to the high amount of traffic.
There are merits and demerits of quantity backlinks as well. They are as follows. Also, below you can find methods of getting high quantity backlinks.
a- Merits of quantity backlinks
Making backlinks in a more significant number without concentrating on their effectiveness is a viable strategy. First of all, the process of quantity backlinks is quicker. Therefore, you can build links with everything you think will work for you. Also, you can create as many links as possible to get proportionally high traffic.
Secondly, they also help your website get a better ranking. Quantity backlinks usually are more effective in giving you a quicker and better ranking than quality backlinks. The numbers of referring domains and backlinks are also proportional to the website’s rank on Google.
Here referring domain means the number of domains digitally connected to a website. It does not mean the number of links in total but all the URLs.
In short, quantity backlinks are less time-consuming and effective.
b- Demerits of quantity backlinks
Quantity backlink is often contrasted with quality backlink; hence, the comparison is made on quality standards. One of the demerits is generating backlinks from spammy and untrustworthy websites. It affects the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) process.
Secondly, focusing purely on quantity and not on the quality will belittle all the links’ value. Nevertheless, even if you get marked as spam, you have ways to overcome it. However, understanding the importance of some quality is also essential.
In short, quantity backlinks can be an excellent investment but may affect the ranking.
c- Getting high-quantity backlinks
The first thing to bear in mind while making quantity backlinks is not to worry about the quality at all. Start with noting all the topics you can write to generate backlinks on them.
One of the most prevalent ways of building quantity backlinks is adding testimonials to external websites. After adding the testimonials, make sure to add backlinks near the footer.
You can approach the third-party website owner or contact him or her via email. You can offer to send free sample products and ask them to write a detailed blog on it.
The second method is approaching an influential blogger or website owner who has already mentioned your brand or product but has not linked it to your website. You can contact them asking for the needful, and in return, offer free products.
To conclude
Quality backlinks and quantity backlinks have their advantages and disadvantages, but they both work if we meet them midway. It is said that well-established brands often rely on quality backlinks; whereas, emerging brands do well with quantity backlinks to increase their digital presence. However, they too must have optimal level of quality.
