If you’re interested in the world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you probably heard about backlinks. Backlinks are a crucial part of any effective SEO strategy. They help your website establish credibility, and in all likelihood, rank higher in search engines.

In this article, we’re going to learn what backlinks are, why they are important, and how to build effective backlinking strategies that will drive more traffic to your website!

What is a backlink?

A backlink (or an inbound link) is a link that connects one website to another. These links essentially represent visitors coming from another website to yours, and they’re used by search engines such as Google and Bing to gauge the popularity of your website. Basically, when lots of people link to your website, it tells search engines that your content is interesting and relevant.

However, not all backlinks are considered to have the same level of “quality”. Search engines see certain sites as having more authority (or trustworthiness) than others. So backlinks from websites with high authority are more desirable as they will have a much greater impact on your rankings than hundreds of links from websites with low authority.

Earning valuable, high-quality backlinks can have a huge impact on your site's overall ranking position and the amount of organic traffic. So it’s well worth putting some effort into understanding how a strong backlinking strategy can benefit your website or business!

How can I find (and manage) my backlinks?

If you use Google Webmaster tools to manage your site, you can check the Links report to find all your backlinks. Alternatively, you can use other tools, such as Moz’ Link Explorer or Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker, to produce a detailed report of your inbound links. 

If you find any bad (or spammy) backlinks, it’s a good idea to remove them, as they can have a negative effect on your site’s page rank! In order to do this, follow these steps:

• Request removal from the offending site: See if you can find a contact page with an email or form to send inquiries, or you can try a WHOIS domain lookup to find the contact information. Then ask them to remove any links to your website. While the chances of a response are low, it’s a step required by Google before asking them to ignore the link. 

• Use Google’s ‘Disavow links’ tool: Fortunately, Google allows you to disavow the backlinks you don’t want associated with your website. You can use this tool to submit a file containing all the links that you want ignored. See Disavow links to your site to learn how.

How to tell if a backlink is right for you

You should always consider the following when determining if a backlink is a good fit for your business website:

• Is it relevant? The best opportunities come from related niche websites within your industry. For example, if you sell programming courses, backlinks from other similar websites or even websites reviewing programming courses would add a ton of credibility and be highly beneficial for your SEO.

• Does it have authority? The higher the authority of the website linking to you, the better! Mozbar and Ahrefs both provide a free tool that you can use to check the authority scores for websites. 

• Is the link genuine? If the link comes from a website with a high authority score, it’s safe to assume that it’s genuine. However, there are many sites out there that seek to manipulate the system, by providing false reviews and ratings in an attempt to pretend to be authoritative. These sites may appear authentic but will rank very low when it comes to organic search results, so the authority score will always tell the full story.

• Is the website indexed? If you’re unsure, check that the website providing the link is indexed properly in search engines. To do this, in the search engine ‘search bar’ enter "site:" followed by the URL of the domain (e.g. "site:example.com"). If the site isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in search results, so there is no point in accepting the link.

5 backlink building techniques

So how do you get your links on other people’s websites? The process is known as link building and it’s by no means easy. It may be tempting to get as many links as you can, but as we know, the quality matters much more than the quantity; the last thing you want is for search engines to consider your website as spam!

Here are some techniques you can use to gain quality links, and in turn, boost your ranking in search engines.

1. Create quality content

When you create quality content that provides value to your visitors, they are far more likely to share it! You can also accelerate your efforts by getting the word out on social media. You’ll gain a bunch of backlinks as users find and share your content, and with a little luck, it could be shared by an influencer or authority within your industry.

2. Be active in online communities

If you participate in online communities (e.g. forums) that are relevant to your niche, you can get your name out there and even pick up a few referrals! If you’re not sure where to start, try typing the name of your industry along with ‘forum’ or ‘discussion board’ in your search engine of choice.

This search should find a number of popular forums where you can engage and potentially help answer common questions. Often just completing your profile will score you a backlink, as these sites are likely to ask for your website in the registration process. Then, the more active you are in the online community, the more likely you are to generate backlinks to your website.

3. Comment on relevant blogs

It’s always worth following the leading blogs in your industry and commenting when you feel you can add something of value. The goal isn’t just to comment for the sake of having your link posted, but rather to contribute in a way that makes a solid impression, this way you can gain more significant traffic to your website. 

You can even become a guest blogger if you want to further get your name out there. Contact the leading blogs in your industry and ask if you can contribute a useful article for their readers. By providing them with content, you’ll often be rewarded with a backlink in the form of an author bio with a link to your website.

4. Get listed in online directories

Online directories exist for just about every industry. Be sure to seek out directories that are both relevant to your niche and, if applicable, your location. Once you find a suitable directory, you can submit your page to their listing. Just perform a simple search to find directories related to your industry.

5. Sponsor relevant events

It’s always a great idea to stay connected with your industry; this way you can be the first to find out about online events that you can sponsor. By sponsoring events you are not only signaling that you are a key player, but gaining a ton of backlinks via the event website itself, and even in any social media surrounding the event. Online events are wonderful opportunities as attendees are often highly engaged, and you can truly gain a ton of exposure for your business.

Wrapping up

Now that you know how to spot a good backlink when you see one, it’s time to get out there and get noticed!

While it can definitely take some time to secure quality links, these strategies will have you well on the way to soaring up in page rank as you drive more traffic to your website

Interested in learning more about SEO? Check out these articles:

Are these common practices damaging your website’s SEO?

Technical SEO, a Beginner's Guide

Beginner's Guide to SEO: The 3 Types of SEO

SEO has become a huge industry, worth approximately $80 billion, and for good reason. The vast majority of website visits come from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Companies go through great lengths to invest in proper SEO, to increase their rankings and thereby increasing traffic to their valuable websites.

Being on the second page of a Google search is essentially like being invisible. Indeed, visitors are unlikely to click-through even if you appear further down on the first results page and not within the top three results!

Here are a few considerations in order to avoid inadvertently hurting your SEO, so you can truly optimize your efforts and maximize your page ranking potential.

You don’t have a top-level domain

Let’s start with your site name. Your top-level domain (TLD) - the ending of your website URL - impacts both your page rank and the likelihood that people will visit and remember your site. 

A recent survey found that .COM is 33% more memorable than other TLDs. This only proves that even when you have taken additional steps to maximize your SEO, you can still damage your position by having a site that people cannot remember.

Local TLDs (e.g. country-specific TLDs) can also improve your chances of appearing high in local search results. Google gives preference to sites that are locally relevant to search users. So make sure that your provider can give you access to the domain names you need or allows you to transfer domain names you have acquired elsewhere easily.

Your website is too slow

Google uses load speed as a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile searches.

The effects of slow site loading go far beyond SEO. Studies show that a quarter of visitors abandon sites that take more than four seconds to load, and nearly 50% will not return to sites with slow load speeds. Moreover, as load speed goes from 1 second to 10 seconds, the probability of a site visitor leaving increases by 123%. Therefore, you should ensure that your website hosting plan can allow you to achieve page load times of 3 seconds or less. 

In addition to choosing the right plan, you can also optimize your website’s load speed yourself. Strip away unnecessary features, especially if they involve resource-intensive content such as flash or plug-ins. Ensure that you use optimized images. Take advantage of performance tools like PageSpeed Insights to continuously monitor your load speeds.

Using structured data can also help you drastically improve your load speed and page rank. Structured data is a “lightweight” addition to sites, making them load faster than having more cumbersome site elements. In addition, according to Google, structured data helps them to understand the context of your site and decide how to display it (for example, on special search results such as maps of services or recipe pages). 

With the proper provider and streamlined structure, you can dramatically increase your SEO impact and the likelihood that visitors will stay once they have found you. 

Your website isn’t mobile-first

The concept ‘mobile-first’ means that your website is designed around mobile devices before desktop. Why? Because as of 2018, Google has increasingly given priority to mobile versions of web pages for ranking and indexing purposes. This is largely influenced by the fact that an increasing majority of users now access Google Search using mobile devices.

To ensure your website is given priority, you’ll need to give your mobile visitors the best experience possible. Here are a few ways you can do this:

1. Make sure the mobile version of your website contains the same content as the desktop version. Google made it clear: if you do not, you will experience a drop in traffic
2. Ensure your mobile load speeds are just as fast as desktop. Google specifically spearheaded the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project for this reason
3. Make sure Googlebot can access and render both mobile and desktop page content and resources (See mobile-first indexing best practices to learn how)
4. Use the same meta robots tags on your mobile and desktop site
5. Ensure your mobile and desktop sites have the same structured data
6. Have the same headings on your mobile and desktop site

By using these techniques you can positively affect your website’s SEO and drive more organic traffic to your site.

Putting it all together

Many companies put a lot of work into their website’s SEO, but most don’t realize that a few common practices are often damaging their rankings. The Google content algorithm changes frequently & it’s crucial to keep up with these changes to stay ahead of the competition. 

The more you stay up to date with these changes and focus the right efforts on SEO, the better the chance you will attract site visitors who stay, come back, and tell others to visit too.

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the standard scripting language for documents designed to be displayed on the web. It essentially tells web browsers how to understand the structure and style of a page, and even allows your web pages to contain forms, host audio, video, and much more.

If you’d like to learn more about web development, or are interested in taking a peek under the hood of how websites work, this article is for you!

Firstly, some definitions:

Hypertext is the method by which internet users navigate the web. By clicking on special text called hyperlinks, users are brought to new pages. 

A markup language is a system made up of tags that define the elements within a document. Markup files are designed to be human-readable, containing standard words rather than a more complicated programming syntax.

In this article, we review the basics of HTML, how it works, how it relates to CSS and JavaScript, and we’ve included a number of resources for improving your knowledge if you’d like to learn more!

• So how does HTML work?
• What does basic HTML look like?
• Does HTML ever change and evolve?
• How does HTML relate to CSS and JavaScript?
• Want to learn more?

So how does HTML work?

A typical website consists of a number of HTML pages, such as a home page, an about page, and a contact page. Each of these pages are HTML documents saved with an .html or .htm extension, that the browser is designed to interpret and display to viewers.

These pages are made up of a number of HTML tags and elements, which serve as the building blocks of the page. Let’s see an example to bring this concept together:

This is an example of an HTML element, it’s enclosed in a tag (e.g. the <p> tag), which defines where the element begins and ends. Another way to think of elements is as the content of a tag.

Let’s now look at how tags and elements combine to form a complete HTML page.

What does basic HTML look like?

As you can see, an HTML document consists of a number of elements that define the structure of the page:

In this example:

• <!DOCTYPE html> tells the browser that it’s dealing with an HTML document
• <html> is the root element that defines the whole document
• <head> contains meta-information about the page, such as <title>
• <title> contains the title to show in the browser window's title bar and tab name
• <body> defines the documents’ body, it’s essentially a container for all the visible elements such as headings, paragraphs, images, links, etc.
• <h1> creates a heading; tags ranging from <h1> (largest) to <h6> (smallest) can be used as desired
• <p> creates a paragraph
• <img> used to insert an image; the source can be a URL or a path to a file on your server
• <a> creates a hyperlink to a URL defined by the href attribute

This HTML code will render in your browser like so:

As you can see, the browser doesn't display the tags but rather interprets them in order to render and display your page correctly to the end user.

Does HTML ever change and evolve?

Yes! HTML was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in late 1991 but was not released officially at the time. HTML 2.0 was published in 1995 and has undergone several major revisions since, with each new version bringing in new tags and attributes. 

Today we are at HTML 5.0 which introduced native support for audio and video, as well as semantic markup; including dedicated tags for navigation elements, articles, sections, headers, and footers.

How does HTML relate to CSS and JavaScript?

As we have seen, HTML does a fantastic job of defining the structure of a web page. However, long gone are the days of purely HTML-based websites! To build a modern website, you’re going to need to enlist the help of some other web technologies, enter CSS & JavaScript!

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are responsible for styling HTML elements, such as colors, backgrounds, fonts, animations, and layout. 

JavaScript is the code that makes elements dynamic, it can be used to create page sliders, interactive pop-ups, and photo galleries, even to build complex animation and control multimedia.

Together, these three technologies form the backbone of modern front-end web development. When combined, having the power to build just about anything, is your reward!

Want to learn more?

If you’d like to take a deeper dive, there really has been no better time to learn! There are a ton of free courses online that can teach you everything you’d ever need to know. 

Check out the following resources:

• FreeCodeCamp: With over 7000 free tutorials, you can learn by completing quizzes, building projects, and even earn certifications when you complete a course.
• Codecademy: Has fantastic introductory courses offered for free with interactive tutorials for visual learners. A Pro plan is available for $19.99 per month with exclusive member content.
• W3Schools: Has a free HTML tutorial series, which includes an interactive “Try it Yourself” editor, allowing you to experiment with code in the browser. The course is also available in video format for $9.99.

Other recommended articles, perfect for beginners in tech:

What is web hosting, anyway?

Beginner's Guide to DNS and Nameservers

Technical SEO, a Beginner's Guide

Starting a new business can seem overwhelming and expensive, but with the right tools and strategy, you can get up and running (and making sales) in little time and with minimal investment!

We’ll go over 5 free tools that can help you start or manage your small business and increase your chances of success. Easy to use, each of these platforms offers a free version, which is often more than enough when starting a new project. 

We’ll also cover the paid upgrade of each tool, so you can better determine if those few dollars a month are worth your investment now, or later on in your business’ life cycle. Talk about platforms that grow with you and your biz!

Canva - Visual design platform

We already know that every great business starts with a website, but how do you create the visual content for this site? Or the banners, or the social media posts or any other materials? Creating your own visual content can quickly become one of the most overwhelming parts of starting or growing a new business.

Enter, Canva! (By far, our very own favorite here at WHC!) This jam-packed online design app also doubles as a publishing platform. It has everything you need to make any digital or traditional promotional content, from social posts, to printed brochures. 

This company’s mission says it all: ‘to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere’... and it does not disappoint. With over 400,000 templates and access to tons of stock photos and videos, you can literally design anything you may want or need for your biz all by yourself. 

Upgrade

Switching to the paid version gives you access to even more visual content, fonts, branding options, and the possibility to connect multiple users to your account for even better content management with a team (or a virtual assistant).

Evernote - Note taking platform

Keeping track of your to-do list and notes can be a headache, and the Notes app in your iPhone just won’t cut it, especially for longer lists and content. Neither will the paper pad you used in the 80s or that beautiful notebook with namaste on the cover you just bought at Indigo.

This amazing tool is ‘designed for note taking, organizing, task management, and archiving’. We love it for meeting notes, to-do lists, brainstorming and more! Better yet you can share these with teammates as well, for collaboration purposes.

Use the camera to scan receipts, bills or new business cards. Getting organized from the get-go means payroll and tax season will become a regular Tuesday afternoon. Plus, going paperless makes sense for the planet (and the clutter on your desk). In the same way that organizing your ideas takes care of the clutter in your head.

Upgrade

Signing up for the paid version can include access to calendar accounts for better scheduling, email forwarding, advanced exporting options and so much more! This solution offers a variety of packages to suit your needs as your business continues to grow.

PayPal - Payment processor

PayPal simplifies payments for you and your customers and is typically the number one choice for Canadian startups or small businesses. PayPal is a trusted payment processor, and has been around since 1998. It handles more than $150 billion in transactions related to payments every year, making it the world’s largest payment system. It’s a proven, secure way to purchase products and services or transfer money, and it’s free for users. Just so you know, we at WHC accept Paypal payments on all our services.

Setting up PayPal is easy to do: Simply create an account, with a valid email, a business address, contact info and link it to your bank account. It can all be done within a few minutes. By creating a business account you can automatically send branded invoices after transactions, for example.

The majority of your clients will already be familiar and comfortable with the platform and trust this method of payment. And for those who don’t already have an account, they can even pay with a regular credit card. 

Once your Paypal account is created, you can even link it to your eCommerce app on your web hosting account through either a plugin or a setting. Common eCommerce platform integrations include: PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento and WooCommerce. 

Upgrade

If you want to get fancy with it, including customized checkout experiences, having customers pay without leaving your site or accepting payments over the phone, fax or through mail, you can sign up for Paypal Payments Pro.

Airtable - Project management solution (on steroids)

This is the platform we use here at WHC to manage our social media content, and our newsletter. And, we can say with all honesty that we absolutely love Airtable. However, don’t just take our word for it. Take the word of players like Netflix, Medium, Shopify, Expedia and 200,000 other leading organizations who use it too! 

Airtable gives you ‘the power of a database with the familiarity of a spreadsheet’. And boy is this thing powerful. From scheduling content, tracking campaigns or creating a CRM system for your business, it does it ALL. This tool is so incredibly powerful that even after using it for the last year, our team still hasn’t scratched the surface of its capabilities.

Upgrade

Need to integrate other applications? Or maybe you want more space for records? For a small annual fee, additional features like revisions, and field and table editing permissions can be added to your account.

Tik Tok - Social media platform

Where do we start with this absolute gem? Perfect for promoting startups, this social media platform is a gold mine for finding new customers for any type of business, from fashion apparel, to HR coaching services (we’re not kidding). It is one of the few social media platforms that favours great engaging content instead of creating weird algorithms that will show your content based on the number of your followers and how often you post (ew, gross). We’ve seen content creators go from 0-150k followers in just a couple of months (including our very own Marketing Manager here at WHC).

Upgrade

Want to promote a video that received lots of engagement already? Tik Tok now offers paid promotions so you can ‘boost’ your content and have it reach more people over time. Get enough followers, and you have access to additional features, like linking to your website (driving traffic and sales) or going live on the app to engage with your subscribers and increase your reach. Depending on where you live, you may even be invited into the Creator Fund where you can make money based on video views. Talk about an additional revenue stream for your small biz!

Overview

As you can see, starting a new business doesn’t have to be difficult, costly or stressful. There are many free tools and resources that can help startups to build and grow their business and in less time.

These same tools can be expanded and include additional beneficial features that will also continue to grow with you and your business needs for a small additional fee.

Have any other recommendations for fellow entrepreneurs? We’d love to hear them too! Drop a line in the comments and share your wisdom with all of us.

Other recommended articles, perfect for small businesses:

5 Reasons your business needs a website

How to drive Facebook's traffic to your website

How to start selling online