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Backlinks and Interlinking: the Perfect Formula for a Great SEO

In the competitive world of SEO, where keywords often steal the spotlight, two strategic pillars frequently go unnoticed: backlinks and interlinking. If you want to climb the search engine rankings, optimising your keywords alone isn’t enough; you need a solid link structure that boosts your authority and relevance. How do these two concepts work? Let us explain in this article.

Backlinks: The Direct Route to SEO Authority

A backlink is a link from another website pointing to yours. Think of them as votes of confidence: every backlink signals to search engines that your content is valuable and worth referencing. However, not all backlinks are created equal; quality is key to achieving effective results.

Factors that make a backlink strong:

  • Domain Authority and Relevance: A link from a high-authority website carries a far more weight than one from an unknown blog.
  • Naturalness: Google penalises unethical link schemes. Backlinks should be generated organically and within relevant contexts.

A well-designed backlink strategy not only improves your search engine rankings, but also increases referral traffic to your website. The key to obtaining quality backlinks lies in creating unique, valuable content that encourages other sites to link to you. 

How to get quality backlinks:

  • Collaborate with other websites: Building relationships with relevant brands or blogs in your sector can be an excellent source of natural backlinks.
  • Create “linkable” content: Articles with exclusive data, case studies, infographics or lists tend to be highly shared and referenced.

Interlinking: The Internal Architecture that Optimises SEO Flow

Interlinking, or internal linking, is the practice of connecting different pages within your own website. This process not only enhances user navigation, but also makes it easier for search engines or to index and understand the structure of your content. 

Main benefits of interlinking:

  • Improves User Experience (UX): Effective interlinking guides visitors to related content, increasing the time they spend on your site and reducing bounce rate.
  • Distributes “Link Juice”: Each page on your site has an authority value. By linking internally, you share some of that value with other pages, helping them rank better.
  • Facilitates Indexing: Search engine bots can crawl and better understand your site’s structure when pages are well connected.
  • Encourages Navigation: Interlinking can guide users to other key sections of your website. 

Best practices for effective interlinking:

  • Use descriptive anchor texts that include relevant keywords.
  • Prioritise linking to related, high-value content for your users.
  • Avoid overloading a page with too many links; this can confuse both users and search engines. 
  • Create content clusters: group several pages covering related topics through internal links. 

The Synergy Between Backlinks and Interlinking

Backlinks and interlinks each have their own purpose, but their true power comes from working together. Imagine a high-authority backlink pointing to one of your key pages. With a good interlinking strategy, you can redirect some of that “link juice” to other relevant pages on your site, maximising the backlink’s impact.

For instance, if an article on your blog receives a relevant external link, use internal links from that article to guide users to your products, services or related content. This enhances user navigation while strengthening the authority of multiple pages within your website.

In the world of SEO, there are no magic solutions, but combining quality backlinks with effective interlinking is as close as it gets to a winning formula. Backlinks help you gain relevance and authority externally, whereas interlinking ensures that authority is maximised within your site.

Remember: SEO is an ongoing process. Monitor your strategies, analyse results and make adjustments as needed.

Need help with your SEO strategy? Contact us.