How Backlinks Increase your Pharmacy Website’s SEO Performance

For the past many years, Google algorithms keep on changing. Still, marketers use backlinks to enhance search engine rankings and performance while recognizing the gravity of link building to some degree.

Within the noise of competition in the health and medical business, backlinks work as a “vote of confidence” from one pharmacy website to another healthcare company. It compels an indication of value to Google where thousands of websites battle for top positions, influenced by dozens of factors.

If you link your website with trustworthy and authoritative sites, you can easily level up your website. Indeed, links determine the number of backlinks, but if you get backlinks from recognized websites, then you can easily get a top spot on the search engine results pages. 

Establishing backlinks stands as one of the essential parts of SEO. This blog discusses the nature of backlinks and the background for each quality backlinks necessary for your pharmacy website’s SEO performance.

Backlinks and Your Pharmacy Website’s SEO Performance

Backlinks are links between websites. If another website links to yours, you have a backlink. If your site includes an external link, that works as a backlink for the target site.

Thus, backlinks play a major part in how search engines rank your site. However, not all will have a positive impact on your ranking so you need to choose among the high-authority websites that people trust.

Having backlinks not only helps improve SEO but also fosters brand recognition. Links in a blog post stand out, and some people hover over them before they even read the post.

For the reader, having the best linking strategy creates an association between your brand and the topic of the post. So, backlinks allow you to reach people who may not otherwise be aware of your business or blog.

As backlinks help establish a relationship with your audience, it attracts new social media followers. Then, building a backlink network works easily using only two steps:

• Create high-quality content that’s worth linking to.
• Find sites that are willing to link to yours and reach out to them.

Both those link-building steps come with challenges. Creating high-quality content requires domain knowledge and creativity and researching potential link sites can be time-consuming.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Also known as “inbound” or “incoming” links, backlinks create a bridge as one website links to another website. For example, if a children’s vitamin (Website A) links to a blog post comparing the best vitamins in 2021 (Website B), the pharmacy website receives a vote of confidence in the form of a ‘backlink’.

Hence, backlinks work is important for SEO because they signal to Google that another resource finds your content valuable enough to link to it within their own content. As a website earns additional backlinks, search engines infer that the website possesses valuable content worth ranking well on the SERPs.

How to Earn Backlinks?

Gaining backlinks stands as an essential component of off-site SEO strategy. In fact, backlinks work as the most significant off-site ranking factor.

Websites receive backlinks in three primary ways.

a. Natural Links

Primarily, natural links work without any action on the part of the website owner. Backlinks from quality sites create traffic and improve SEO performance.

For example, the children’s vitamin website illustration above would involve a natural link if the pharmacy website had no role in receiving that link. One of the best ways to organically obtain natural links is by consistently creating high-quality content.

b. Manual Links

Notably, websites acquire manual links through link earning activities. If the pharmacy website reaches out to the children’s vitamin page while requesting a link, the backlink works manually.

Guest blogging for a relevant website works as another strategic method to gaining a manual link. So, be sure to link to your website within the content.

C. Self-Created Links

Webmasters create a self-created link when a site manager manually adds a backlink into a forum, blog comment, or online directory. Everyone needs to carefully create self-created links even though it appears as one of the easiest ways to gain backlinks.

Many of the tactics tend toward “black hat SEO” strategies that negatively impact search engine reputation. Then, you need to label each self-created link with “no follow” tags.

Are All Backlinks Valuable?

While backlinks’ work is generally desirable, not all backlinks stand valuable as others. Some links function inherently more advantageous to earn while you need to avoid with lower rating and performance.

Understanding the influencers of backlink value crucially works for link building and evaluating the health of your backlink profile. If your content gets links from other sites, that content naturally starts to rank higher in the search results.

So, you need to get proactive and build them. Then, prioritize creating links to individual posts/pages along with those leading to your homepage.

Search engine bots discover new webpages by following backlinks from existing webpages. They crawl your site effectively when they naturally discover your site.

Search engine bots can’t easily find your site if you do not have any backlinks. Especially for a new website, getting backlinks helps in the faster discovery and indexing of your site.

What influences backlink value?

When you think about search engine optimization (SEO), you need to look at all of the facets that make up a successful strategy. It includes content, keywords, meta tags, and backlinks.

Also known as an inbound or one-way link, backlinks simply link a point inside your pharmacy website from another website. So, it helps marketers promote your blog or site just by hyperlinking to you from another source.

Backlinks affect your SEO and your SERP (search engine results page) ranking. Notably, search engines use algorithms to gather information and rank pages, and they use bots and spiders to crawl your site for content and backlinks.

Search engines aggregate the volume and relevance of all of the pages linking to your site which impacts your page rank. So, getting better with your backlinks means ranking better with your SERP.

Easy enough, right? Well, not so fast. When it comes to backlinks, quality matters.

1. Follow vs. no-follow backlinks

Site owners specify an individual link if it passes link equity or not. A no-follow link does not pass link equity – colloquially called “link juice” – to the linking domain, while a follow link does.

While followed backlinks work more desirable, no-follow links from high-quality websites help as a beneficial method to enhance your brand. Interestingly, local SEO strategy views follow and no follow links from relevant, localized websites as equally valuable.

2. Authority of linking domain

Backlinks obtained from linking domains of high authority usually offer more value (link equity) than links from low-quality, new, or spammy websites. So, you need to avoid backlinks from spammy websites whenever possible.

3. Link relevancy

Notably, Google knows if a backlink functions irrelevantly. If a gluten-free food in California links to your brick-and-mortar pharmacy in Dublin, the backlink remains extremely irrelevant.

4. Link location

Website architecture works significantly for Google as it positions the link on the page. For example, a backlink tucked in the footer of a page passes much equity as one added in a relevant blog post paragraph.

5. Link number

A backlink listed among hundreds or thousands of links on a single page doesn’t contain any value as a link referenced among fewer. Beyond link equity, a user needs to locate your link among the hundreds and click through to your content, eliminating value.

6. Anchor text

The anchor text appears as one of the visible characters or words that display a hyperlink within content, often underlined and uniquely colored. In the previous sentence, “anchor text” works as the anchor text for an outbound link.

Certain anchor text functions well while displaying SEO-friendly characteristics. It passes more equity than others with preferable succinct, relevant, and non-generic text.

For example, linking to this blog post with the anchor “importance of backlinks for SEO” works preferably to linking with the generic text “click here.”

How to Get the Right Backlinks

The different types of backlinks require various ways to get them with the best content marketing strategy. Acquiring backlinks doesn’t require any technical skills, it ascends towards networking and relationship building.

The best way to get organic backlinks works through quality content since another site only links to you if you give them a compelling reason to.

Some ways to improve your chances of getting the best backlinks:

• Write articles, press releases, case studies, blog posts, and other shareable content.
• Don’t forget infographics—backlinks can be from images too!
• Regularly add new blog content and guest post on other blogs.
• Stay active on social media and always link back to relevant content on your site.
• Take advantage of quality search directories and directory sites
• Make it easy for people to share what you create with social share tools and links.

Thus, the better your content means more backlinks you earn. Just by linking to you, referring vouches for your business or blog.

Definitely, businesses don’t want to send their trusting audience to a site with lousy content. When you ask for a backlink, your content scrutinizes the referring site owner as long as you provide the content which meets their standards.

How Backlinks Impact SEO?

Backlinks serve as endorsements. Each subtle indication functions as the person or company linking to your site approve of your blog or business.

Then, your target audience received an impression by this endorsement and contributes to the value of backlinks. Your site visitors and search engines notice backlinks as a valuable part of the website.

Backlinks tell Google that others approve of your content. When its algorithms assess the number and quality of sites that link to yours—a high number indicates that your content has value, so it receives a higher ranking in search results.

But the number of sites linking to yours works as one example of how backlinks impact SEO.

Check out these ways how Google analyzes your backlinks and uses the information to determine your ranking.

Age

The longer a backlink sticks around, the better. Google ranks your site higher if your backlinks age older, while newly created backlinks remain less valuable.

Authority

When a linking site has a very high ranking in search results, that backlink perceives it as having a higher value than one from a site that appears buried in search results.

Relevancy

A backlink from a site that does something similar to yours has a more positive impact on ranking than a link from an unrelated site to your niche. This relevancy analysis extends down to the page level.

Diversity

Are all your backlinks from blog posts?

Notably, a disproportionate number of backlinks from a single source warns Google that your links may not be organic. The search engine favors a natural link profile, with backlinks from a wide variety of source types.

Context

Backlinks that appear in a page’s content do more for your ranking than those found somewhere else, like in the sidebar or footer.

Even the location within the content stands importantly. For example, a backlink at the beginning of a blog article works with Google better than one that shows up at the end.

Content Length & Quality

Backlinks from long blog posts need to go over about 1000 words. It receives a greater impact on SEO than a link from a short blurb.

So, content quality matters too. Backlinks from plagiarized and content full of spelling errors don’t help your ranking as much as links from high-quality content.

Google uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze your backlinks. It works as a factor in determining where your site ranks in search results and helps in the better ranking of your website in the SERPs.

Avoid Black Hat Techniques

Generally, do not use black hat techniques or other unseemly tactics to acquire them. Experts agree that building them steadily over time works efficiently, rather than get 100 overnight by purchasing them.

Google and other search engines flag black hat techniques that damage your reputation and get you banned. So, your website needs to get backlinks gradually rather than getting a thousand at a time to build trust among the search engines.

How to Find Websites to Get Backlinks?

After creating and publishing content inside your website, you need to find websites with the potential of giving backlinks to your website. Once successful, your pharmacy website improves your SEO ranking performance.

However, it remains a big challenge with sites with a relevant connection to your blog or business. Plenty of article submission sites and blog networks meet everyone’s backlink needs.

Google’s search algorithms punish sites that engage in spam link building. The artificial link-building techniques that works beautifully in the past push your site to the 10th page of search results.

Hence, site owners need to get a little more creative when finding backlink opportunities. In this section, we explore some ways that link to yours, with a focus on backlink quality over quantity.

Send a Pitch and Ask for a Backlink

Simply asking a site by mere pitching works as one of the easiest ways to get other sites to link to yours.

Who do you need to ask? To answer that, use Google comprehensively. For pharmacy websites, search for blogs or other sites that publish a weekly or monthly digest, roundup, or any kind of newsletter with updates about the medical field.

For example, use your website’s keyword plus “roundup,”, and cherry-pick sites that have the most current and consistently published content. The sites that appear in the search results give you the best quality backlink.

Email the site owners or webmasters, introduce yourself and your site, and provide a link to your best content. Then, a percentage of those you contact find your content useful and they’ll link to it in their next post.

Publish Guest Articles for Backlinks

When you write an article published on another website, you receive at least one backlink in the bag. After all, you control what appears in the post when you include multiple links to exactly the parts of your site that you want to highlight.

Backlinks aside, guest posts remain a great way to gain exposure to a new audience. Also, it bolsters your reputation as a leader in your field and expands your social media following.

When it’s time to find a site that’s willing to publish your guest article, several ways work well to go about it:

• Search for blogs that accept guest posts. Construct search strings that include your keyword, plus “guest posts,” “bloggers wanted,” or “contribute,” for example. The results point you in the right direction.
• Research blog writers that have the most influence. See if your currently published content contributes to the same sites they post on.
• Mine social media. Search Twitter or Facebook using the same kinds of search strings mentioned above.

In addition to a backlink that directs the reader to your site, include links to your social media profiles when you write a guest article. You have a chance to give people multiple ways to stay current with your business or blog, so make the most of it.

Pounce on Broken Links

Notably, broken links function as a gold mine when it comes to earning backlinks. Find relevant sites related to your niche that include a Resources page as your prime target.

Search using your keyword, plus the word “links” or “resources.” Once you choose few sites that match your website, use a tool like Check My Links to find any broken links that exist on the site.

Thus, you need to reach out to the site owner with a friendly email reporting the broken link. It stands as a chance for your opportunity to suggest a link to your content as part of the fix.

We recommend a gentle approach to carry out this task. Explain that the site links to a resource that’s no longer available.

When suggesting a replacement, in addition to your link, include a few other options. This sells the idea that you try to help, not just begging for a backlink.

Tighten the Deal with a Testimonial

With this topic, you need to begin to notice a trend. Many of the best ways to get backlinks to involve providing something to the linking site, then asking for a backlink.

Writing a testimonial works as a great example of that approach. Probably, high-authority sites you use when you’re running your business or blog.

If a leading site in your field is a valuable resource to you, there’s a very good chance your audience knows about it too. Any association between that kind of site and yours receive a positive impact on SEO and get you more traffic.

Thus, a glowing testimonial remains valuable. Providing one to a handful of high-profile sites related to your business or blog earns you at least a couple of backlinks.

If you’re going to go to the trouble of writing a testimonial, make it for a site like that. Plus, these businesses give the highest-value backlinks because of the increased exposure you gain by associating your site with a major player.

Convert Link-less Mentions into Backlinks

The unlinked mention truly works as the low-hanging fruit of link-building. When your blog or business gets mentioned in an article, but the reference doesn’t actually link to your site, it stands as an easy target for requesting a backlink.

What makes this approach so easy? You already have your foot in the door. A friendly email with the suggested URL always gets a positive response with a new backlink for your site.

Quality Backlinks Lead to Increased Site Performance

Having a great link network is critical if you want to improve your site’s SEO and gain more traffic. Sites with many links from respected domains outperform those without them.

In this article, we’ve taken a hard look at what backlinks are and examined some of the ways they can impact SEO. We offered some suggestions about how to create link-worthy content and get site owners to add your backlink.

If you apply the suggested techniques, you should see an improvement in your site’s ranking in search results over time. That will mean more traffic to your site and more blog readers, followers, subscribers, prospects, and customers.

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Keyword: Backlinks