What is a link audit?
A link audit is the process of analyzing and reviewing all links pointing to your website. The positive and negative effects of these links on your website are evaluated - because not every backlink has to be a good, high-quality link and beneficial for you as a company.
How is a link audit related to SEO & Google ranking?
Backlinks are the recommendations of the Internet.
If a domain points to your website, then this is a backlink for your site. However, caution is also required - because not every backlink is a good backlink!
SEO (Search Engine Optimized) is based on 4 pillars and all of them have their justification in online marketing: The right technique, an optimized content, the focus on the customers and the strengthening of the backlinks profile. Backlink Building is a mostly underestimated SEO measure in the offpage area. However, companies should pay special attention to it, because if handled correctly, link building can be an excellent lever for your website in Google rankings. Therefore, this should definitely find a place in your company's marketing strategy mix.
Why is a link audit useful?
First of all, link building is about strengthening your own website and optimizing your website performance to eventually outperform your competitors with whom you are fighting for the same keyword in Google ranking. Every metric of the link audit has its justification and becomes meaningful in the context of the competition.
With so-called link audit tools, you can quickly and easily create an overview of your own link profile. Depending on which tools are used, the names of the metrics or the focus change. In the following section you will get to know the important metrics:
- Domain Rating
- Trust
- Power
Why should you perform a link audit on a regular basis?
You can generate backlinks by getting listed in business directories or providing content to other websites in exchange for links. But be careful what links you generate - A link is not just a link.
In addition, there is also the natural link building to watch out for and in the worst case scenario, your domain can also fall victim to Blackhat SEO and that is to be checked. The link audit looks at each link of your backlink profile individually, evaluates it based on several factors and additionally checks possible risks for a (dis)penalty with regard to the Google Penguin update.
At an SEO agency, tracking clients' backlink profiles counts as a continuous and standardized task. Google Search Console notifies the domain owner when links clearly violate the guidelines. Since 2021 it is possible to exclude bad links via the Disavow Tool in Google Search Console.
Use an SEO tool to give yourself an edge.
You can also perform a link audit for your competitors and analyze their backlinks. In the best case, you will discover ideal opportunities to strengthen your own backlink profile.
What link audit tools can you use?
I can highly recommend these tools for your link audits:
- ahrefs
- Majestic
- LRT
- SEMRUSH
- XOVI
- Google Search Console
Conclusion
Even though it can be generally said that backlinks have a positive effect on your Domain Authority have an influence on the Google ranking, this should always be treated with caution. If you only focus on more visibility and more traffic on your website, you will quickly overlook bad backlinks or risk a penalty from the Google Penguin update with some links. In your marketing mix, in addition to the focus on technology, content and usability as SEO measures, such as building backlinks should always be associated with enough time to slowly but steadily strengthen your backlink profile with high-quality, good links.
Thus, you always have an eye on your backlink profile when regularly analyzing it with the help of Link Audit and due to the Link Juice your website becomes stronger and stronger.
