How to do a backlink audit in 4 steps

Backlinks are one of the fundamental pillars of SEO positioning and they play a crucial role in determining the authority and relevance of a website in search engines.

Therefore, before developing a link building strategy it is essential to carry out a backlink audit to understand the quality and quantity of the links pointing to our site, which can significantly influence our online positioning.

What is a backlink

Un Backlink is a link that comes from another website and points to ours. When a website links to ours, it is sending a signal of trust and relevance to search engines, which can improve (or worsen, as the case may be) our visibility and position in search results.

How a backlink influences the authority of a website

Backlinks have a significant impact on a website's authority, but it's important to note that not all backlinks are the same.

A backlink can be considered”good“ if you come from a highly authoritative and relevant website in the same niche or industry as ours. These quality links act as votes of confidence for search engines, helping to increase the authority and credibility of our website.

On the other hand, a backlink can be considered”mean“ if it comes from a low-quality or spammy website, or if it's associated with manipulative and unethical link-building practices, such as exchanging links or buying links. These links can damage the reputation and authority of our website, and may even result in penalties from search engines.

What is a backlink audit

A backlink audit, or link audit, is a comprehensive evaluation process that involves analyze all the links that point to our website. This includes identifying the number of backlinks, the quality of the sites that link to us, the relevance of the content of the links, and any possible penalty or risk associated with these links.

Why it's important to do a backlink audit

Performing a backlink audit is essential for several reasons. First, it allows us identify any unwanted or low-quality external links that could harm our ranking in search engines.

In addition, it helps us to identify opportunities to improve our link building strategy, identify relevant sites to obtain links and improve the authority of our website.

What tools to use for backlink analysis

To carry out a comprehensive audit of backlinks, it is essential to have specialized tools that facilitate the analysis and evaluation process.

Among the most prominent tools are Semrush, an all-in-one platform that offers comprehensive features for the backlink analysis, including a lot of data to analyze inbound links and with the ability to compare the profile of backlinks of interest with that of the competition.

Another very important tool is Google Search Console, that In addition to the D functionIsavow allows you to deauthorize a list of harmful links, helping to improve the quality of the backlink profile.

In addition, Majestic SEO is a popular tool among SEO professionals to analyze the quality and quantity of backlinks. Majestic offers detailed metrics, such as Trust Flow and Citation Flow, that help evaluate the relevance and authority of inbound links.

How to perform a backlink audit and gain authority for your website

Here are the key steps for conducting an effective link audit to help you gain authority and ranking online.

1- Research your backlink profile against your competitors

The first step in performing a backlink audit is compare your link profile with that of your competitors. Analyze the domains of the websites that link both to your competition and to your own site, and evaluate the quantity and quality of these links.

Identify gaps and opportunities to improve your backlink profile and outperform your competitors in terms of online authority.

2 - Evaluate each of the backlinks you have

The second step is to analyze your own backlink profile. Use the tool Backlink Analysis by Semrush to identify all the links that point to your website, and of these, analyze:

• La quality of each link taking into account factors such as domain authority and content relevance
• La nature of the links (a balance between backlink follow and nofollow is needed)
• La toxicity score What does Semrush assign to each backlink
• The number of links from the same domain (too many links from the same domain could be harmful)
• Backlink peaks Won or lost

Advice! Don't blindly trust Semrush: some links detected as toxic could come from other domains of our same company — for example domains in other languages — that don't yet have much authority and therefore have nothing really toxic.

‍3 — Clean up harmful links

During your backlink audit, you're likely to find harmful or low-quality links that may negatively affect the authority of your website. These links may include spam, links from penalized websites, or links from directories that are irrelevant or inconsistent with your website.

Once harmful links have been identified, remove or disallow these links using Google's deauthorization tool or contact webmasters to request the removal of unwanted links.

Advice! If there are some links detected as toxic from Semrush that really aren't (such as the example seen in the previous paragraph), it is advisable to put these domains, or these URLs, in the Whitelist from Semrush.

4- Find new opportunities to create valuable links

In addition to cleaning your existing backlink profile, an audit will also help you identify new opportunities to create valuable links.

Search for relevant websites in your industry that are not yet linking to you and develop strategies to obtain quality links from these sites. This can include collaborations with bloggers, participation in online communities and the creating high-quality SEO content that naturally attracts links from other websites.

How we at Novicell can help you strengthen your online authority

Novicell is your ideal ally to enhance your online presence and improve your authority in the market. Our team of SEO experts is specialized in creating high-quality content for international contexts, optimized for search engines, which will help you stand out in your industry and attract natural links from other relevant websites.

With our experience and expertise in SEO content strategies, we can collaborate with you to develop a content creation strategy that not only increases your online authority, but also boosts the organic growth of your business. Contact us to take your online presence to the next level and achieve success in the competitive digital world.