Netlinking is an important pillar of natural referencing. With the main objective of working on the popularity of the site, a netlinking campaign is essential to have optimal visibility. Discover everything you need to know about a successful netlinking campaign.
Netlinking is different from backlinking
The terms “netlinking” and “backlink” are often considered to have the same meaning. Indeed, according to certain definitions, netlinking consists of working on the popularity of a site through backlinks or incoming links. However, it is not just about creating backlinks.
Definition of netlinking
Netlinking is the set of techniques that generate hypertext links to a platform. Also, even if backlinks or inbound links are the basis of netlinking , they are only one component.
In the context of SEO or natural referencing, netlinking is a strategy whose main purpose is to multiply the links that point to the site in order to improve its position on the SERPs.
Netlinking is essentially based on the search for quality backlinks, but it also involves good semantic optimization and thus collaboration with the referring domain . Indeed, the choice of each term used to form the anchor, its place in the text, the semantic field or the percentage of keywords that surround it are to be worked according to the case of the site (theme, target audience, etc.). ).
Netlinking involves the use of several tools intended to obtain and analyze different data such as the semantic positioning of the site. These tools also allow you to keep an eye on the ranking of websites in the SERPs . Our agency uses, among other things, the most recent version of Ahrefs and Moz tools.
Definition of backlink
Backlinking is a hyperlink that points to a web page, so it is a tool used by netlinking. As part of a natural referencing strategy, the practice consists in looking for external links favorable to a good positioning in the SERPs (search engine results page). Depending on its origin, the backlink is considered a guarantee of trust by Google. Indeed, according to the search giant, if a site obtains a link from a notorious site (itself benefiting from a good ranking), it necessarily presents quality content for the visitor and thus deserves a good positioning.
However, to have the expected result, the backlink must be of quality. That is to say, he must:
- Come from an authority site,
- Come from a site or page that deals with a theme related to that of the page it points to.
Only a good quality inbound link counts. The SEO must therefore focus on quality and not on quantity. Google introduced this measure precisely to punish certain black hat practices such as over-optimization (over-optimized URL or domain name, keyword stuffing, over-optimization of the link anchor, etc.). The acquisition of quality backlinks is thus based on a real strategy and is not done at random. The establishment of a successful netlinking campaign is largely based on backlinks (their number and quality).
The advantages of netlinking
Netlinking is an important criterion used by Google to define the order in which sites are displayed in search results. This is the index called PageRank or Popularity Index. It was created in 1997 and its main purpose is to measure the importance of web pages. The higher the PageRank, the more the page will be considered by Google as worthy of a good ranking. The objective is thus to have a high pageRank so that the site becomes an authority site and obtains a good positioning.
Netlinking will complement technical referencing and content optimization. It is thus one of the 3 pillars of SEO .
Netlinking will also bring quality visits. This will increase your traffic and your turnover. Indeed, visitors to an authority site who are interested in your products, services or services will come directly to your site by clicking on the links. Each visitor is thus a potential customer, hence the interest of working not only on the texts where the links are placed, but also on your own content and the technical aspect of your site (loading speed, design, responsive display, URL …)
It will also allow crawlers to discover more pages. Indeed, links are the main factor in the discovery of new pages for Google bots.
How to make successful netlinking campaigns?
All netlinking campaigns have a common objective: to increase the visibility of the beneficiary site through the optimization of its link profile. To define the main lines of the campaign, it is necessary to define exactly the specific needs of the site from its weaknesses. The campaign must therefore begin with the netlinking audit.
Know the quality level of your site
There are different tools or metrics dedicated to link auditing or netlinking auditing. The main purpose of this step is to see the level of quality of the site in terms of netlinking. The score or indicator obtained will help identify problems and build an appropriate campaign.
The audit will among other things detect overoptimized anchor texts and broken or questionable links and study the quality of all your links.
There are different tools used to have these different data and indication on the rank of your site. Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, or even Majestic SEO are very useful for monitoring your netlinking campaigns on a daily basis.
They allow the webmaster to follow the evolution of his domain authority, to have the number of referring domains which point towards his pages and their popularity, to analyze the relevance and the quality of the links (an index or witness of confidence called Trust Flow ), their quantity (called Citation Flow), to follow its position and the incidence of the links created, to adopt an optimization supplement…
Know the semantic positioning of your site
To improve the PageRank of your site, the webmaster will also use tools to measure the semantic positioning of your site.
The distribution of link anchors is an example of an indicator that he will use to build his netlinking strategy. The quality of the anchor is important, because it will push the Internet user to click on it by anticipating the content that he will discover.
However, you have to be careful, because an overoptimized anchor can lead to the appearance of a Google sanction. Beware of over-optimization, which is a practice of netlinking contrary to the guidelines of the Mountain View giant, penalized in particular by the Fred and Penguin updates.
Which subject to choose for a netlinking campaign?
The netlinking campaign is most often accompanied by the creation of content.
The editorial part is an important step in the netlinking campaign. Each paragraph of the text on which the backlink will be established must be written for a specific purpose. The choice of keywords, their frequency, the anchor… are defined from a study based on the comparison of the difficulty of the words, the positioning of the site and the volume of research. Each paragraph must be chosen according to its semantic potential to respond to Google algorithms such as thematic PageRank, the Salton cosine or the TF-IDF.
It is also necessary to work on the content of the beneficiary site. Indeed, once the Internet user lands on your site, you must finish convincing him to elicit action on his part.
If the site is not yet positioned, it is necessary to work upstream for a better referencing. According to the audit carried out by the team, the experts of our platform will work on the optimization of the content and the technical side of the site (structure, loading speed, etc.). All these actions will, of course, require more time before working on the netlinking itself. Generally, all these steps are spread over several months and require good follow-up. After the on-site optimization, we can focus on the netlinking campaign to have a good juiceflow and promote your business!
