We’ve been diving into some technical aspects of SEO (search engine optimization in NYC) with our top tips, and last week, we explored the important role of a webmaster. Today, we’re going to shift gears and focus on something a bit more straightforward: backlinking for New York City businesses.

We all know that one NYC friend who loves to talk—they’re full of big opinions and always claim to be an expert on everything. While they speak with that NYC confidence, you don’t always buy into everything they say because they don’t offer the facts to back it up.

AI can be a risky tool to rely on. While ChatGPT may sound like a real person, it’s been shown that the information it provides is often inaccurate, with incorrect answers appearing frequently. This is why it’s crucial to have a digital marketing agency with experienced copywriters on staff who can create fact-driven, accurate blog content that you can depend on.

Rather than relying on AI to provide facts, you should focus on building credibility through backlinking—linking to reputable sources so Google recognizes your content as trustworthy.

Backlinking: How to Establish Trustworthiness

Backlinking is when one website links to another, often using anchor text. These backlinks, also known as inbound or external links, signal to Google that your content is valuable and credible. Google uses backlinks, along with four other key factors, to determine search engine rankings: query relevance, content quality, webpage usability, and context. This is why you need a search engine optimization NYC company to handle it.

There are two main aspects to backlinking: linking to other pages on your own site and earning links from other websites. Both methods help build authority and improve your ranking on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

The SERP is the list of search results shown after someone enters a query. Most users don’t look past the first ten results, so the goal is to rank on that first page. The more authoritative your website, the higher it will rank.

How to Backlink Properly

You can’t just slap links onto your homepage or randomly add backlinks from other websites to boost your rank. That’s considered black hat SEO, which violates Google’s rules and can result in penalties that lower your ranking.

Google’s algorithm evaluates over 200 factors to determine search rankings, and the best way to rank higher is by focusing on the five key elements Google prioritizes.

To maximize the value of backlinks, each one must come from a credible source and be relevant to the topic. Here are three tips to follow when backlinking:

1. Choose Reputable Websites
   Think of the websites you trust. For example, if you want to learn more about space, you’d rather read Harvard’s official site than some random blogger’s opinion. Google works the same way—it gives more weight to backlinks from reputable sources. The higher the authority of the site, the more it boosts your SEO. For example, harvard.edu has a domain authority of 94, making it an excellent source for backlinks.Sites with .gov and .edu domains generally have higher authority than typical .com websites.
2. Pick Relevant Websites
   Relevance matters. If you’re a food blogger writing about cooking salmon safely, a great backlink would be linking to the Harvard’s or FDA’s site for recommended cooking temperatures. This backlink is both highly authoritative (because it’s a .gov site) and relevant to your topic.
3. Use Keywords in Anchor Text
   Whenever possible, use anchor text with keywords that reflect the content of the linked article. For example, if you’re a plumber writing a blog post on “how to unclog a drain,” you could link to another relevant page about drain unclogging using anchor text like “effective ways to unclog a drain.” The link doesn’t have to be an exact match, but it should be closely related to the keyword you’re targeting.

Backlinking the right way can greatly improve your website’s trustworthiness and picking the correct SEO agency in NYC, helping you rank higher and build authority online.