Understanding the 3 Pillars of SEO: Content, Technical Optimization, and Backlinks

You can't talk about digital marketing today without mentioning Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO helps to determine how well your website ranks on Google and other search engines. Besides, it also determines how much organic traffic the website will receive.

From a layman's perspective, SEO is very complex. To better understand how it works, however, we’ll break it down into three pillars:

• Content
• Technical SEO
• Credibility (backlinks)

To better understand how SEO works, you need to get familiar with each of these pillars. By understanding and optimizing each of these pillars, you'll be able to create a good SEO strategy. The strategy won't only boost your website rankings. In addition, it'll drive traffic and boost conversions. Read on to better understand each pillar, including why building strong backlinks matters for long-term SEO success.

The foundation of SEO—Content

Content is the first visible part of every SEO strategy. For you to achieve SEO success today, you need to start by creating high-quality, relevant content. Poor content won't produce a good result even if you use the best backlinks strategies and technical optimizations.

That said, here's a quick question—why exactly is content important for search engine optimization?

The simple answer is that all search engines are designed to prioritize websites with relevant, valuable, and well-structured content. For example, Google tends to rank content higher based on the following factors:

• Depth
• Originality 
• Relevance 
• Engagement levels 

It's simple! Informative content, which provides unique insights and answers to frequently asked questions, often ranks higher on SERPs.

Understanding the different types of SEO content 

Content for SEO is available in different types today. Some common options include:

• Blog posts
• How-to guides
• Videos
• Infographics 
• Landing pages
• Case studies

Regular blog posting helps to improve rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). How-to guides are educational content you can use to build authority. Videos and infographics are ideal for engaging your users and enhancing their experiences.

Landing pages are highly optimized pages that mostly target specific products or services you offer. Case studies provide in-depth insights, necessary to boost website credibility.

How to optimize content for SEO?

High-quality content is never enough if it's not optimized for SEO. To optimize your content, below are a few best practices worth following:

• First, you need to focus on keyword optimization. To get started, you need to perform keyword research with advanced tools, such as Ahrefs and SEMrush. Identify top primary and secondary keywords and use them naturally in the content.
• After keyword optimization, the next step is to perform search intent matching. This approach allows you to identify exactly what your users want. This way, you're able to tailor your content the right way.
• Internal linking to your other pages is another effective approach to optimizing your content. It increases SEO authority and makes navigation easier.
• Adding meta descriptions is crucial. In addition, the use of headings (H1, H2, and H3) helps to keep your content well-structured.
• Lastly, remember to make your content mobile-friendly. This means your users should be able to access and read the content on all devices.

Technical SEO

This second SEO pillar involves optimizing codes and structures. With technical SEO, you'll be creating space for search engines to crawl, index, and understand your site properly.

As earlier mentioned, creating high-quality content will help your website rank higher. But understand that this will only be possible if you don't have any technical issues.

Below are a few elements that make up technical SEO:

• The speed and performance of your website. Google and other search engines often rank websites higher if they have fast-loading time. You can enhance your website speed by trying the following strategies:
• Optimize images
• Use content delivery network (CDN)
• Lower redirects
• Compressed images
• Enable browser caching
• Avoid unnecessary plugins
• Enable lazy loading
• Next, ensure to make your website mobile-friendly and responsive.
• Put security measures in place. Google prioritizes secure sites that use SSL certificates. The site should also be fully encrypted to keep user data protected.
• Using a clean, keyword-rich URL also enhances rankings.
• Check for crawl errors and fix them accordingly. If you have broken links, ensure to fix them accordingly to enhance your website ranking.

Bottom line: technical SEO is key to ensuring your website runs smoothly. It also ensures the site meets the requirements for getting ranked by search engines.

Building credibility with backlinks 

High-quality content and technical SEO are important but never enough to achieve SEO success. To become successful, credibility also matters. This involves taking advantage of the power of backlinks or inbound links.

If you don't know, backlinks are links from other top-ranked websites. They notify search engines that your website has authority and can be trusted.

Do backlinks matter for SEO?

According to Google's algorithm, backlinks certainly matter. They are one of the crucial factors that influence how high your website gets to rank on SERPs. Backlinks help websites rank higher because they present them as more credible.

Understanding the different types of backlinks

Below are the different types of backlinks worth trying today:

• Natural backlinks
• Backlinks from guest posts
• Editorial backlinks 
• Business & directory links
• Social & PR links

Natural backlinks are only earned naturally. To do this, all you need is to create relevant how-to guides that people find valuable. Guest list backlinks are acquired by posting high-quality, valuable content on high-ranked blogs.

Editorial backlinks are provided by journalists—this occurs when they reference your website as a source of information. Social and PR links are achieved via social media shares and press releases.

How do search engines evaluate backlinks?

Understand that having many backlinks doesn't guarantee high rankings on SERP. Instead, what matters is the quality of backlinks you have.

To evaluate your backlinks, below are a few things Google focuses on:

• First, Google checks whether the links are from high-authority websites.
• It also checks to see if the links are from sites relevant to your industry.
• Search engines also check to see that the anchor text is relevant and natural.

Tips for building a strong backlink profile

You have many options when it comes to building a strong backlink profile.

• First, you need to start by creating high-quality content. The content should be original, valuable, and shareable.
• Consider posting your content on high-authority websites. This is known as guest posting.
• Check for and remove toxic backlinks regularly. Tools like Ahrefs can help you identify low-quality links.
• Lastly, consider joining a reliable backlink exchange network. A good example is KarmaLinks.io. This club allows you to exchange quality backlinks in a transparent system.

Why should you rely on KarmaLinks.io for Backlinks?

KarmaLinks.io is a reputable backlink exchange club for B2B SaaS businesses. With this platform, you can easily acquire high-quality links from high-authority websites.

We recommend using KarmaLinks today because it eliminates the need to spend thousands of dollars paying agencies to help build your backlinks. In addition, this cloud also saves you hours on cold outreach.

You can visit KarmaLinks.io today to better understand how to build strong backlinks for your business.