While acquiring quality backlinks is a very important part of SEO, monitoring your backlink profile is of equal importance. By making sure your profile is healthy and natural, you can take those next big steps with your search rankings.
Here are some top tips on how you can monitor your backlink profile and keep it in the best condition so you can see the organic search improvements you’re looking for.
Why monitoring your backlinks is so important
It’s important to know that when you’ve gained the backlinks you want, the work does not stop there. Monitoring your backlinks to make sure that they don’t turn against you is vital.
For example, you could’ve gained some impressive links from an outreach campaign, but then, without you knowing it, those links break. If they do, it would only take a matter of hours for a competitor to swoop in and take that link from you. Without effective backlink monitoring, this could happen without you knowing it. But by keeping a close eye on your profile, you can fix that broken link before your competitors have the option to take it from you.
Check Google Search Console
Using Google Search Console is a fundamental part of backlink monitoring. It’s a vital starting point when it comes to understanding what links you have and to get an idea of your site’s health.
To explore your current backlink profile in Search Console, select the Links option in the left-hand toolbar. From there, you will be able to see the top pages on your site for external backlinks and internal links. You can also see which sites are linking to you the most, which is a helpful way of spotting any links that look unnatural or spammy.
Above the links section on the left-hand toolbar is the manual actions section. It’s always worth keeping a close eye on this section as this is where Google will send you warnings if it thinks your backlink profile is unnatural. While it’s now quite rare to receive a manual action, it’s important to take action immediately if you do see one.
Pick the right tool
Now that you’ve explored some of the data within Search Console, the next step is to invest in a decent backlink monitoring tool. This will enable you to take the next step and dive a little deeper into the details. You’ll be able to see the authority of the sites linking to you and what anchor text they’re using. And if you ever use a good link building service, you’ll be able to monitor those links from here.
There are many tools available on the market. Ahrefs is widely considered to be the leading backlink monitoring tool with plenty of useful data and tools. SEMRush also offers backlink monitoring that you can then connect with content creation ideas, so it’s a good choice for someone looking for a little more inspiration when it comes to their website content. For those with smaller budgets, SERanking also has a dedicated backlink tool that’s cheaper than many competitors.
Check for opportunities
One of the things that many people don’t realise about monitoring your backlink profile is that it’s so much more than checking for spammy or broken links. It’s actually a treasure trove for finding new linking opportunities as well.
Depending on the tool you invest in, you potentially could keep track of the sites that are providing mentions but not links. These present golden opportunities for you to reach out and ask the site owner to add a link along with that mention as well. This presents a win-win scenario for you and the site owner: a win for them as they improve the optimisation of their page by linking to an external source, and a win for you as you gain another valuable backlink.
Focus on link diversity
When monitoring your backlink profile, make sure your main focus is link diversity. The last thing you want is to build a profile that looks unnatural to Google, resulting in a drop in rankings or worse still, a manual action.
Your focus should be on making sure your profile looks as natural as possible. Are your links covering a variety of domain ratings or domain authority, from low to high? Is the anchor text varied rather than all using the same target keywords? These are the things you need to be thinking about every time you review your profile.
Keep track of everything you do
This part can be time-consuming, but it’s totally worth it. As you go through monitoring your backlink profile and then make any changes you think are necessary, make sure that you keep track of everything. Build a spreadsheet that tracks the links you have, when they went live, and any other actions you’ve taken. Include the site owners you’ve reached out to for changing mentions to links. Include the broken links that you’ve fixed. Add in as much detail as possible and update it regularly.
While this doesn’t sound like one of the most exciting jobs in the world, it’s very helpful when tracking what has and hasn’t worked for your site. If you see a sudden spike in rankings, you’ll be able to directly attribute that to some of the work you’ve done.
When you bring all of this together, you’ll find that monitoring your backlink profile need not be a laborious or time-consuming job. And it can even open the door to some potential link building opportunities as you move forward.
