FREE Backlink Checker Tool

How To Use This Tool

Do you know the SEO power of backlinks? After reading this how-to section you’ll understand how integral backlinks are to your website’s rankings and how to obtain a few without having to put in hours of blog outreach.

The HOTH’s FREE Backlink Checker Tool is one of the easiest ways to conduct link research on your competitors and discover what you can do to boost your site’s SEO. This tool appears pretty simple at first but the secret is knowing what each of the results means.

Start off by making a list of all your competitors. Make a diverse list that includes the URLs for businesses of all sizes that sell many of the same products or services as you.

Then, you will check the backlinks of each website to find out how their link building is different from yours. Here’s an example below.

The URL goes on the left side and beside it is a dropdown menu where you can specify whether you want a report on the entire domain, specific subdomains, or the exact URL. What you choose all depends on your needs and strategy.

Once you click “View Backlinks Report,” the tool will generate a list of dozens of backlinks to the URL you entered. This is what you would see when getting a report for “www.thehoth.com.”

The report will tell you the total number of external backlinks for that URL, as well as the total referring domains and referring IPs. It’ll also tell you the percent of dofollow backlinks, which help spread SEO authority to the receiving site.

Next to each of the URLs listed, you’ll see the anchor text and score. Anchor text is the words or phrases in a piece of writing that direct to another site.

For example, the URL “www.seoblog.com” published a blog about SEO companies and included a link to The HOTH using the anchor text “Visit Website.” This anchor text is hyperlinked and appears in blue.

This incredibly powerful backlinks tool is available to you for FREE! Similar programs would cost you hundreds of dollars a month depending on the size of your operation.

Video Walk Through

We hope you’re excited about the possibility of collecting more data on backlinks, which is the first step in boosting your SEO rankings.

Did you know that The HOTH offers multiple SEO tools for free? Our Backlink Checker Tool is just one of the complimentary services we offer to thousands of online visitors.

Check out our video walkthrough of the Backlink Checker Tool below and click here to learn more about our tools.

You can access all of these tools at The HOTH website or sign up for a free account to find them all in a convenient menu.

What Are Backlinks?

If you’re new to SEO and link building, then it’s important for you to learn more about backlinks. They are also known as “inbound links” or “incoming links.”

Put simply a backlink is when one website posts content with a link to another site. News websites do this all of the time but any blog or web page can backlink to another URL.

An example of a backlink would be if The New York Times published an article about the best donut shops in Brooklyn and then included links leading readers to each of the featured shops.

The same thing can be done in product reviews, informational blogs, or partnering web pages. Backlinks can be added to any piece of content! You can think of backlinks like a direct recommendation from a trusted source to a page of interest.

Factors That Influence Backlinks

Now that you understand what backlinks are exactly, it’s time to discuss what backlink factors influence your search ranking.

Remember this one important thing about backlinks: they’re a vote of confidence from another site.

Therefore, authoritativeness plays a large role in whether a backlink will help or harm your rankings.

If you’re lucky enough to get a backlink from another site, your rankings should increase if it demonstrates expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This is known as Google’s E-A-T, which is one of many factors used for ranking.

The SEO company Moz developed a rating system from 0 to 100 called Domain Authority that can you help better understand the authoritativeness of another website. While Domain Authority is not part of the Google algorithm, it can help you do research.

What are other factors affecting backlinks?

It’s better to get a dofollow link over a nofollow link. This means that Google will include the backlink in their SEO ranking.

Anchor text is another factor. You might think that selecting anchor texts is random but the fact is you want to pick them based on your strategy. There are a dozen different types of anchor text and you’ll want to use a natural mix of them all.

And the last thing to consider is whether a backlink is high-quality or relevant. Using spammy links can actually hurt your rankings.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Backlinks are important for any online business because they serve as a vote of confidence. Other sites can recommend your business by using a backlink.

Google will reward you for getting high-quality backlinks and your referral traffic will begin to increase as more online users are directed to your site.

While not much is known about the Google algorithm, it’s clear that backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors. They are the hardest to get but come with a significant SEO bump.

If your website is brand new or you want to revamp your SEO, backlinks should be part of your comprehensive SEO strategy.

Start off by finding high-performing keywords, producing more content, and optimizing your pages, but set backlinks as a long-term goal.

What To Do With The Results

After using our FREE Backlink Checker Tool, you’ll need a strategy on how to use all of the data to benefit your website. What should you do next?

First, take note of where your competitors get their top backlinks. If they all come from a specific review site or blog, you may be able to contact them directly and see if you can get a backlink from them as well.

But, even knowing what types of sites give the most backlinks can help you find others to try. Studying the anchor text used can also be helpful because it’ll tell you what kind is the most effective in your industry.

Getting backlinks is not easy. Sometimes they happen organically without you realizing it, but other times it takes hundreds of cold emails to websites before one will agree to include your backlink in their content.

The HOTH tries to make this process easier for clients. That’s why we offer HOTH Guest Post where you can be white hat, in-content links to your site. Our team writes content with your link and gets it published across our network of blogs and websites. It’s an easy and effective way to do your own outreach.

If you have any questions about backlinks or need help in securing some, simply book a call with one of our SEO experts.