Good linking is essential to an effective website. Despite this fact, almost 95% of small business websites don’t have even one external backlink.

Search engine optimization is a challenge for small, local businesses so these businesses need to pay close attention to all the methods search engines employ to rank websites. No matter what these methods, the most important will be backlinks.

According to SEO experts, search rankings are directly related to link signals, including total referring domains, total backlinks, total referring IPS and total follow-backlinks. On average, Google’s top organic search result, for example, will have almost four times more backlinks and three times more referring domains.

Again, small businesses need to understand that linking is part of an overall strategy for success and that linking alone will not mean success. Technical optimization is also necessary for effective SEO. Direct site visits, time visitors spend on the site, pages visited per session and bounce rates are the key to overarching SEO linking success.

All of this begs the question: How can a small business build an effective link profile? The answer comes down to great content. Long-form content will be three times as effective than shorter articles. Further, even if a small business is extremely visible on social media, that doesn’t always equal SEO success. While content shared across multiple platforms is a good thing, it only helps in terms of SEO if link building is incorporated as well.

Something else that really matters is familiarity. High ranking websites will require about four times more referring domains for popular keywords than for less common ones. Content also should provide answers to common questions. Posts or infographics that answer  “Why” or “What” get about 25% more links than videos or how-to guides do.

Finally, not all links are created equal. The success of a particular link will depend on the following elements:

1. Anchor text: Links should not have excessive keyword optimization or a high volume of exact matches.
2. URL: Link quality is downgraded when there are a high number of redirects or tracking parameters.
3. Clickability: The most valuable links are those clicked in the body of content on a website as opposed to footers.
4. Follow or NoFollow: Follow links offer more value because they pass the authority to the linked site. NoFollow links can provide value if there is a high click rate but they don’t pass authority.