Are Backlinks Still Important for SEO? The Short Honest Answer

Are backlinks still important in SEO?

Yes, they still work, as long as you are getting good quality links. Where the link is coming from is the most important thing, so authority sites, really.

There are a lot of guys that still offer the black hat stuff, link farms and links all over the place, but realistically Google ignores most of that. It does not like it. Good quality links, as we have talked about throughout all of these videos, do it properly. I was about to say, yeah, just do it the right way.

How many backlinks do you need to rank on YouTube?

None. In traditional SEO someone might say you need a thousand links, or you need ten high quality domain links. On YouTube you do not need any to rank. You can rank straight away just off the description and the title of the video.

Does putting video on your website help with SEO?

Absolutely, yes. We have worked with a lot of clients where they put a video of a product on the page, and obviously that is far more engaging. One of the big problems people have is conversion on site, so once somebody lands on a site and there is a nice video of a product, brilliant.

From an SEO perspective, we have already said that Google owns YouTube, and Google loves YouTube videos, especially embedded videos. What you will find is that if you put a great YouTube video together and you put it onto your page, and the page relates to that topic, and you have got the title right, yes, it will help you rank in search.

How do you get a YouTube video to come up first or as a suggested video?

You have got to get the title and description right, and you need engagement. Google will give you a bit of a chance. It gives everything a shot out of the gate, so to speak, but you do need to get engagement. You need to get people watching it.

Ideally you share it on other social channels. When you look on YouTube, one of the indicators is Facebook likes, so if you have got a Facebook channel, share the video there. You might have a community there that will watch it. I know Facebook does not necessarily like you doing that, but YouTube does, because they are trying to pull people across.

How do you optimise your website for video?

Most of the websites that are out there now have got a decent plugin. Using YouTube, you can just embed it straight in. If you have got something like WordPress you can just click embed video. Most of the content management systems out there now will have the ability to click add a video, and you put the link in and away you go.