Do you know that about 88 percent of users are less likely to return to a website after an unpleasant experience? This is why user experience matters a lot in SEO. If a user visits your website and has the worst user experience, such as slow pages or broken links, that could severely hurt rankings. You may also have lost a potential customer. As a business owner, you need to make sure that your site always works. If you can’t regularly check your website’s performance, hire SEO experts to help you do this. One of the most frustrating experiences a user can have is a broken link. Imagine when the anchor text is really attractive, and the user is eager to find out what’s in store for him on the next page, only to find out that it’s an error page — expect the user to immediately leave your site. If it’s his first time to visit, don’t expect him ever to come back. This article will discuss what broken links are, how to find them, and how you can reclaim broken links on your site.
What are Broken Links?
A broken backlink is a link between your website and another (where your link is available) that no longer works. If you have many backlinks and yet none of them works, your conversions may be affected. The reason for a broken link could be that your landing page has been moved or that it has been completely removed. If you have some pillar posts on your websites, make sure that you don’t move them. Because if reputable sites are linking to you, a broken backlink will not be good for your SEO efforts. Google will think that you’re not a credible source. This could hurt you in the long run if you don’t do anything about this. So as much as possible, take time to always review your backlinks and make sure that all of them work. As soon as you find a broken backlink, you can resolve this by reaching out to the website owner and then suggesting that they replace their link with the correct backlink. Otherwise, your offline SEO efforts will be put to waste.
How to Find Broken Links on Your Website?
If you are a website owner and running a business through your site, it’s imperative that you periodically check them to ensure that there are no broken backlinks. A broken link on your website can harm you in two ways. First, it’s going to make for a bad user experience. When one user clicks on your link and finds that it doesn’t work — that user will never go back to your website. You’ve already lost one customer. Now imagine how many people click on your site — you could lose a lot of conversion for that. As much as possible, find any backlinks and ensure that you fix them immediately. You can use Google Analytics for finding broken backlinks. It’s an extremely helpful tool for tracking website performance and for finding broken website links. Simply log in to your Google Analytics account and then click on the Behavior Tab. Make sure that you select Site Content and then All Pages. You can set a monthly period if you’re doing it monthly. Scroll down and click all the viewing options. Select Page Title and click on the Advanced option. As soon as you are in the Advanced window, you need to filter to Include and then Page Title and type in 404 Page under “Containing.” You will be provided with the broken links on your site after clicking Apply. Click on the page title, and you’ll be taken to the link with the 404 Error page. As soon as you have the links, ensure that you promptly work on them to avoid losing more followers or conversions.
Why are Broken Links Important for SEO?
Having broken backlinks can also significantly hurt your SEO efforts. When more users click on the link and are taken to an error page — that can severely impact your rankings. Over time, it can put your website on the bottom of the pages, which won’t be good for your business. To avoid broken backlinks, you need to periodically check for broken links on your entire website. If possible, hire a professional to help you do this. SEO professionals can help you efficiently find broken backlinks and help you resolve them as soon as possible. When it comes to broken backlinks, time is of the essence. They need to be fixed right away, or you lose conversions, or worse, you lose a good ranking in Google. Reclamation of Broken LinksCreating a report for all of your broken backlinks can help you correct and track them.
Follow our steps to help you reclaim your broken links:
- Analyze your site’s backlinks first thing you need to do is analyze all of your backlinks and then determine which ones are broken. You can use the Ahrefs tool for this to help you. If you’re not highly adept with SEO, we suggest that you contact Sarkar SEO for help, especially when you’re running a business site. You already are aware of how much a broken backlink can negatively affect conversion and your rankings.
- Organize your broken backlinks once you have a list of the broken backlinks, it’s time to properly organize them and place them in a spreadsheet for further review. Ensure that you’re organizing them via the Domain Rating column or DR, so you’ll know which ones are the highest valued backlink on your website.
- Choose the broken links to go after when you’ve properly organized them, choose which of the broken links you want to fix. You may want to check on the domains and then decide if it’s worth pursuing after. If it points to a pillar page, then definitely do something about the broken link. If it’s on a low authority page, then it’s up to you whether you want to pursue that or perhaps change it with a better link.
- Regain the broken link value after putting together the list, analyzing, and reviewing them, you can try reaching out to the site owner and let them know that the link is broken. If they respond, provide them with the correct link and kindly ask them to update it for you. If the owner doesn’t respond, consider setting up a permanent redirect to a relevant page on your site. That way, your users will be directed to a newer but working link.
Broken Link Building Using Competitor Data
- Analyze your competitor’s backlinks the similar steps described above using the same tool but choose a competitor.
- Find out the relevant broken backlinks you need to categorize the broken links by relevance and then review your site to help you determine if there is similar content to the broken link in question.
- Provide the perfect replacement content takes time to do this, so you don’t make a mistake and so that you can provide the relevant link as a replacement. You may want to review the linking site and the anchor text to help you find relevant content or pages for replacement.
- Reach out to the site owner once you find the right content, ensure that you reach out to the site owner right away. Final WordsWhen was the last time you checked your website? Do you utilize SEO for your marketing efforts? If you care about your rankings, then we suggest that you do something about your broken links. We’ve already given you the tools to help you locate broken links and how to resolve the problem. If you’re a busy entrepreneur, you can always hire reliable and trustworthy SEO experts to help you find and fix your broken links. And that’s where Sarkar SEO comes in. Get in touch with us to talk about the website and what we can do to improve it. Contact Sarkar SEO today if you’re struggling to drive traffic and boost conversions, we can help. Our team of SEO experts is committed to providing exceptional SEO services for all of our clients. Whether you are a startup or an established business, we have the right solutions to your problems. We don’t just help you find and fix broken links; Sarkar SEO offers a wide range of SEO services to help businesses create awareness for their brand, advertise their products and services, drive traffic to their website, generate more revenue, grow their business, and help them become an industry leader. Get in touch with us today so we can talk about your business goals. We’ll make sure that the solutions we provide align with your business objectives.
