The importance of backlinks in medical and healthcare SEO to boost your authority

Key takeaways

• Links to your website from third-party sites act as a vote of confidence in your content to Google, increasing your authority
• A few backlinks from quality, high-authority sites are more valuable than lots of backlinks from low-authority sites
• Backlinks can be built naturally, from associated business sites, and through outreach

What are backlinks?

What are backlinks? Backlinks are essentially links from a third-party website back to yours. They serve as crucial pillars in supporting a website's visibility in search engines. When reputable sites link to your pages, search engines interpret this as a vote of confidence, boosting your site's authority and enhancing E.E.A.T. signals. This is particularly critical when your website falls within the Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) category.

Building authority and trust

Search engines like Google prioritise healthcare and medical content with high authority when presenting search results. Websites with a robust backlink profile and high authority are perceived as more trustworthy and informative, leading to improved search engine rankings.

The more quality backlinks your site has, the easier it becomes for search engines to discover and index your content. This increased visibility can result in higher rankings, ultimately driving more organic traffic to your website.

In the example below, Annie Davidson Watson has snuck a backlink into her ‘about the author’ profile at the bottom of an article she’s written for Forbes. A backlink from this high-authority media publisher’s site will boost the ranking of her site in search engines. Nice one Annie!

Quality over quantity

While racking up a good number of backlinks is essential, the quality of those links matters even more. A few high-quality backlinks from authoritative and relevant sources can have a more significant impact than a multitude of low-quality links.

How to measure authority

Authority can be measured in multiple ways. We prefer using a search engine optimisation (SEO) tool called Ahrefs; it measures authority using domain rating (DA) and URL rating (UR), both out of 100, with 100 being the most authoritative.

Pro tip: Use the Ahrefs SEO toolbar to check the power of your backlinks and authority score, plus some other useful metrics. Download the browser extension and then navigate to your site, click the Ahrefs toolbar, choose ‘Metrics’, and analyse the ‘domain rating’.

NOTE: It's important to recognise that different SEO tools use varying methodologies to determine a website's authority score. These scores are not used by Google as direct ranking factors and do not influence search engine results directly; however, a strong backlink profile is important and does influence rankings. Therefore, these scores should be considered as indicative guides rather than definitive metrics.

Example Ahrefs SEO toolbar:

Good vs bad authority

Assessing authority isn't always straightforward. For healthcare and medical content, a score below 50/100 suggests room for improvement through link-building. If your site scores above 50/100, congratulations! That indicates that your site is naturally attracting backlinks, making additional efforts less critical (but still worthwhile!).

When it comes to brand sites, targeting your brand as a keyword can be less competitive. Consequently, a lower authority score may suffice to effectively rank and drive traffic for this word. The decision to focus on building backlinks should ultimately hinge on the competitiveness of your topic or keyword.

To get started, head over to Ahrefs, enter your keyword, and take note of the difficulty score.

NOTE: The Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty (KD) score is intended as a general guide to assess a keyword's potential competitiveness. Numerous factors can influence keyword difficulty; therefore, it is recommended to use the KD score as an indicative guide rather than a definitive metric.

How pharmaceutical marketers can build backlinks

Naturally

Although time-consuming, the preferred method in the eyes of Google involves having other websites link to your content without any external influence. To naturally earn links, focus on creating content that is not only helpful and user-focused, but also offers a unique perspective, enhancing the overall user experience.

Incorporating various media formats such as videos, animations, podcasts, and webinars into your webpage can significantly contribute to the success of this strategy. The more you promote your website, the more you’ll naturally receive backlinks. Don’t forget, the most effective marketing strategies are holistic. Your ads and campaigns will feed into the success of your backlink plan and vice versa.

Low-hanging fruit

Owned websites: A strategic starting point for pharmaceutical or healthcare companies seeking valuable backlinks is to explore their portfolio of owned websites. Identify relevant platforms that could potentially provide backlinks. For example, if you operate a disease awareness site in need of links, consider reaching out to your corporate site. Write an article highlighting the new disease awareness site and include a backlink in the latest news section. This initial step involves identifying all owned websites and formulating a comprehensive plan.

Your network: Tap into your network of partners, and charitable connections that are appropriate for your content and site audience. If your new disease site focuses on respiratory diseases, leverage close relationships with charities in this therapeutic area. Reach out and enquire about the possibility of them linking to your content. Clearly communicate the value your content brings to their audience or charity. Establishing these connections can yield mutually beneficial backlink opportunities.

Outreach

Considering the time involved in the ‘natural’ method outlined above, outreach can be a valuable alternative. Establish relationships with reputable websites within your industry by following these steps:

1. Identify relevant websites: Utilise tools like Ahrefs for this process. Start by typing your keyword in Google.

Then note the websites on the first page. These are your search engine results page competitors.

Then use Ahrefs to find websites linking to these competitors.

2. Initiate outreach: Reach out, emphasising the value of your content! For a free outreach template or backlink outreach email, drop us a line.

While there are numerous techniques for building links, these steps serve as a simple guide to building backlinks.