What are Backlinks?

If you own or run a website, getting a high number of backlinks should be one of your top priorities. Backlinks are when one website links to a page on another website. They are also called “inbound links” or “incoming links”.

For your site to rank high in search results, you need many websites to refer (link) to your page. 

Search engines like Google essentially consider backlinks as “votes” for your content, determining how high it should be ranked and how relevant it is to the people. Pages with more backlinks tend to have more organic search engine rankings.

Despite that, many businesses, bloggers, and site owners still don’t realize the significance of backlinks and end up missing out on the benefits they offer.

So, the question remains: why are backlinks so important, and how can you get more of them?

Let’s find out together!

The Importance of Backlinks

Backlinks act like votes of confidence and trust from other websites. Each of these votes signals to search engines (and subsequent users) that your content is reliable, credible, and valuable.

Getting more quality backlinks to other linked sites can make a huge difference to your site’s rankings. Moreover, backlinks allow you to reach a wider audience. As links from other pages are essentially pointing their audience towards your pages. 

Think about it this way. Your web page alone is likely to be limited to your digital audience and potential consumers or users you may have attracted along the way. But backlinks can ensure that you reach the audiences of other similar websites, too, perhaps even those of your competitors!

However, this does depend on how valuable and brilliant your material is. Websites won’t link to your content unless they have a strong reason to believe you’re offering value to their viewers.

Also, not all backlinks are the same! Only some of them will make a real impact on your web traffic. So, how do you know what kind of backlinks to aim for?

What Makes Backlinks Strong?

While you may have realized how beneficial backlinks are, there’s also such a thing as good and bad backlinks. For backlinks to be most effective, you should ensure they meet the following requirements:

• Relevance

For starters, backlinks should be relevant for your industry and business. When a site links to another, Google wants to see that the two sites are related. The more closely your content is related, the more significant a role the backlink will play in helping you rank higher and connecting you to the right people. 

• Authority

Would you rather have Harvard refer to your content or some random site? Not only do high-authority websites make a backlink more credible, but they’re also more likely to help your site rank higher on Google. In other words, the more authority a website has, the more authority it can transfer to your content.

• New Over Old

Lastly, backlinks are more valuable when they come from newer, more recent content than old ones. While this may seem obvious, the trick lies in consistently updating your content to keep it up to date with the times so that you don’t have to create new material to rank high. Even your older content should rank in search engines if you ensure it stays relevant and up-to-date!

How to Get Backlinks: 6 Techniques

Building backlinks to your site does require effort. But here are six brilliant ways you can start generating quality backlinks for your website:

• Link to your web pages or site from your social media pages.
• Search for posts on Google that are already ranking well and then improve and expand on them (the skyscraper technique).
• Create lists, “how-to” posts, guides, infographics, or articles with embedded videos. These formats are likely to get more backlinks than typical posts.
• Write guest posts on other websites and blogs.
• Connect with influencers in your industry or niche and show them an article on your website that may be relevant to them and they may want to link to.
• You can also start conducting competitive backlink research. To do this, you’ll need to find backlinks of your competitors ranking well and then attempt to out-do them! 

Key Takeaway

Overall, backlinks can be incredibly crucial in helping you to build a solid online presence in the market by improving your website’s authority and credibility. What’s more, as long as you ensure that the backlinks hold authority and relevance for your niche, you also get more web traffic and sales.