What are Backlinks?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio [Pexels]

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks in SEO are links that point back to your website from another website. They’re important for improving your website’s search engine ranking and visibility.

In fact, they are perceived to act like votes of confidence from other websites linking to yours.

Do you know? - “as search engine algorithms evolve, you must put emphasis more on earning relevant and valuable backlinks than obtaining a large number of links” – Moz

Do Backlinks help SEO?

Yes, backlinks help SEO significantly. Search engines use backlinks to signal the quality and relevance of your website. The more backlinks your website has, the higher it will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Remember, the quality of the backlinks matters.

Backlinks can be earned or acquired through various methods. You can get them through content marketing, guest blogging, directory submissions, comment marketing, cross promotions, and so on.

They can also be bought, but this is generally considered a bad practice, and I don't recommend it. Be aware of black hat SEO to avoid penalties from search engines like Google.

If you can produce high-quality, pertinent, and original content that meets the requirements of your users, readers, or followers, effectively promoting this content can result in organic backlinks, which are highly respected by search engines.

To give you more information, let's go deeper.

Backlink Building or Link Building Strategies:

Here are the various link-building strategies that you should be aware of:

Image Source - Semrush

Here's another underutilized reverse image SEO backlink technique that SEO professionals consider to be among the most straightforward and powerful.

It’s important to note that not all backlinks are equal; some are more valuable than others.

Search engines give more value to high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites than they do to low-quality links from less trustworthy sources.

Backlinks of high quality should originate from websites within your niche that offer content relevant to or closely aligned with the subject matter of your own website.

Key aspects you should consider when evaluating the quality of backlinks are:

1. Relevance: The link should come from a website that has content related to the topic of your website.

2. Authority: The link should come from an authoritative website with a high domain authority score (recommended). But, know is a low-domain authority bad for backlinks?

3. Trustworthiness: The link should come from a reputable source that users trust in your industry.

4. Anchor Text: The anchor text of the link should be descriptive and relevant to the content of the page it’s linking to.

It’s important to remember that, a few high-quality backlinks can be more valuable than a large number of low-quality links.

Do you know? - “It takes an average of 3.1 months to see the impact of a link on search ranking, with very few saying it takes longer than 6 months or less than 1 month” - AuthorityHacker

Type of Backlinks:

When it comes to backlinks, there are two main types that you should focus on: dofollow and nofollow. Dofollow links are links that pass on the SEO “juice” from one website to another, while nofollow links don’t.

Dofollow links are considered more valuable because they help to increase your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). They also help to increase your website’s authority and relevance within a particular industry.

Dofollow links can come from a variety of sources, including other websites, blogs, forums, and social media accounts.

Nofollow links, on the other hand, are used to inform search engines that a link should not influence rankings. These types of links are typically used when linking to websites that you don’t trust or don’t want to pass on any SEO juice to.

Nofollow links can also be used when linking to pages that contain sponsored content or ads.

Image Content Source - Ahrefs

Statistics and Facts about Backlinks:

Here are some interesting stats and facts about backlinks that were based on multiple in-house studies conducted at Ahrefs over the years:

Image Source - Ahrefs Tweet [H/T:@siquanong]

In conclusion, backlinks are vital components of a robust SEO strategy, serving as endorsements from other websites and significantly impacting a site's search engine visibility and credibility.

Understanding the nuances of backlinks and employing effective strategies to acquire high-quality links can greatly enhance a website's performance and authority within its niche.

Here's related information that you may also find helpful – Do social media links count as backlinks?

P.S: Visit Digital Marketing Forum that answers [most un-answered] questions.

P.S.S: Please don’t forget to forward this blog post to your network so they can get the best tips, practices, strategies, education, resources, and tools to help their businesses grow.