Backlinks

What Are Backlinks?

A backlink is a link that’s created when a website owner links from their site to a different site.

An example of a backlink is if you wrote an article on your website and placed a link to another website. In this case, you would have just created a backlink for the website you linked to.

what are backlinks

Different types of backlinks affect your site in different ways.

Google uses backlinks as part of its search algorithm to decide which websites should be shown at the top of the search results.

What does that mean?

Short answer – Backlinks are essential to SEO and something all website owners should take seriously.

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Why Are Backlinks Important?

Backlinks are important because they are a top 3 ranking factor in the Google search algorithm.

Backlinks demonstrate to Google and other search engines (Bing, Yahoo, ect…) that your website is authoritative and trustworthy, especially if other high-authority websites link to you.

Let me break it down:

Think of backlinks like a vote of confidence for your website.

The more quality backlinks you have from websites Google already trusts, the more Google will trust your website.

What is link building - more links equal higher rankings

More trust = Higher rankings.

Simple, right?

Google only wants to show trustworthy websites and content to their users.

Backlinks are how Google determines which websites they can trust and which sites they should show to their users.

Backlinks also help connect the web and allow search engine spiders to find and crawl new websites. Without backlinks, the internet simply wouldn’t exist.

They are an essential part of SEO and connecting the internet together.

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What’s The Difference Between A Hyperlink And A Backlink?

A hyperlink is a general term for any clickable link on the internet that directs you from one page to another.

This might be a hyperlink within the same site (internal link) or another site (external link).

difference between internal and external links

A backlink is specifically an incoming hyperlink from one website to another.

Think of it like this:

All backlinks are hyperlinks, but NOT all hyperlinks are backlinks.

Backlinks have a bigger effect on your SEO and will have more impact on how well your website ranks in search engines like Google.

What Types Of Backlinks Are Valuable?

The types of backlinks that are valuable are quality backlinks that come from reputable websites.

1 high-quality backlink can be more valuable to your site than 1,000 low-quality backlinks. When it comes to backlinks, it’s always quality over quality.

quantity vs quality link building

There are lots of different link building strategies to help you build more backlinks. But the best link building strategies will allow you to acquire ONLY quality, valuable backlinks that benefit your site.

What does this mean for you?

When building backlinks to your site, you must be able to evaluate the quality of the backlinks before you build them.

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How To Evaluate The Quality Of Backlinks

To evaluate the quality of backlinks, use the following criteria:

  • Site Authority: Check the Domain Authority of the linking site with SEO tools
  • Relevance: Verify that the linking site’s content relates to your industry and topic
  • Link Attributes: Make sure the backlink is “dofollow” and not tagged with a nofollow or “sponsored” attribute
  • Anchor Text: Ensure the anchor text is relevant and descriptive to help search engines understand your page better
  • Organic Traffic: The linking site should have real organic traffic from Google
  • Link Location: Backlinks should be placed in the main content of the page, not in the sidebar or footer
  • Uniqueness: A backlink from a site that has not linked to you before is more valuable than a backlink from the same site

The combination of these factors contributes to the overall quality of the backlink.

how to evaluate the quality of backlinks

The best way to get all of the information for the backlink evaluation criteria is by using an SEO tool like Semrush or Ahrefs.

How To Build Backlinks For SEO

There are tons of link building strategies to build backlinks for SEO.

But not all link building strategies are worth it. Here are the top 5 strategies to build quality backlinks for SEO right now:

  1. Competitor Backlink Analysis: Find and replicate your competitor’s backlinks.
  2. Strategic Guest Blogging: Guest post on another site and place a backlink within the post using these guest posting services.
  3. Broken Backlink Building: Find broken links on the web and suggest your site as a replacement.
  4. Leverage Niche Testimonials: Give testimonials for tools, software, products and services you use.
  5. Get Listed On Resource Pages: Get your site listed on a relevant resource page.

Keep in mind that building backlinks takes time and commitment but you could also use one of these link building services.

Make sure that you check out our complete tutorial for the 16x best link building strategies to see step-by-step instructions on how to build quality backlinks for your site.

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