What Is A Backlink?

A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. They are also known as inbound links or external links. Major Search engines such as Google will use backlink as a type of ranking system as when one website links to another, it means that google believes that the content is important. Having a good backlink can help to increase a site’s ranking position in SEO results.

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Are Backlinks Still Important for SEO?

Backlinks are one of the most important SEO strategy and still is today as if you search through Google, you would realize that Google will show you authorized sites first as Google loves authorized websites. Having these high authority sites link back to your own site will boost your site’s ranking as it is telling Google that your site is useful, trustable and credible.

One evidence of this is that SEMRush conducted a research of their ranking factors study and found out that the more backlinks a domain has, the higher its position on the search engine result page

Many people have conducted similar research and results have shown that backlink does bring a big positive impact to a website.

Another research conducted by Ahrefs shows that with more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google

But remember the point is to get backlinks from HIGH QUALITY sites

How Do You Build Backlinks?

The process of building backlinks is called Link Building. Backlinks play an important part in search engine algorithm , SEO and your strategy on how you are going to grow your website.

For example, here is a link from Quora to a client’s website

As the highlighted links directly links back to the client’s website, it is known as a backlink.

Here are some ways to build backlinks

• Have a linkable asset. Meaning have something on your site worth linking to.
• Search for a post on forums that is ranking well and write a guest post on it with backlinks
• Create a post with words like ‘how to’ or ‘why’ with photos and videos. These posts will usually gain more backlinks compared to normal posts

Importance of Backlinks in building your SEO

Backlinks are one of the most important SEO ranking factors used to rank your website.

Getting a high quality backlink from a well-known source is a great way to gain more recognition for your website.

If a well-known site links to your site, that’s an amazing way to get your site up and going. Being popular is another factor, as google views backlinks as votes of popularity for a website or webpage. With more backlinks, you are telling google that your content is noteworthy, valuable, credible and useful. Thus, the more votes you have, the higher your ranking would be on google as well as on other search engines.

What Are The Different Types Of Backlinks?

There are multiple types of backlinks. Nofollow links, Dofollow links & UGC links. Now lets go more into details about the different types of backlinks.

Nofollow links

As its name suggests, it tells search engines to not follow the link and to ignore it. They don’t pose any values to the sites, so they aren’t helpful in improving your website’s rank or visibility.

Here is what a nofollow link looks like

<a href=”https://www.domain.com/” rel=”nofollow”>this is a nofollow link</a>

Dofollow links

Quite simply, Dofollow links is the opposite. This link will allow search engines to ‘follow’ the page and can help in improving your site’s rank and visibility.

Here is what a Dofollow link looks like

<a href=”https://www.domain.com/”>this is a follow link</a>

UGC links

User-generated content in short (UGC) links comes from the likes of forums and blog comments. This link will inform google that the link has been written by a user and not the webmaster.

A UGC backlink looks like this

<a href=”https://www.example.com/” rel=”ugc”>this is a UGC link</a>

Toxic Links

Having wrong links can affect your website’s rank negatively. Simply put, this can be known as bad links.

Bad links normally come from suspicious or low ranking websites that uses strategies that violates Google Webmaster Guidelines to boost their ranks.

You can use a tool called Backlink Audit tool to check your backlinks for any toxic links

Why Are Backlinks important?

For starters, they help to increase your website’s ranking and having a higher number of backlink correlates with higher rankings on search engines.

A link from a trusted site will help your content be recognized by search engines faster as they navigate the web for new pages to rank up.

High quality backlinks from authorized and trusted sources can help your site rank higher from a SEO perspective. They can also increase your credibility and trustworthiness as a business, so if you managed to get a link linking back to your website from a credible website such as Wired, you are bound to get a huge credibility increase.

How Can I Check My Backlinks?

There are multiple tools you can use to check if your backlink is working such as Google Search Consoles.

You can use Google Search Consoles to help increase your site revenue and check on your backlinks.

Here is what Google Search Consoles can do

• Top linking pages- The pages on your site that have the most backlinks to them
• Top linking sites- Which are the websites that links back to your site the most
• External links- How many external links point to your site.
• Top linking text- The most used link anchor text used for external links

Summary

Backlinks are one of the important key factors when it comes to your website’s SEO strategy if you want to rank higher in major search engines such as Google. Link building can help increase your rank tremendously, but remember to watch out for your competitors are doing and keep up to trend.