What Are Backlinks and Why Should You Use Them?

Google has confirmed that backlinks are one of the top three search ranking factors for deciding how a website ranks on their search engine. By having other credible websites link to your website, this increases the likelihood of your website appearing higher up in the appropriate search results.

What is a backlink?

A backlink is a link from another website back to your website. If a website links to one of your pages on their website, then you have a backlink from them. If on your website, you have a link to another website, they have a backlink from you.

Backlinks help improve your search engine optimization performance because a backlink tells a search engine that someone thinks your content or webpage is important and useful enough to link to it. The more backlinks that a page on your website gets, the higher the authority assigned by the search engine. This will result in your website (or individual webpage) appearing in search engine results. 

In Backlinks, as in Life, Quality Matters

Not every website linking to yours will help you, since quality matters. Focus on getting backlinks from reputable websites. One good quality backlink is more valuable than multiple low-quality backlinks, according to Google. 

So how do you know if a link is good quality and that you should go after it? Here are some things to look out for. Make sure the link comes from an authoritative website. This concept is known as domain authority. The higher the authority score, the more weight it will give your website’s domain authority. The website that is linking to yours should be related in some way. For example, if your website is a travel blog, and a hotel website links to your blog post about a recent stay it would make sense to Google and help improve your score. But if you’re a travel blog and link to a construction companies' website, that would not help your score.  Also, the more the same website links to your website, the weaker the score will be. The first link from that website will be powerful, but the next link to your website will not be as strong and will only get weaker the more they link. Another thing Google considers for a good quality link is the amount of traffic that website receives. The more traffic this website sees, the better-quality Google is going to consider it. 

Once you start getting backlinks, you will want to track them somewhere. Google Search Console has a great tool to checking your links. If you don’t have an account already, make sure you set one up and attach your website to it. Once you are on the platform, look for “links” on the side bar and click it. There will be a section of external links listed for you to keep track of, which are your backlinks.

Backlinks are an important aspect of ranking high on search engine results page. If you can increase the number of high quality backlinks, you should see more visitors to your website.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what backlinks are, you are probably wondering how to get backlinks. Check back for part 2 of this blog article, which will be coming soon to learn more about getting backlinks to help improve your search engine optimization and appear higher up on search engine result pages. 

We are always here to help. If you have questions about backlinks or want some help, please contact us or book a meeting online. 

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