What Are Backlinks And Why They Matter?

Backlinks are essential for a website to receive free visitors from search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. A backlink is a link created when one website links to another. Backlinks are also referred to as “inbound links” or “incoming links” from an external site and are very crucial for SEO. They are an essential feature of the web that makes the web a powerful source to share content, ideas, and make these discoverable. Websites with a high number of backlinks tend to have high organic search engine rankings. In other words, backlinks to a website are a signal to search engines that others have confidence in them and vouch for the content.

How to get Backlinks to the website?

Gathering backlinks may seem like a complex process, but there are smart ways to obtain and earn links to a website.

• The broken link-building method – This works best to create one-way links to a website. It involves getting in touch with a webmaster to report a broken link on his website in your niche. You can recommend other websites to replace that link or your website. The chances of gaining a backlink to your website are high.
• Getting backlinks through infographics -Infographics is one of the most popular ways of bringing traffic to the website and gaining backlinks. They work well as it is easy to understand and share visual data. Care should be taken to select the infographics for your website which are unique and tell a story to the audience. Research and gather data for the content on the current trending topics relevant to your website and have the infographics prepared. List these infographics on the various infographics directories and reach out to people who have previously linked to similar infographics or have shared them on social media using email.
• Guest articles – Guest blogging is one of the most effective ways to reach out to a new audience. By publishing, articles on the popular website will get the content in front of a new audience and will help gain more exposure. It not only helps in gaining backlinks but also improves the online reputation and social media following.
• Spy on the competitors – To get more organic traffic, it is imperative to know what online marketing strategies are the competitors following. Spy on their social media and look for link building techniques and content marketing methods. A good way to know what the competitors are up to is by setting up alerts to know when they are publishing new content. Try and gather information on when and what backlinks the competitors are earning or building.
• Build internal links –Internal links are key to running a successful blog. With a good internal linking structure, the users can navigate through the website easily and have a good overall user experience.
• Promote the content – To generate backlinks, content should be promoted. Reach out to the current and new audience through email and social media channels to promote the content.
• Write testimonials – An easy way to earn quality backlinks is by writing testimonials for websites that you are using.
• Get interviewed – Online interviews are a great and easy way to earn backlinks to your website. Being showcased on a website that runs interviews provide a great boost for backlinks.

Earning backlinks can be a challenge but with the above ways, you can easily find many link building opportunities. Having stated how backlinks can be generated, let us now look at why backlinks are important for any website.

1. Backlinks determine how high the content of the website gets indexed – Search engines like google use search spiders to index websites based on the quality of the backlinks they have. Good quality backlinks and indexed content on search engines drive more quality traffic to the website. The website becomes more relevant. Inbound links to the website indicate the importance and relevance of the website. Google gives more weight to the website that has been endorsed by other websites. But remember, backlinks that lead to wrong content will keep the ranking low of the website on search engines.
2. Type of backlinks matter – Better results with inbound links can be achieved through proper placement of links within the contents of the website. Backlinks placed in the middle of sentences commonly referred to as “contextual backlinks” are important in SEO as the contents are subjected to having them linked. These links are directly related to the topics and keywords on the website so they generate higher ranks.
3. Building quality backlinks takes time – Backlinks that get added to a website abruptly will not have any impact. Backlinks added over a period of time are considered by search engines. The criteria for rating backlinks by search engines have become stricter than ever before.
4. Backlinks help in building relationships – Link building involves reaching out to other relevant websites for the promotion of content or infographics of your website. This helps in building long-term relationships with key influencers in the industry which can further lead to your website is highly regarded and trusted.
5. Backlinks help in generating referral traffic – We know that backlinks have a direct impact on the rankings, but it is important to note that a good backlink can help increase the traffic to the website too. This increase in traffic can lead to higher sales. The value of the link is not just about SEO but also about the customers.
6. Backlinks help in brand building – Good backlinks can help a brand establish itself as an authority in its niche. Link building techniques such as content creation help in showing the audience the expertise of the company and go a long way in building the brand.

Building quality backlinks is extremely important for any website for not only Search Engine Optimization but for achieving the long-term objective of brand building increased traffic and building long-lasting relationships.