When searchers type in a query on search engines like Google or Bing, they rarely go past the first search page to find a website. Search engine optimization works to improve your rankings, but Google considers more than 100 ranking factors.
SEO experts don’t know all the factors, but they do know the most important ones including website backlinks. These often time elusive links can have tremendous impact on your overall website ranking. They’re not only important for individual pages, but your entire website.
We’ll examine what backlinks are, why they’re important, and the best ways to get them.
What Are Website Backlinks?
When you’re searching on the Internet and visit websites, you might notice a link to another website. It could be a reference to a company or as the source for an important piece of information. It could be the personal website in the author section.
These are all types of backlinks. A backlink is any link a website has that refers to another website outside of its own URL. If the link directs to another page on the website, then it’s an internal link and not a backlink.
Backlinks can be found almost anywhere on the website. It could be in texts of blog posts, included on a page of links, in the header or footer. There is no limit to where backlinks are located, but they are not all created equal.
Why Are Backlinks Important?
Google is a business, and it wants to provide the best possible product to its millions of daily customers, the searchers. When a person uses Google, it uses a complex algorithm to determine what sites are best for that query.
The algorithm uses many factors as well as artificial intelligence to create the search results page. The goal is to find a website that has expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. A backlink from an important website shows these factors and helps you rank better.
Google bots crawl your website and can see how many backlinks you have and where they come from. It’s not necessarily about how many you have, but the quality of the backlinks. It compares your links with other websites they crawled, and it helps determine the overall rank for the search query.
Of the many factors, we know that backlinks are heavily weighted when it comes to ranking. Your backlinks could mean the difference between page 2 and page 1 of search results. If you want to know what backlinks your website has, then you check Google Search Console or use a third-party SEO platform.
Types of Backlinks
There are millions of websites on the Internet. They all have different values depending on what they are and the information they contain. If they have a backlink to your site, it can be one of three types.
A standard backlink usually comes from sites outside of your niche, but still have valuable information. These can be from business listings, review sites, etc. They add to your overall backlink numbers but don’t provide a lot of SEO juice for ranking.
Standard backlinks weren’t created because your site was particularly useful, but because it existed or fit with what they were looking for.
A high-quality backlink is one from websites in your niche, media sites, etc. They are high value links because people chose to include the backlink because of your site is high quality with good information. For example, if a newspaper article quotes your company because you have expertise in the story, then includes a backlink to your site, it can greatly increase your ranking.
The worst backlinks are toxic. These links can hurt your rankings. They usually come from low-quality sites that Google determines detrimental to searchers. Many times, businesses can’t control if their website is listed on a toxic site.
They can go to Google Search Console and have the link disavowed, which means Google no longer counts it as a backlink.
There are times when a backlink from a high-quality site may not count for your website. No-follow links from websites mean they are telling Google not to count it as a backlink. These usually come from product review sites that don’t want the company to profit off a backlink from their site.
How Do You Get Quality Backlinks?
If you ask Google, the company states the best backlinks are those that come organically. A website that knows of your site decides to include it as a backlink on their site because they find your site informative and high quality. These sites also aren’t solicited for the links.
For example, if a newspaper or blog is doing a story on something within your niche, they might come upon your site and use it as a reference because the information is well crafted and informative.
These are not easy to get, so many people choose alternative methods. Businesses contact another site and either ask for a backlink exchange or to provide a highly authoritative guest post on their site in exchange for a link to their website.
Some companies offer to do the legwork for you and get backlinks for your site. You must be careful and make sure that any backlink they secure is not toxic. Purchasing backlinks from low-quality sites can do more harm than good and lead to a Google penalty.
Backlinks Are Important Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy
When creating an overall digital marketing strategy, it’s important to include backlinks. Due to the difficulty of getting backlinks, many businesses forego searching for them and focus on other methods of search engine optimization.
Don’t underestimate the impact website backlinks have on your ranking. Unlike other SEO methods, backlinks can help not only individual pages but your entire website to rank better. They are difficult to get, but they’re well worth the time and effort.
If you want to learn more about backlinks, SEO, and their importance for your website’s success, then please explore our site today.
