What Are Backlinks?
When somebody links back to an indexed URL on your website, this is what SEO professionals refer to as a backlink. Sometimes, it may also be referred to as an “inbound link.” It’s a connection, leading directly from another website to your online presence. This can direct traffic to your website on its own, but its primary function is to improve your website’s reputation in the all-knowing eyes of Google.
How Good Backlinks Help your SEO
When your website receives multiple backlinks from relevant and authoritative sources, Google recognizes an increase to your site’s authority. Your website it will rank more highly in organic searches performed by internet users, for keywords and phrases related to your niche. The principal effects of this will be felt gradually, but a good backlink can begin exerting influence with surprising speed.
This is the core purpose of SEO, or search engine optimization. The goal is to improve your website’s search engine ranking, driving steadily increasing amounts of web traffic to your online presence over time. Backlinks are one of the most crucial factors involved in perfecting your website’s SEO.
What Makes a Good Backlink?
Not all backlinks are created equal. You can’t always control where a link comes from, which makes it crucial that the backlinks you deliberately establish be as authoritative as possible. By using a backlink checker, many versions of which are available for free online, you can identify where existing backlinks are coming from, and where on your site they are connecting to. There are other backlink tools available to reputable SEO and digital marketing firms, which can not only help you identify good locations for high-quality backlinks, but can even assist with cleaning up undesirable links.
Relevancy and Authority
When a link back to your own content is generated, you want it to come from a source that is both relevant and authoritative. A link to your website from a website that is highly regarded by Google as an authority within your industry will do a lot for you. An authoritative but irrelevant backlink, or one that is relevant—but not so well-recognized for its own authority—will do less. A backlink that comes from a source that is neither relevant nor authoritative on its own will do nothing, and may even hurt your SEO.
Citations
You also want a backlink to be associated directly with information about your company. A link back is all well and good, but a high-quality backlink will be associated with your company’s name, physical address, and phone number—data which marketers frequently refer to as NAP (for “name, address, phone”). If you can set anchor text for a link—the text which displays in lieu of a web address, like that—it’s best to attach the link to something important, like your company’s name.
Location
A good backlink is one that is placed somewhere relevant, and which incorporates your company’s contact information, but it should also be clearly positioned. A backlink placed in a highly visible location will drive traffic to your website directly, while also contributing to its search index ranking.
How to Get Good Backlinks
Locations like web directories, including both automated and manually compiled directories, are excellent resources for high-quality backlinks. You can register your website with a directory which is related to your company’s industry, location, or function. There are a lot of these directories around, although only a relative handful have risen to national or international prominence; the more (relevant) directories you can find to register with, the better off you’ll be.
Another important step to generating backlinks is to provide your own, internally. Other resources are more likely to link back to your website if it has a good internal structure. If you publish a blog post related to a subject you posted about previously, link back to that first post within the body of the new one. Tying related web content together like this makes your website easier for visitors and crawlers to navigate, either of which will reward you for the effort.
Maintaining an active social media presence is another good way to generate quality backlinks for your website. Links in your bio act as backlinks, and sharing your content will ensure more traffic to your website. This will frequently position it within industry-relevant locations—to the benefit of others who might be interested in taking advantage of the products or services that you offer. In addition, social media profiles—such as Facebook business pages—contain business info crawled by search engines like Google.
More About Backlinks
The following sources offer highly authoritative advice and solutions concerning essential SEO best practices, including the creation and support of high-quality backlinks. If you’re looking for more information, they’re worth investigating at length.
