A backlink is a hyperlink from an external website pointing to your site. Such a reference sends an important signal to search engines about the value and reliability of your pages. The more relevant websites that link to you, the higher your chances of appearing prominently in search results.
In this article, you’ll discover what backlinks are, why they matter, and how to naturally acquire valuable links to boost your online visibility.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. This is an important part of SEO. Search engines like Google consider a website with backlinks to be a good and relevant site.
Link building
Link building consists of two types of links: internal and external. Internal linking means placing links between the content within your own website. External linking refers to placing links from your website to another site and vice versa. Both methods help Google recognize your website as authoritative. However, external linking—meaning backlinks—is generally more important.
Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are important because they show Google that your website is trustworthy and valuable. When a website has many backlinks, it’s seen as a relevant site. After all, why would other websites link to yours if your content wasn’t good?
It is important to collect quality backlinks. This means you shouldn’t just gather as many backlinks as possible from random websites.
Quality backlinks
- A quality backlink is relevant. This means the backlink comes from a website whose content relates to yours.
- A quality backlink is also natural. This means the backlinking happened organically. For example, a website that is only six months old and already has 200 backlinks is unrealistic. Google sees this as manipulation and won’t consider the site “good.” Use the MOZ Toolbar to track and analyze your link-building efforts.
Bad backlinks
When people think of link building, they often assume it’s about placing as many links as possible. That’s not the case. It’s very important to place high-quality links. Unfortunately, there are also many bad links. You can recognize them by the following:
- Links with many identical anchor texts
- Links from websites created solely for link building
- Links placed by automated bots
- Links with poor or possibly copied content
- Links unrelated to your topic
Anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. This can be internal or external. This text is often underlined, bolded, or colored to make it clear there’s a link behind it.
It’s important that the anchor text is relevant to the linked content. Google values this highly and it can help improve your ranking in search results.
Follow and Nofollow Links
In addition to internal and external links, there are also follow and nofollow links.
When you place a follow link, you indicate to Google that the content you’re linking to is trustworthy. With a nofollow link, the website you’ve linked to essentially disables the link. A site might do this to retain the benefit of its high page rank.
Ways to Get Backlinks
- Write guest blogs for relevant websites. By contributing a guest post to a reputable website, your content is seen as valuable, which can help improve your Google ranking.
- Publish high-quality, relevant content so other websites want to link to you. The better your content, the more likely others are to reference it.
- Collaborate with blog influencers. A blog influencer has their own website. A partnership ensures they link to your website from theirs.
- Leverage social media. Using social media increases the chances that others will link to your website.
- Write quality articles and share them on other platforms. Some websites accept submitted articles, where you can mention and link back to your own site.
- List your website on start pages. There are start pages where you can register your site. This counts as an external website and will generate more backlinks.
