What are Backlinks and Why are they Crucial for SEO?

You’ve probably heard that SEO strategy has to adapt frequently to changes, and you’re not wrong. What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow, but some remain important. One of those things? Backlinks.

What are backlinks, you ask? They’re links to your website content on other websites. 

Why are they important? Maybe you’ve been wondering why your target keywords don’t get much organic traffic/ Or why your competitors seem to always be a few steps ahead. The answer might lie in your backlink strategy—or lack thereof. And if you’re wondering, “Do backlinks still matter?” The short answer is a resounding yes. 

Backlinks are fundamental to your site’s ability to rank well in search engines. And in this piece, I’ll answer the question “What are backlinks and how do they work?” as well as explain why they’re essential and how you can leverage them to your advantage. Let’s dive in.

Key Takeaways

• Backlinks are links from other websites to pages on your website.
• Backlinks in SEO signal your site’s credibility and authority and can help boost your rankings.
• High-quality backlinks from authoritative sites outweigh quantity.
• Cultivating a strong backlink profile is a long-term strategy that brings in benefits over time, such as increased visibility and organic traffic as well as higher domain and page authority.
• Use backlink analysis tools to see how they impact your SEO strategy and where you need to make improvements.
• You can start building a backlink profile by creating content that’s relevant to your audience, sharing it on social media, and doing guest posts on authoritative blogs in your niche.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• So, What Exactly Are Backlinks?
  • Types of Backlinks
• Why Are Backlinks Important For SEO?
• Why Quality Backlinks Matter
• How To Check Your Backlinks
• The Long-Term Impact of Backlinks
• How To Start Building Your Backlink Profile
• FAQs
• Conclusion

So, What Exactly Are Backlinks?

Backlinks, in the simplest terms, are links from one website to a page on another website. They’re also known as “inbound links” or “incoming links.” But how do backlinks fit into SEO strategy?

Nikki Brandemarte, SR SEO Strategist and Local SEO Team Lead at NP Digital, explains that “getting backlinks from reputable sources can demonstrate to Google that you have expertise on the topics you cover. I like to think of quality backlinks as a ‘vote of confidence’ that you know what you’re talking about.”

Now, not all backlinks are created equal. High-quality backlinks can catapult your site to the top of SERP rankings, while low-quality links can do more harm than good. That’s why it’s important to understand the types of backlinks and how to best use them. 

I’ll go into what makes a “good” and a “bad” backlink later in this article so you can have a complete understanding of what a backlink in SEO is and its impact.

Types of Backlinks

Each type of backlink has its unique characteristics and ways of acquisition, and understanding these nuances can significantly boost your SEO strategy. Together, these inbound links feed into each other’s SERP juice to boost rankings and increase your credibility. Check out the image above to see how easily they flow and where the connections happen. 

Let’s dive deeper into the various backlinks and how you can earn them:

• Dofollow Backlinks: These are the backlinks every site covets. Dofollow links are like the open gates allowing search engine bots to follow through to your site. This process can substantially enhance your site’s domain authority and improve its ranking in search engine results. You earn these golden tickets by creating compelling content that others want to reference, engaging with communities, or through direct collaborations with other websites.
• Nofollow Backlinks: Nofollow links might not pass authority to your site because they have a special HTML attribute search engines heed. Yet, they’re essential for a diverse and authentic backlink profile, and they still have the potential to drive referral traffic. You can gain Nofollow links by engaging in forums, posting comments, and participating in select directories or social media platforms.
• Guest Blogging Backlinks: These backlinks are acquired by contributing high-quality content to other blogs or websites. Typically, you’ll get a backlink in your author bio or within the content itself. This type of backlink helps with SEO and broadens your audience by tapping into the host site’s audience. Establishing relationships with other publishers and offering valuable insights to their readers is key to earning guest blogging backlinks.
• Editorial Backlinks: The holy grail of backlinks, editorial backlinks are given when a website references your site as a source of information or because your content is exceptionally authoritative and valuable. These links are earned purely through creating high-quality, unique, and informative content that others find worth mentioning organically.
• Backlinks from Webinars: If you host webinars and share them online, you open up another avenue for backlinks. Sites that find your webinars valuable may link back to them as resources. To maximize this opportunity, promote your webinars extensively, partner with other influencers or brands for broader reach, and ensure your webinars provide actionable insights.

• Free-Tool Backlinks: By offering useful tools or resources for free on your site, you encourage other websites to link to these resources. Whether it’s a unique calculator, an e-book, or an interactive platform, free tools can attract backlinks naturally as they provide value to users across the internet. Developing and promoting these tools in your niche communities can significantly boost your backlink profile.
• Business Profile Backlinks: These are inbound links to your website from your business profile on various business directories, such as Yelp, LinkedIn, and industry or professional sites. Although these are generally Nofollow, this can be a good tactics for backlinks as long as the directories are reputable and your business information is consistent.
• UGC (User-Generated Content) Backlinks: When people link to your website in comments on other sites or in social media, those are UGC backlinks. They’re generally valuable because they are associated with social proof, as long as they don’t come from disreputable sites or seem to be part of a spam strategy.  

Understanding and leveraging what inbound links are in your backlinking strategy can transform your SEO strategy, driving more organic traffic to your site and improving your search engine rankings. The key is to focus on quality content, active engagement, and providing value, which in turn will earn you a diverse and robust backlink profile.

Why Are Backlinks Important For SEO?

Do backlinks still matter? Yes, very much so. Even as digital marketing tactics have shifted over time, backlinks have consistently held their ground as a cornerstone of Google’s PageRank algorithm. 

Backlinks still act as a seal of approval from one site to another, which is a critical part of an SEO strategy. They tell search engines, “Hey, this content is reputable, valuable, and trustworthy.” This endorsement boosts your site’s credibility and authority, which search engines reward with higher rankings in search results. This is especially important in the face of Google’s growing emphasis on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

But the impact of these inbound links doesn’t stop at just credibility. They’re also critical for driving targeted, quality traffic to your site. Imagine a backlink as a bridge between your site and another site’s audience, funneling visitors directly to your content. This increases your site’s visibility and can also lead to higher conversion rates as you’re attracting an audience already interested in your niche. And when a backlink comes from a site they already trust, you’ve already built a strong foundation for them to trust yours.

In short, yes, backlinks do still matter. They’re an essential part of your overall SEO strategy to showcase the credibility and usefulness of your website to search engines as well as your target audience.

Source: Backlink Checker

Why Quality Backlinks Matter

Now, the age-old debate: is it better to have many backlinks in SEO strategy or focus on securing high-quality ones? While having a robust number of backlinks can be beneficial, backlink quality unequivocally trumps quantity every time.

A single backlink from a high-authority, relevant site can do more for your SEO than dozens of low-quality links. High-quality backlinks can improve your site’s authority, increase traffic, and improve your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Going after many links without caring about their quality is a recipe for trouble. It’s like inviting a bunch of strangers to your party without checking if they vibe with your crowd. This approach can tarnish your site’s reputation and lower its ranking. 

So what’s a high-quality backlink? There are a few characteristics to keep in mind:

• Relevancy. A link from a site in an industry or field that is related to or complementary to yours helps Google decide your link is more valuable.
• Domain or page authority. When sites with high authority link to yours, Google assumes your site is more trustworthy as well.
• Dofollow links. These are links where the HTML domain hasn’t been fiddled with, telling Google the site owners trust your domain, which in turn helps your rankings.
• Anchor text: Backlinks with relevant anchor text (or the words that are highlighted when you click a link) provide an even bigger potential boost to rankings. 

In contrast, a low-quality backlink is usually from a site unrelated to your niche, has questionable content, or is known for spamming. These are the party crashers of the internet world and trust me, you don’t want them at your site’s bash.

What types of backlinks should you focus on depends on several factors, including where you are in your SEO strategy.

• If you get fewer than 100 website visitors a day, focus on guest posting on relevant and authoritative blogs in your industry or niche.
• If you have a strong foundation of high-quality content, you can use the skyscraper technique to create content that competes with high-ranking and highly linked content.
• If your business doesn’t have the budget to create a lot of high-quality content, you can still get lots of backlinks and position team members as thought leaders by getting interviewed for or quoted in media articles. Sign up for services like Connectively and Qwoted and scan the listings for journalists who are looking for experts in your field.

How To Check Your Backlinks

To truly harness the power of backlinks, it’s crucial to understand their impact on your SEO strategy and monitor them. This is where backlink analysis tools come into play. You can check backlinks and see where you’re being mentioned.

By leveraging backlink analysis tools, including my free backlink checker, you can also: 

• examine the quality of your backlinks
• spot any links that could be dragging your rankings down, such as links from spammy or irrelevant sites
• Identify where there are opportunities for higher-quality or more links

As you get more backlinks, monitoring them manually takes too much time and effort. Backlink analysis tools make maintaining them much easier. You can make sure that each backlink supports your SEO strategy and propels your site higher in search engine pages.

The Long-Term Impact of Backlinks

Building a strong backlink profile isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s a strategic, long-term process that requires patience, persistence, and smart networking. The payoff is well worth the effort.

Over the months and years, a strong backlink profile acts as a powerful lever for your SEO. It’s like building a reputation in your industry—as you accumulate high-quality backlinks, your site’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) climbs and its authority and trustworthiness grow.

Perhaps most importantly, a diversified and high-quality backlink profile provides a buffer against the ever-changing winds of search engine algorithms. It ensures that your site remains resilient, maintaining its visibility and relevance even as the digital landscape evolves.

However, like so much in marketing, backlinks aren’t a “set it and forget it” thing. To make sure backlinks are aligned with your SEO strategy and are high quality, you’ll need to periodically audit them as well as build new ones as different sites and publishers gain prominence and authority.

Dedicating time and resources to building and maintaining your backlink profile is an investment in your site’s long-term success. It’s about laying a foundation to support your site’s growth and visibility for years. Trust me, it’s an investment that pays dividends in the realm of SEO.

How To Start Building Your Backlink Profile

Now that you can answer the question “What are backlinks and how do they work?” you’re ready to get started building your backlinks. 

You can’t just fire off pitches to every publisher with a major name, though. Listen to this insight from Kimberly Deese, Director of Digital PR at NP Digital:

“Two factors that impact building high quality backlinks are the target page you are trying to build links to and the number of opportunities that currently exist that are relevant to that target page. Personalize content to personas and specific use cases to create more opportunities to reach out and build that personalization into your pitch and call to action.”

With this mindset, here’s how you can get started building up those strong backlinks:

• Start creating content that’s valuable and relevant to your niche. This will encourage other sites to link to it, increasing your site’s authority and credibility.
• Share your content on social media to get potential backlink opportunities.
• Submit your site to respected and authoritative industry directories.
• Reach out to websites with high domain and page authority and ask to write a guest post.
• Participate in popular industry communities and forums.
• Develop free tools and other resources for your website.
• Offer and promote webinars in which you share unique insights or tactics that your peers or potential customers will find useful.
• Consider local link-building strategies.

These are just a start. A successful, long-term backlink strategy requires constant monitoring and iteration to identify what works as well as make sure the majority of your links are high-quality. 

FAQs

What exactly are backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as “inbound links” or “incoming links,” are links from one website to a page on another website. They are vital for SEO because they signal to search engines that other websites endorse your content, which can improve your site’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why are backlinks important for SEO?

Backlinks are crucial for SEO because they act as a vote of confidence from one site to another. This endorsement helps search engines trust your content as valuable and authoritative, improving your site’s rankings in SERPs. High-quality backlinks can also drive targeted traffic to your site, enhancing your online visibility and potential for conversions.

How can I build backlinks ethically?

Building backlinks ethically involves creating high-quality content that naturally attracts backlinks, engaging in guest blogging, and participating in relevant online communities. It’s important to focus on earning links from reputable sites within your industry to ensure the backlinks contribute positively to your SEO efforts.

Conclusion

Backlinks in SEO are an indispensable part of a successful SEO strategy. They improve your site’s ranking and visibility on search engines and enhance your website’s credibility and authority. By focusing on building high-quality backlinks ethically and using a backlink tool to understand their long-term impact, you can significantly boost your digital marketing efforts. 
Remember, the journey to building a strong backlink profile is ongoing. You’ll need to monitor your backlinks to see what’s working, remove broken and low-quality links, and add more over time. But the rewards are well worth the effort.