What Are Backlinks in SEO? | SEO’s Hidden Weapon

All businesses invest in digital marketing to get a high rank in search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO), especially backlinks, helps companies to achieve this goal. As the quality of the links is not equal, companies need to monitor their backlinks. In this article, I will discuss different subjects, such as the importance of backlinks and great techniques to get high-quality ones.

What Is a Backlink?

A backlink is a link that your webpage receives from another website. Inbound links and incoming links are other names for backlinks.

What Is the Difference between a Link and a Backlink?

Links or hyperlinks are connections between two pages on the internet. They are available to lead people to another one. However, backlinks represent traffic from one website to another and refer users to the second webpage. Not every link can help search engines rank your website higher.

Why are Backlinks Important to Search Engines?

Backlinks work as votes for your website when you compare it with others. They are crucial elements in search engine optimization (SEO) and SEO strategies. As the algorithms of Google have changed several times, however, backlinks are still significant factors in showing how popular a website is.

What factors are Vital to build backlinks?

Not all backlinks value the same. When you create unique content and get backlinks that pass authority to yours, you can increase organic traffic on your website. It means search engines only consider high-quality ones, not all kinds of backlinks. So consider these key factors:

1. Website authority: The higher the domain authority of a website is the more trustworthy it is. Search engines prioritize links from websites with high domain authority. This kind of website can help you improve your search engine ranking.
2. Relevant websites: When a website from a different industry backlinks to yours, search engines find the difference and do not consider it a valuable link. So it is significant to send this message to the search engines that the context is relevant to get a higher ranking.
3. Anchor text: Backlinks include some words that are called anchor text. It is a good idea to use keywords in them so they can show the backlink subject to search engines.
4. Different websites: Backlinks from different sources, such as social media, blogs, and news sites, are valuable. Try to have backlinks from various sources to make it natural.

Backlink Building Techniques for SEO

1. High-quality Content: It is essential to attract backlinks naturally. Creating valuable content is one of the best ways to achieve this goal. It means the content that people find useful to share. As a result, when you produce practical videos, articles, tools, and infographics, you have a higher chance of getting backlinks.
2. Building Relationships: Influencers, bloggers, and website owners who are active in an industry usually create mutual relationships with other fellows. They usually collaborate on content to generate backlinks. This is one of the techniques you can use, too.
3. Skyscraper Technique: You need to research and find one of the best content related to your website. Then, rewrite it, add more unique information, and make it better. The next step is promoting your content. Find some experts in your industry and ask them to add your content URL to their existing content.
4. Link-Building Opportunities: You need to find link-building opportunities by research. Find websites that usually link to your rivals. Discuss it with the website owners. They are highly likely to link to your website, too.
5. Social Media Promotion: When you produce content on social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, it is a good idea to engage with your audience and encourage them to link back to you. So a strong social media presence helps relevant backlinks.
6. Submissions: One way to reward valuable backlinks is by submitting to a business listing related to your industry. So search engines see you as a website that people can trust, and it is easier to get backlinks.

Different types of Backlinks

• Natural Editorial links: All businesses look for editorial links as they are natural and valuable to search engines. When other website owners freely give you a link, and the only criterion is content quality, it is called an editorial link.
• Resource Page Links: What is a source page? It is a page that gathers all helpful resources on a specific topic for readers. These kinds of websites link to relevant websites with practical content and help them build natural backlinks.
• Guest Blogging: It is common in marketing campaigns that writers write an article and publish it on another website. As a result, the backlink shows the writers skills and brings more traffic.
• Directory Links: Directories are similar to online catalogs for businesses. Website owners can submit to these types of platforms in exchange for a backlink to their websites.
• Social Media Links: You can share and promote your content on social media platforms to attract more audiences. They are likely to share your content, too. However, you can link back to your website on your social media profiles.

Tools for monitoring backlinks

There are some practical tools to monitor your website backlinks to ensure they work. You can find a list of them below:

1. Ahrefs: This prominent tool prepares detailed reports on a website backlinks, and users can easily monitor them, find broken ones, and review competitors strategies. It is famous for massive backlink databases, so it can offer a great analysis of yours.
2. Moz Pro: Link metrics are one of the Moz Pro features. It helps user analyze their profile, find new and lost backlinks and evaluate new opportunities.
3. SEMrush: SEMrush provides different metrics so users can see how valuable and powerful the backlink is. You can monitor and analyze your backlink profile, reject harmful links, and see how your competitors backlinks work.
4. Majestic SEO: One remarkable feature of Majestic SEO is its extensive link intelligence database. It lets users monitor the backlink history feature and also analyze backlink growth over some time.

Monitor Backlinks: In addition to monitoring competitor strategies and identifying broken links, real-time insights into backlink profiles are the most significant feature of Monitor Backlinks.

What are Bad Backlinks?

Google and other search engines do not accept every exchange link. So, websites should avoid too many guest post links or exchange links. Besides, it is a good idea to stay away from irrelevant links and low-quality directory links. In addition, obligatory links are not recommended.

Conclusion

You need SEO strategies, especially backlinks, to stay ahead of your competitors. As search engines value quality over quantity, it is significant to know more about the quality of backlinks and different important factors.