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Writer's pictureGraham Busby

What is a backlink?

Backlinks are a very important necessity when it comes to successful websites but they can get a little confusing and overwhelming, however, in this post we are going to talk about them in an easy way so that you can incorporate them into your website as soon as possible. 



WHAT IS A BACKLINK?


A backlink is a link from one website to another website. From the receiving end of a backlink, they can also be called incoming links and inbound links but if they are from the linking side they can be called external links, outgoing links, or outbound links. They allow websites to link and mention other sites directly and easily allow the readers to quickly look at different pages and sites. Backlinks are a great way to improve your website’s chances of getting to a higher placement within search engines, such as Google, as they affect a website’s ranking. Backlinks are also considered the most important factor when it comes to the way websites are ranked, so having good quality backlinks means that there’s more chance of your website being at the top of a search engine’s result page and is one of the most fundamental parts of our SEO Services



THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKLINKS


Backlinks are important for a lot of reasons because they are an essential part of any successful, highly viewed website. One of the main reasons that backlinks are so important is because they help Google and other search engines determine which of all the pages should rank the highest for the given question or search. So when you Google anything, typically the top website is at the top because Google has decided that it is the most relevant to the search but it also means that it has better quality and reliable backlinks which make the website page appropriate and suitable for the person trying to find information. 

 

Another main reason that backlinks are important is that they can send your website a lot more visitors through referral traffic. This essentially means that when someone backlinks to your site through their site, the people looking at their site may go to your website which results in more traffic on your site which is great. 

 

Backlinks are also great because they allow search engines to discover your page faster which means that there is immediately more chance of people finding your website which then means that there are more visitors on your website. 


GOOD VS BAD BACKLINKS


Just because backlinks are really important and essential doesn’t mean that they are all great or beneficial for your website. This is because there is a big difference between good and bad backlinks. Good backlinks are better for increasing the popularity and rank of your website whereas bad backlinks can result in Google or other search engines seeing your site as unnatural which will lead to less traffic and a lower-ranking that doesn’t help your website grow.

 

Good quality backlinks can include topical relevance. Topical relevance is the way a search engine determines how relevant a web page is to what the user is searching within the search engine. Topical relevance is important because it helps google see the reliability and authority of a website which can lead to more traffic if your backlinks are good and relevant to what your page is about. You should also remember that with backlinks the rule of quality over quantity is really important because one great backlink can be way more beneficial than ten back quality backlinks. 

 

Bad backlinks include things such as sites with a lot of spamming, pages that go against Google’s guidelines, and unnatural backlinks that aren’t cohesive or appropriate for your page.





HOW TO GET BACKLINKS


Getting backlinks can be done in a few ways. The first way is earning them in a natural and organic way. Earning backlinks this way means gaining them through people discovering your pages on their own through searches, finding your sites through social media, or as simple as word of mouth which will then lead to people choosing to link to your page. 

 

Another way to get backlinks is to create them yourself through other sites. This can easily be done by adding links to your site on other websites such as forums, directories, and also blog comments. This is a simple way to get backlinks to sites that have similar relevance and to also be involved in a community of people who have similar sites.

 

The third way that you can get backlinks is to build them by reaching out to other site owners and editors and ask them to link to your site. Gaining backlinks from sites that also have good backlinks is great because it makes Google link you to other successful and reliable sites. This can be hard as many site owners will want specific backlinks however you have to remember, the harder the backlink is to get, the more valuable the backlink is.




HOW TO CHECK BACKLINKS TO YOUR SITE


Checking your backlinks is a great way to see what sites are involved with yours and also to see what links are popular and working well to get your site higher with Google. You can get a backlink checker within Google Search Console. This enables you to see the pages with the most links and also see the websites that have linked to your site the most. This is important because having a site backlink to yours tells their readers that your site is great and their readers should check you out which results in more viewers and more traffic. Also when Google or other search engines are looking at your sites they are analysing your site and how many backlinks you are getting and they also check the flow of them to see that they are continuously flowing rather than getting a lot all at once. 





CONCLUSION


Hopefully, this post has made you more confident with backlinks and you now know why they are so important within websites and you should also know how to get them and use them well!

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