What is a backlink on a website? Backlinks are links from a page on one website to a page on another website. From the receiving side, they are called as incoming links or inbound links. And from the linking end, they are referred to as external, outgoing or outbound links.
Are backlinks still important? In a word, yes. And there are 3 reasons why they are important. First, it’s a factor that helps Google and other research engines determine which pages should rank the highest for a given query. Second, links to your website can send you more visitors through referral traffic. And thirdly, backlinks help search engines to discover your pages faster.
Now, the easiest way to conceptualize backlinks is to think of them as votes. When a page receives a backlink, it’s essentially another website adding credibility to the content on the page. And the more “votes” you get from credible sources, the higher the trust. But not all backlinks are created equal. At a basic level, there are two things that separate “good quality backlinks” from the not so great ones.
First is topical relevance. Google talks about how the likeliness of a link being clicked relates to its relevance. So, let’s say you have a web page on “How to make iced tea?” If you were to label this topic with a category, it would likely fall under food and beverages. Assuming this page had two backlinks, one from a tech blog and another from a food recipe blog, the latter would hold more weight since there is higher topic relevance from the page and domain.
Second is authority. When we talk about “authority” we are referring to the quality and quantity of the backlinks from the referring websites and pages. Google places a score on this called “PageRank”, which is an algorithm used by them to rank webpages in their search results, based on certain metrics.
Now, you are probably wondering, “How do I get high quality backlinks?” There are 3 methods to getting backlinks. They are:
- Earn them
- Create them and
- Build them
Earning links refers to natural organic growth. This is when people discover your pages through any medium like Google search, social media or word of mouth, and choose to link to your page.
Creating backlinks is when you add a link that points to your site, on another website. This could be through directories, forums, blog comments or some other method.
Finally, the building links part. This is usually done through strategies collectively known as link building. You can build links by reaching out to other site owners, editors or webmasters and ask them to link to your page. As a general rule of thumb, the easier it is to get a link, the less valuable it will be. And when you are new to SEO services, you will want to focus on link building to really get traction for your site.
Since people search for something and often read the number 1 result, that result in some of them linking to that page from their own website. And due to this, that first-ranked page often stays at the top creating this circle of SEO.
Bottom line
You need backlinks to rank your page higher, simple as that. They are many “experts” out there who claim that backlinks are not that important, but that’s just not true. If you look at any top SEO company in Mumbai, or anywhere in India for that matter, you will see that they include backlinks in their SEO practices and you should too.
