In a simple definition, a backlink is a link from one website to another. If someone links to your website, you have a backlink from them. If you link to someone else, they have a backlink from you. Getting backlinks is a great SEO strategy because Google uses it as a ranking signal. A website linking to another gives search engines the impression that the content is excellent.

What are backlinks, and why are they important? How do you get website backlinks? In this guide, we go through everything you need to know about backlinks, including how to get quality links.

How Do Backlinks Work?

Backlink is a great strategy to grow your website and improve your SEO strategy so that you rank higher on Google. The best way to explain what’s a backlink for a website is by giving an example: 

Bimpe, a well-known fashion blogger, writes a blog post on ‘five ways to style your boots’. Another blogger, Aisha, did a round up of the fashion trends of the year, and boots came up. She decided to link to Bimpe’s blog post to show people how to style their boots and to add context to her claim. This is a backlink to Bimpe’s website, and people are likely to read her post, thus increasing her website’s reputation and authority. 

So, backlinks are links from another website. They are sometimes known as inbound links or incoming links and their original function is to cite statistics, add context, or make recommendations. 

Why are Backlinks Important

Now that you understand what backlinks are, there goes the other question: why exactly are they useful for? Here are some things backlinks help with:

1: Referrals

The aim of many backlink examples is to refer people to valuable or reputable resources. If you claim that people who get backlinks are five times more likely to rank than people who don’t, you should be able to cite a study or proof that shows you didn’t make up the number. Getting backlinks will help more people discover you and attract customers into your marketing funnel. 

2. Rankings

Do backlinks help SEO? 

The one-word answer is Yes. 

One of the reasons backlinks are essential for a website is that it makes it easy to rank high for a related query. Google considers backlinks a vouch for quality and a vote for confidence. For this reason, you can improve your organic search traffic by getting many backlinks to your website page. 

3. Authority

Search engines view websites with more backlinks as important. Therefore, the more backlinks you have, the more you build your website domain authority.

What Makes a Good Backlink?

In an attempt to get seen by Google, some website owners try to find different sites to link to their websites. However, what they may need to understand is that backlinks are not created equally. There are high-quality backlinks and poor backlinks and the goal is to focus on building quality backlinks. 

One thing that makes a good backlink is having a number of them. The more websites link to your page; the more alert Google gets that your content is great and worth linking to. For this reason, pages with more backlinks are more likely to rank higher than those without. 

However, quantity isn’t the only thing that factors in when it comes to search ranking. Quality backlinks are essential because backlinks, in a way, work as a vouch or proof that a content is accurate and valuable. For this reason, having just any website link to your page might hurt your website ranking. The best backlinks are the ones that come from reputable websites. For example, getting a backlink from a famous foundation or a thought leader will count more than from a random blog that opened years ago with just three posts.

In this case, having links from high-quality sites hold more weight than having high-quantity links from disreputable websites. 

So, how do you get good backlinks?

Here are some factors that make a good backlink:

1: Relevance

Backlinks should always be relevant to the content and niche of your website. Google wants to see that the website linking to your page is related to you. For instance, if a fashion blog has links from two pages: one from a makeup vendor and another from a company offering construction services. There is a high chance that the backlink from the makeup vendor is more valuable than that of the construction company. Google will put more weight on the backlink from the makeup vendor than that of the construction company. 

2. Authority

Google considers the authority of the websites that other pages get backlinks from. High-quality websites have more authority, and the authority can pass on to your site if you get backlinks from them.  For example, a backlink will be more valuable if it comes from Forbes than if it comes from a random person’s website. Therefore, it’s best to obtain backlinks from websites with high domain authority. 

3. Traffic

Backlinks from websites that get high traffic are more valuable than those from low-traffic pages. When you get a backlink from a high-traffic page, you will get more referral traffic, which will help your visibility. 

4. Placement

Another thing that determines your backlink quality is how they appear. Backlinks highlighted with color or bold fonts will likely grab people’s attention. Also, if a backlink is far off someone’s page, you may not get enough referral traffic. 

5. Target Keyword

Backlinks with your target keyword as anchor text are likely to get high search rankings. 

How Do I Get Backlinks?

The most natural way to get backlinks to your page is by earning them organically. This simply means writing great content and hoping someone links to you. That is a natural way, and you may wait a long time without getting any. 

A better way to obtain backlinks is by putting in some effort which usually involves submitting your website to businesses, linking to others in your niche, commenting on blogs, guest posting, and dropping your links in online forums. Another link-building idea is to promote your content and get it in front of people likely to link to you.  You can also consider messaging people to link to your website, but that will be pretty tedious, considering the number of people you’ll need to message.

Best Practices for Website Backlink Building

Here are some tips to get quality backlinks to your website:

1: Create Linkable Content

The best way to get people to link to your os is by creating content worth linking to. Your content should be unique, relevant, and easy to read. 

2. Build  Backlinks from Link Roundups

Link roundups are blog posts that compile a list of outstanding content and then link to the author. A good idea might be to find link buildups in your niche and pitch your content to be included in the roundup. Remember that you must focus on creating a linkable asset first. 

3. Search for Broken Links

If you’ve ever clicked on a link and it takes you to a 404 error page, you are on a broken link. What can you do with that?

An excellent way to build backlinks is by searching for broken links in your niche, letting the site owner know about the broken links you found, and pitching your website as a replacement. There are tips to find broken links in your industry, and one of them is using the Check My Links Chrome Extension. 

4. Create Visual Assets and Infographics

The content that generates the most links are infographics and visual post. An excellent way to get or link is by creating more visual content and infographics that people will want to link to. 

5. Consider Guest Posting

Guest posting is a brilliant tactic that involves writing for other people’s blogs rather than your own. 

How can this help with backlink building?

Guest posting gives you the opportunity to add your website links to your posts. A great challenge with guest posting is finding sites that accept guest articles. You can pitch your article to certain websites or submit your article to websites with the Write for Us page. 

FAQs

What is a Backlink to a Website?

A backlink is when one website links to another one. When you see a link in content leading to another website, you have come across a backlink.

Do Backlinks Help SEO?

Yes.  Pages with a higher number and quality backlinks are more likely to rank higher on search engines than those without. Meanwhile, you should know that the quality of the backlinks you get is more important than the quantity.

How Do I Get Backlinks?

A great way to get backlinks to your site is by creating high-quality content and linkable assets that high-authority websites would like to cite as their source. 

How Many Backlinks Do You Need To Rank?

If you wish to rank higher through backlinks, it is best to get about 50 to 100 backlinks from high-quality websites. 

In summary, backlinks indicate how useful or popular your website or content is. Therefore, the more backlinks you get, the more your content ranks on search engines like Google and Bing.  Here is the summary of the tips to get more backlinks:

• Create high-quality content worth linking too
• Focus on quality links over quantity
• Prioritise links that come from a high-authority website
• Avoid unnatural, poor, irrelevant, and paid backlinks.