Introduction
Backlinks – links from a third-party website to your own page – are vital for SEO. Backlinks are a great way to measure the popularity of your website, and it has been proven that the more backlinks you have, the higher your rankings in search engines will be. Read on to find out more about the importance of backlinks, and how you can use this knowledge to propel your site up in search engine results pages (SERPs).Shortcode text for editor
[table id= /]
What are backlinks?
When you create a website, your primary goal is to attract visitors. The more people who visit your site, the more money you’ll make. To get the most traffic to your site, you need backlinks from other sites that point back to yours.
Backlinks are important because they act as a vote of confidence in your site and can increase its ranking on search engines like Google or Bing based on their ranking algorithm. For example: If one of the top 10 sites on Google includes a link pointing at yours, then all of its authority will be passed on to yours too!
There are two main ways that backlink quality affects SEO:
- Links coming into a page contribute authority according to how highly ranked they are themselves (called “link depth”). So if someone links to your homepage instead of another page on your site (like an About Page), it contributes less than if they linked directly back into one of those pages (since it would have more link depth). This helps determine which pages are important enough for search engines so that when people type keywords related to those topics into Google Search Bar***END OF SECTION
How do search engines like Google interpret backlinks?
A backlink is a link that points to your website from another site.
Search engines like Google use the number and quality of your backlinks to determine how relevant your web page is, and thus, how high it ranks in search results. In other words, the more authoritative websites that link to yours, the better. (Authority is determined based on numerous factors including domain authority and PageRank.)
The role of quality in acquiring backlinks
In the world of SEO, one thing is clear: quality trumps quantity.
You’re not going to gain much from backlinks if the content you’re linking to isn’t worth linking to. For example, if you were a restaurant and wanted to promote your new menu item on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter – would you rather have 10 people link directly to an image of their favorite dish (and then forget about it) or 1 person link directly to an article with amazing images and detailed information on how to prepare that dish?
In short – once Google has placed value on certain sites as being authoritative sources for information about particular topics, those links are more valuable than others because they are seen as coming from trustworthy sources.
Another factor of importance for Google
Google is using machine learning to understand the quality of a site. This means that Google’s algorithms are getting better at determining the quality of content and that all sites are not treated equally anymore.
Google also looks at the authority of your linking site, as well as its content. If you have a link from a high-authority website like Wikipedia or Harvard University, this will help your page rank higher in Google search results because it shows that these pages are authoritative sources on their respective topics.
Types of backlinks
Backlinks are the most common way of measuring the popularity of a website. Backlinks are external links to your site from other sites, and these can be made up of various different types.
- DoFollow: These link to your site with a ‘follow’ or ‘nofollow’ attribute. The nofollow tells Google that it shouldn’t factor that link into its search rankings algorithm. However, do-follow links may still provide value by contributing to the overall authority of your domain name as well as boosting its reputation across all engines that see them (e.g., Yahoo!, Bing).
- NoFollow: In contrast, nofollow links don’t carry any power in terms of search engine rankings but may still serve some purpose in providing greater exposure for websites and building brand recognition among users who follow them on social media channels like Facebook or Twitter (which function differently than conventional search engines).
Do-Follow Backlinks
A do-follow backlink is a link that passes link juice to the page it’s pointing to. This means that a search engine will follow the link and crawl the page, which can help your website rank higher in SERPs.
Do-follow outbound links are especially important for SEO as they have been proven time and time again to have a direct impact on rankings. While this may seem obvious, there are also other non-obvious benefits of doing keyword research and analyzing what keywords people use when searching for things like “best coffee maker” or “what are the best cordless drills?”
Not only will you learn about what people really want (and how much money they’re willing to spend), but you’ll also find out what words they use when talking about those products! These keywords might not necessarily be related directly to each other (like “coffee” vs “drill”) but they’re still relevant because they tell us what consumers are looking for when buying something specific; which means we can use them as inspiration when creating new content!
No-Follow Backlinks
No-follow backlinks are not actual links. They’re just a way for you to navigate around your own site and help the user find what they’re looking for if they know what they’re doing. If you see a no-follow link on your page, don’t worry about it! It doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong or that your site is struggling with SEO; it’s just another way of saying “navigation”.
The most common use of no-follow links is the internal link — that’s when one part of your website points to another part (like this example: “Want more information about our products?”). When someone clicks on an internal link on your site, their browser will take them directly there — but Google knows it wasn’t meant as an endorsement by you as an individual or business owner, so it will ignore those visits and keep everything else working as normal.
Backlink tools and software
The best backlink tools are a must for any SEO campaign. They help you track and manage your links, identify potential link opportunities, and find link-building strategies that work. Here are some of the best tools for each part of the process:
- Backlink analysis – Moz’s Open Site Explorer
- Link building – Ahrefs, Majestic SEO (paid), or SEMrush (paid)
- Link removal – Disavow Links tool from Google Webmaster Tools or Monitor Backlinks tool from Majestic SEO (free)
1. Backlink Watch
Google’s Backlink Watch is a free tool that lets you search for backlinks to your website. You can also see the number of backlinks, their quality, and the anchor text they use to link to your web page. It will show you where each of these links is located on other websites in addition to how many domains are linking to each page on your site.
This information may lead you to make adjustments such as adding or removing links from other sites or even changing the way that you write content on your own site so that it appeals better to potential readers.
2. SEMrush (free trial)
SEMrush is a tool that will tell you about backlinks to the website of your choice. It’s perfect for SEO because it allows you to see who has linked to your competitors and learn what types of backlinks they have.
SEMrush also offers a free version with limited data (the “lite” or “basic” version). It can be used on up to 10 websites at once, but only includes information on their most recent backlinks—you won’t get much historical data or access any kind of advanced report features. The lite version also has some limitations on the number of keywords that queries can contain: 300 per query and 100 total queries per day in total across all accounts (free or paid). The premium plan removes these limits and gives access to more advanced options like custom reports, filtering by location and country, etcetera.
4. Open Site Explorer
Open Site Explorer is a free tool from Moz that lets you see the backlinks to any website. This is great because it allows you to find new sites to approach for backlinks, and it also provides insight into which sites are linking to your competitors.
It’s better to have fewer high-quality links than a bunch of lower-quality ones.
Backlinks are the most important factor in determining search engine rankings. The more backlinks you have, the better your chances of ranking well in search results. So it’s good to get as many backlinks as possible—but only if they’re high quality!
When it comes to building links, you want to focus on getting links from reputable places that can help your site rank better (for example other websites). These sites are likely written by people who know what they’re talking about; their content provides value and solves a problem for their readership.
Conclusion
But there’s more to it than that: backlinks are also a powerful way to drive traffic. People who have linked to your site before are much more likely to do so again, which means you get even more exposure. As long as that content stays relevant and interesting (which we’ll talk about in another article soon), those incoming links will keep coming, increasing your authority on Google searches. This lets your audience grow exponentially without having to spend any money on advertisements or try out new marketing strategies like keyword stuffing — all while building high-quality relationships with other websites!
0