Backlinks are the crucial part when you’re thinking about SEO. When you try to rank your website in SERP, a better SEO plan can make you stand out from your competitors. This SEO plan includes extensive keyword research, quality content, strategy, and backlinks. Without any of them, you can’t gain potential results from your ultimate efforts.
So, undoubtedly, backlinks are an important aspect to rank your website and gain more traction. Typically, backlinks help you to be visible in different places on the internet. It also enhances your trust and credibility so that both search engines and the audience will give your priority.
We often get confused about what are actually backlinks and are they really important for SEO? By reading this article, you will have a clear understanding about this term. This article is absolutely for beginners and the general public who learn more about SEO and backlinks. We don’t use any technical jargon here.
Ready to enhance your knowledge? Let’s move on.
What Are Backlinks?
Backlinks are also known as inbound links or incoming links or links that link from one domain to another. When a page of domain shares links to a page of another domain, they are backlinks. 
For the website who shares the link is outbound link and the website who receives the link is inbound link. This is why we often call backlinks as inbound links.
These backlinks provide a signal to the search engine. If you get a link from a reputed website, Google marks your website as useful and resourceful. If not, it doesn’t bring your potential outputs. So when it comes to building backlinks, quality always matters.
When you’re thinking about link building, some buzzwords may arise in your mind such as internal links, outbound links, one-way links, etc. Outbound and one-way links are the alternative name of backlinks but there is a difference between internal links and backlinks.
Internal links are creating links which are connecting from one page to another page of your own website. Suppose, you create a service page and a blog post and then interlink with each other, this is internal links. But getting a link from another page of a website is a backlink.
Backlinks can be created by two ways:
Natural Backlinks
When you get backlinks by providing quality content on your website, not for doing any link-building strategy, these are natural backlinks. This content requires better keyword density, in-depth research, and expert knowledge.
Link Building
Link building is the process of creating anchor text on a page of another website. This is one of the crucial SEO practices that help you to get rank on search engine result pages. Most of the backlinks are created by link building.
What Are Quality Backlinks?
Not all backlinks help you to get higher domain authority or SEO scores. Any spam or irrelevant link may decrease your chance of getting higher ranks. So it is recommended to consider some factors to get your desired outcomes. These factors are-
Backlinks From Trusted Authority Site
Authority site means the website has a good reputation on the internet. When you get a link from a high authority site, it also increases your overall credibility and trust to your potential audience and search engines.
Backlinks That Include Your Target Keyword
Make sure anchor text includes your target keyword when you get links of a page from another website. It helps search engines to determine whether the link is good enough or not. These types of backlinks are effective to pagerank.
Backlinks That Relevant To Your Niche
Suppose, you probably get a link from a high authority fashion magazine but your niche is automobile. Does this high authority backlink help you to rank better? The answer is no, because that backlink must be relevant to your niche. Otherwise, you can get your potential traffic and SEO outcomes.
Backlinks That Relevant To Your Content
Content relevancy is a must. If your content and the backlink doesn’t match, it cannot make a positive impact on your ultimate SEO effort. Think of creating relevant quality content as well as building relevant backlinks.
Backlinks & SEO
SEO is a process of developing your website better for both search engines and audience. Some of the best practices of search engine optimization includes-
- Keyword/ Topic Research
- On-Page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Off-Page SEO
When it comes to SEO, we typically go through a process of keyword research, content creation, on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-page SEO step by step. Among them, off-page SEO is actually the creation of backlinks. If you don’t go through the creation of backlinks, this process will remain incomplete.
Moreover, off-page SEO has several benefits. From acquiring to maximizing your overall SEO score, off-page SEO is essential. Technically, off-page SEO plays a vital role in getting traffic and achieving higher ranks.
To sum up, when you’re thinking about SEO, getting backlinks should always be your great concern.
Types of Backlinks
When one page links to another page, there are mainly two basic ways: do-follow and no-follow. Let’s take a look at the type of backlinks according to the way of link building:
Do-Follow Links
Do-follow links are those who are passing the authority when one page links to another page of a website. The passing of authority is also known as link juice. Do-follow links don’t have specific attributes thus they help directly to rank on the search engine optimization pages.
Do-follow links help a website to gain more domain authority that improves keyword ranking. Building do-follow links increase the overall credibility and trust of your website. This is applicable for both search engines and your potential audience.
No-Follow Links
When a page of a website shares a link to another website but they don’t pass the authority, then it’s no-follow link. No-follow links send a specific attribute in the code (no-follow) so that search engines can understand what type of backlinks it is.
To practice a better link-building strategy, the combination of do-follow links and no-follow links is crucial. It keeps your website balanced so that search engines will mark it as a good website. Moreover, no-follow links help to gain more traffic and make traction.
Depending on the quality of links, there are mainly two types: high-authority links and low-authority links. Let’s have a look:
High-Authority Links
High authority links are those which links are generated from high authority websites such as Forbes, Business Insider, etc. These links are typically not easy to get and sometimes you need to buy. Though these links enhance the trust and credibility of your website, those are risky as well as costly.
Low-Authority Links
These links are not coming from a high authority site, more often it’s coming from any web 2.0 site or a forum site. These links pass very little authority so that it is less risky. You don’t need to spend money on it.
Why Are Backlinks Important For SEO?
You can’t think of an effective SEO plan without quality backlinks. Quality backlinks not only improve your SERP visibility but also help in many aspects on your website. Just thinking about what do you expect from your overall SEO effort? To gain more traffic, increase conversions, and ensure a strong online presence. This is why you should obviously think of creating quality backlinks:
Faster Ranking
Backlinks give signals to search engines so that search engines can measure your SEO scores. When you get quality backlinks, it improves your page ranking as well as domain authority. The more backlinks you do, the faster website ranking you can get. The combination of quality content, on-page SEO and quality backlinks surely help you to get faster ranking on the SERPs.
Boost Credibility
Backlinks improve your credibility to make you visible in different websites and pages. When you create a link from another website, that means, you create an anchor text on a page of another website so you can expose other websites too. Ultimately, it boosts your overall credibility. And better credibility means better SEO performance.
Referral Traffic
As you are linking your website’s page with different pages, there is a chance of getting referral traffic on your website. In that case, you must build backlinks from niche relevant sites, then you can achieve your potential audience. Once they come to your website, now it’s time to make them your ideal audience by providing quality content and better user experience.
Raise Brand Awareness
Backlinks also improve your brand awareness by getting noticed in different places. Search engines and people know about your website from different places on the internet. It brings more trust for your website and ultimately it can raise your brand awareness. It may also make a positive impact on your SEO scores.
Position As A Authority
When you get lots of backlinks from high authority websites, you have tons of quality content and you implement on-page SEO best practices on your website, it will make you an authority in your relevant industry. To sum up, backlinks are an integral part of positioning your website as an authority.
How To Create High-Quality Backlinks
Getting high-quality backlinks requires lots of dedication and patience. It’s not possible to create high-quality backlinks overnight. You need to go through a systematic process to make it happen. We suggest doing this process step by step-
Competitor Analysis
You need to be up-to-date about your competitors. Know what they actually do, how they rank top on the SERP page and how they create high quality backlinks. Analyze your top competitors with extensive and in-depth research so that you will come to know a lot of information.
This information will assist you to make a killer strategy for creating high-quality backlinks. Sometimes, you may use the same method as your competitors do. This is how you can move forward.
Create Linkable Content
Content is king. You can’t think of high-quality backlinks without quality content. This content can be any form such as blog posts, press releases, case studies, guidelines, etc. Infographics, podcasts, and video content are also popular for getting quality backlinks nowadays, So, don’t hesitate to create a variety of content on your website.
Consistency is important when it comes to SEO and Content. But keep in mind, that content must be useful and resourceful so that another website wants to provide you a do-follow link. Linkable content can attract your niche-relevant high authority website for moving forward.
Guest Blogging
Creating content for your own website is not sufficient to get enough quality backlinks. You need to write on another website to get a quality link. This is guest blogging. You need to outreach most potential websites and send them a proposal that you are available for guest blogging.
Sometimes you may also get an email that sends a proposal for guest blogging. Make sure your guest blogging pays off. You want to reach out to the most prominent websites in your industry and convince them to do guest blogging. Not only does it help you to create backlinks but also it raises your brand awareness.
Take Advantage of Directory Sites
You can find various local directories, search directories, and other directory sites. These types of backlinks are usually easy to create so that you don’t miss such a great opportunity. Directory backlinks help you to boost your local SEO scores and attract more potential visitors.
Spend less and get more from your overall effort. Take the advantage of directory sites as it gives you valuable outputs in terms of link building. Moreover, you don’t need to take much hassle to create some backlinks from directory sites.
Outreach & Promotion
Never hesitate to outreach for create high-quality backlinks and promote your content on different channels. You can outreach through E-mail and promote your content through email newsletters, social media, forum sites, and many more.
Use different techniques to promote your content as it’s not like actually a promotion. Like you can add value by providing guidelines through Quora and Reddit. You can also make your interaction in various social media groups and channels. Use your own efficient techniques and experiments to know which is better.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are backlinks and how do they work?
Backlinks are generating a link from a page of another website. They work through a systematic process of link building. One website shares a link of a page to a page of another website. This is how backlinks are created.
2. Why are backlinks important in SEO?
Backlinks are an integral part of SEO. Your ultimate SEO effort will become incomplete if you don’t work on creating backlinks. It helps you to increase website traffic, boost credibility and rank faster on the SERPs.
Eventually, it assists you to position your website as a high authority website. We discuss along with detailed information in the above. Give a quick look.
3. How to link my website with another website?
Technically, you can’t link your website with another website directly. You can link a page from another website to a page of your website. This link can be generated through anchor text where you can put your targeted keyword.
4. How many backlinks do I need to rank?
The more backlinks you create, the higher ranking you can achieve on the SERPs. There is no specific number that we can recommend to you. But keep in mind, you need to do better than your competitors, Don’t forget to follow other SEO best practices besides backlinks creation.
5. How many types of backlinks are there?
There are various types of backlinks you can create to boost your SEO score. All of them are either no-follow or do-follow backlinks. Some of the most popular backlinks are-
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- Guest Blog
- Editorial Backlinks
- Relationship based backlinks
- Press Releases
- Infographics
- Free tool backlink
Final Thoughts
Almost 200+ SEO best practices you can find to rank your website in search engines. Among them, backlinks are the proven efficient method to reach your ultimate destination. But this is not the first stage of your SEO plan.
Firstly, you need to develop your other SEO strategy like keyword research, on-page SEO and so on then implement them on your website. When your website is ready to get high-quality links, it is a wise decision to move forward with the link-building process.
Hope this article was helpful to you. If you can learn something new from our guidelines, our ultimate effort will pay off. Feel free to share this article anywhere. Thanks for reading.
