Backlinks are simply links shared by different sites. So, for example, when you share a link to a YouTube video from your Twitter account, that video’s page gains one backlink from you.
Let’s say John has a website about DIY bicycle repair hacks. Another site with similar interests finds one of his guides exciting and valuable and links to John’s pages from his website.
John now has a backlink from that site. If John chooses to write an in-depth guide about all the different types of bicycle chains in the market and uses other sites as references in his epic listicle, he provides backlinks to those sites.
Better Google rankings are connected with more backlinks. Therefore, higher-ranking websites have significantly more backlinks. For example, the first result on Google almost always has 3.8 times more incoming links than the second through tenth results.
An incoming link to your website is called a backlink. That is why investing in backlink building helps improve Google rankings. In addition, backlinks can make or break your SEO efforts.
Keep reading to discover more about how backlinks are part of any serious SEO effort.
Advantages of Building Backlinks
Topical Relevance
Relevant backlinks have a higher value in Google’s eyes because people are more likely to engage them. It’s something that Google discusses as the “reasonable surfer” What do Google’s guidelines imply in practice? For example, if a mechanic gets backlinks from two pages, one about cats and the other regarding SUV repair, the latter will likely be more beneficial for the mechanic’s site.
This concept is also evident at the domain level.
SUVMechanic.com users are more likely to click on a link to another mechanic’s website than a site about cute kittens.
Discoverability
Search engines like Bing, Google, and DuckDuckGo find new materials by checking for new links on pages that have already been indexed or crawled by their robots.
Search engines naturally revisit popular or “reliable” pages more frequently than unpopular pages. So if you get backlinks from more popular pages that already have steady readerships, this may help Google, Bing, and the rest of the search engines find your new content and pages faster.
It Contributes to the Expansion of Relationships
Contacting webmasters to promote a page/link on your website is one of the best strategies for backlink building. Of course, this doesn’t always succeed, but the connections you can form as a result are invaluable. The outreach may also even enable you to connect with influencers and industry leaders. Even if you do not receive a backlink, you can establish long-term partnerships that will benefit you in the long term.
People are also likely to trust your site and business if you have relationships with trustworthy personalities. Someone might even reach out to you and ask for your assistance.
Backlinks Will Enhance Brand Recognition
Websites acknowledge you when you have backlinks.
This isn’t just a vote for the significant search engines. Backlinks are also a vote of confidence for site owners and readers.
Generally speaking, sites don’t link back to just any other website. Doing so may harm their reputation, so they’re careful about the outbound links. Businesses will only link to other sites if necessary, of it adds to their trustworthiness in the end. Backlinks are a classic indicator of reliability, at least on the internet.
Just promoting your website increases brand awareness. Getting referral traffic, on the other hand, is even more beneficial. Referral traffic can easily result in conversions, transactions, and leads.
New visitors will be familiar with your brand and will remember it. If new users find your site valuable, they may contact you in the future or return to your site to browse. People like revisiting sites that they find trustworthy because it reduces their stress in finding what they need online.
Your Site Will Be Rewarded with TRAFFIC
You receive more organic and referral traffic when you start investing in backlinks. Organic site traffic is an indirect result of your increased SERP rankings.
The audience of linked websites creates precious and FREE referral traffic. In addition, visitors from other sites that carry your backlinks can discover more about your business or organization by clicking on your links.
The quality of traffic is determined by the website where the links originate. Your referrals are also relevant if the referring websites are closely related to your industry or market. You’ll have a better chance of converting traffic into sales and conversions if your circle of supportive sites is from the same industry. For example, if your business is copper manufacturing, you’d do well to contact the webmasters of steel fabricators and related businesses.
Referrals are also beneficial to your search engine optimization. Google keeps track of them and utilizes this metric to estimate your ranking.
It’s a Confidence Vote of Varying Value
A single backlink is a vote of support for your site. It’s a message to Google that a specific site respects you enough to link back to you. The more “vote counts” you have, the more Google considers your website to be a credible source of online information. With so much misinformation online, Google is very particular about sites that don’t give users insufficient or downright inaccurate information.
Here’s a little secret – when users are happy with results found in Google, they will continue using Google. Essentially, bad sites are bad for business, and Google is a business after all. That’s why the world’s biggest search engine takes credible information very seriously.
Backlinks SEO efforts will be boosted, and your website will be able to achieve higher SERP rankings. It should also be good enough for webmasters who are constantly looking for references for their content efforts. This is also why you should make your site as authoritative as possible – because people will link to you only when you look trustworthy enough. Your real-world authority must translate to site authority.
However, before you start acquiring as many backlinks as possible, keep in mind that the quality of the link is also taken into account by all search engines, and not just by Google. Google particularly considers criteria such as the trustworthiness of the website that links back to you. Therefore, the more authoritative it is, the more credible the “vote” appears to be.
Also, Google penalizes PBNs or private blog networks.
Probably every webmaster has thought of this method at one point or another, and let me tell you that it’s a bad idea. It’s never going to be a good idea – because Google indexes billions of pages, and once it spots your mini-sites linking to one another, Google will lower its hammer.
