What are backlinks and why are they important for SEO?

Intending for your website/blog to rank amongst the top few search results? Well, you are not the only one. There are a limited number of results on the first page of the search engine results – 10 to be accurate. Above that, Google and other search engines frequently keep on changing their algorithms, hence making it essential for the website owners to continuously refine their SEO strategies.

SEO is the process of affecting the online visibility of a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results, often called as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results. Various factors like keywords, content, meta tags, anchor text, and backlinks impact search engine ranking and can help you achieve a lot higher website traffic. In this article, we will focus on backlinks and how they contribute to a good SEO.

What are backlinks?

A "backlink" is a link from an external website to your website. Until a several years ago, backlinks were the most crucial factor for search engine results page (SERP) ranking of your website. Though, the recent Google algorithm update including the importance of backlinks has reduced considerably.

Importance of relevant backlinks

Backlinks can help increase your SEO rankings only if they are of high quality. For example, for a Fashion blog, a backlink from a brand website is relevant whereas a backlink from a site selling camera can negatively affect the SEO rankings. Don’t get backlinks from spam sites, harvested sites or paid sites – acquiring hundreds of backlinks will not improve your SERP ranking in a night. Furthermore, Google places greater weight on links from higher-domain authority sites related to your business like if you are an SEO services company in Philadelphia it's better to have links from higher DA sites in SEO niche.

Before I talk about the how to get backlinks, you need to know that a number of changes concerning backlinks have happened in the past couple of years. TIn the past even low-quality links helped in ranking a site. But ever since Google rolled out its Penguin algorithm, the game of backlinking has changed.

It is important to have backlinks from quality sites, and those backlinks should be contextual. If, for example, you have a site about fish, and you are creating links from other niche sites about monkeys, these links will be of no use. Your goal should be to get links from authoritative and relevant sites.

How to get relevant backlinks

1. Create quality content that is relevant to your target audience. This will double the number of followers, who will share your content on social media networks.
2. Write guest blogs on top forums and websites with higher-domain authority.
3. Obtain influencers in your domain and ask them to review your products on their pages.
4. Leverage Q&A sites like Quora, to generate traffic to your website. Commenting on such sites will also help you get your prospective customers and increase your brand awareness.
5. Review backlinks of your competition using tools like SEMRUSH and Ahrefs. This information can help your SEO strategy.

Leveraging the right backlinks in your overall SEO strategy can produce tremendous results for your organization. Stick to the basics and do not try to outsmart the search engines by deviating from the guidelines. With the right steps, you will soon see the desired results.

Looking to impart my knowledge on a wide variety of subject matter.