What are backlinks? Beginner's Guide to Backlinks

The backlinks are essential for users, search engines and companies. What are backlinks? A backlink is a link between two websites, like when a blog listing the best smartphones links to the website of each Smartphone manufacturer (Google, Apple and Samsung, for example).

With these backlinks

Users can explore related content
Search engines can discover new content on the web
Search Engines Can Improve Their Search Results
Businesses Can Improve Their Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Of course, if you are researching backlinks, you are probably curious about all about backlinks and SEO. In this guide, you will learn everything you need to know to start using backlinks, how they work, and how to earn them.

Keep reading to learn more about backlinks and backlinking.

What is a backlink?

The definition of a backlink is a link from one website to another. In most cases, when it comes to backlinks, a backlink is a link from another site to your site. Backlinks are also known by several different names, including hyperlinks, inbound links, outbound links, or just links.

Why are backlinks important?

Trackbacks are important for several reasons, including:

Backlinks help search engines find and index your content for search results
Backlinks help users explore the web and discover content relevant to their interests
Backlinks help search engines interpret the quality and authority of sites and content

The "World Wide Web" has been named so for a reason: With its series of linked pages and websites, it really looks like a web. Links add context and tell "spiders" that browse the internet that there are more pages to find thanks to the backlinks that exist there.

Let's say you have a brand new website.

No one links it to it, and you don't submit it to Google either. How do you think it will be found?

You can't find it!

However, if someone links to your site, a search engine spider can crawl that link, discover your site, and index (or make findable) the content you just created. This is one of the reasons that backlinks are so important: Without them, search engines won't know your content is there, and neither will users.

What is the connection between backlinks and SEO?

In the context of search engine optimization, a backlink is an important factor in determining the ranking of your pages. In fact, in 2016, a Google team member confirmed that backlinks are among the top three ranking factors for Google.

In general, the more relevant and quality backlinks that you have pointed to your website, the higher you will rank in your targeted keyword searches. So it is desirable to have this type of backlinks as a high ranking can increase your traffic, purchases, conversion rate, etc.

This does not mean that you should try to get links from all the powerful websites on the internet.

Google's algorithms are so complex that a link's relevance will be just as important as its source. So while it may be nice for your pet store to get a link on your friend's marketing blog, it won't help you rank better.

How to get backlinks to your website

Getting backlinks to your site isn't always as easy as creating content or doing something interesting and waiting for the links to arrive. If you are a new business or are still working on increasing your website traffic, you will need to put some effort into getting backlinks from other sites.

Here are some easy ways to get links to your site:

Set up Google Alerts for your brand or business name. If you spot a mention of your business on a website that doesn't have a link, send a friendly email requesting one.
Tell your local newspaper a story you recently wrote. Chances are they're looking for some interesting news, and local hits are always highly regarded.
Find a website or blog looking for contributions from industry experts. If you can write an authoritative article on the topic in question, send them a pitch. You can include a link to your website in your author bio or in the body of your post, as long as it is relevant.
Create an engaging infographic and showcase it on multiple websites. They will attribute your site, which can be a powerful backlink if the graphic is picked up in a popular location!
First link to someone else. It might sound like the backside, but if you include a link to someone's content or mention it in one of your own pages or blog posts, that person might notice, take awareness of your presence and return the favor afterward.
Target competitors' links. By using a tool like Ahref, you can assess the backlink profile of your competition. See which quality, relevant sites relate to your competition, then submit your content to those sites (if that makes sense) to earn backlinks.
Present your content as a 404 solution. Broken links or 404s can be a quick fix for building inbound links. Use a tool like Screaming Frog to explore the 404s. If you have comparable content, submit it to the site owner or author.
Create web 2.0 blogs. These blogs are free and very useful for your ranking and you can do this by just finding blogs and posting content on these and get backlinks. Below I’m sharing some web 2.0 blogs with you, where you can create your blogs easily.

Web 2.0 sites list:

It is very important to stay abreast of Google's guidelines for webmasters when creating backlinks.

For example, Google has already imposed manual sanctions on websites with "unnatural outbound" profiles. The move followed a warning they sent weeks earlier asking bloggers to disclose free product reviews and not to follow outbound links regarding the product in question.

This practice of exchanging a free product for a review has long been used by some SEOs, although it has always fallen into a gray area of Google's guidelines. The sanctions Google has imposed on those who ignored their warning shows how important it is to keep up with Google's news.

Penalties can cause your content to be fully or partially deindexed, which is detrimental to organic traffic.

3 techniques not to use to get backlinks

Since link building seems like a lot of work - and it is - and you know that backlinks are important for SEO, you can buy backlinks or use some sort of backlink service to generate and populate those links with software. Is it a good idea?

No. Here are three tactics you shouldn't use for backlinks:

1Buy backlinks
Use of backlink software
Testing a backlink generator

If we want to work smarter, buying backlinks isn't what we mean when we talk about marketing automation.

There are two important reasons why you should do your link building by hand:

Buying links is a violation of Google's webmaster guidelines, and may result in your site being penalized and removed from search engine results.
When you buy links you never know what kind of quality you are going to get which can lead to your website being penalized anyway.

Cheap backlinks are usually cheap for a specific reason, and buying backlinks won't get you anywhere fast.

Instead of buying your links, you should take the lead and either set aside the time to create a link building program with a dedicated employee or hire an experienced SEO agency to link for you using content resources from high quality and advertising.

Trust Us: There is no such thing as a "cheap, easy way" to get hundreds of great links to your site, unless some content goes massively viral. If you buy backlinks, you are likely to play with the future of your business.

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