What You Need to Know about Backlinks

November 12, 2018 By Stats Digital

In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), there are many moving pieces that can help move your site higher in organic search rankings. These pieces can be the words on your pages or even links to and from your website. What’s known as a backlink is created when another website links to yours; this is sometimes called an inbound (or incoming) link.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Backlinks are one of the key components to good SEO. It’s considered an indicator of how popular or important the website is and adds to a site’s relevance in the competition for a higher search ranking. Search engines, and Google in particular, consider the quantity and quality of backlinks when determining relevance in a search query.

Relevance Matters

Let’s say you have a car dealership website and there is a backlink from a food company. There’s no natural connection and the backlink does not bear much weight. However, if there is a link from an auto parts dealer, that’s considered a higher quality link and lends more credence to your site.

Earning Backlinks

Link earning, also known as link building, is the process by which one obtains backlinks. Not all backlinks are the same. Not only is there a question of what’s relevant but some links are weighted more heavily than others. Followed backlinks are considered the most valuable—these come from trusted, authoritative, and popular sites. There are followed and nofollow links, and while followed links are certainly highly relevant, nofollow links are a valuable, if passive, way to draw attention to your business.

Guest Articles

Guest writing for another website is an effective way to earn backlinks. You reach a broader audience and have the potential of increasing your social media followers and improving your online reputation. In a guest article you should also link to your social media profiles so you can continue to gain followers.

Link Farms

Standards regarding quality links have become increasingly rigid thanks to the use of deceptive measures to generate inbound links such as hidden links and sites known as link farms. Link farms are automatically generated pages with the purpose of linking to other websites. Backlinks with link farms could cause your site to be banned.

Manage Your Backlinks

It’s important to keep track of your backlinks because they provide valuable information regarding your company. Not only do they tell you who is linking to you, but you can learn what anchor text is associated with your website. There are various stat tools available to help you keep track of this information.

For San Diego businesses, search engine optimization is a critical component to the company’s overall digital marketing strategy, and backlinks are an important part of SEO. Don’t overlook this critical metric.