What are Backlinks?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio [Pexels]

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks in SEO are links that point back to your website from another website. They’re an important tool for improving your website’s search engine ranking and visibility. They act like votes of confidence from other websites that are linking to yours.

"Top formats found to be most effective for generating links: Long-form, report style content (56%), Interactive piece of content (42%), Blog post (39%), and Static infographic (27%) - State of Link Building Report 2022 by Aira

Do Backlinks help SEO?

Yes, backlinks help SEO significantly. Search engines use backlinks as a signal of the quality and relevance of your website. The more backlinks your website has, the higher it will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Backlinks can be earned or acquired through various methods. You can get them through content marketing, guest blogging, directory submissions, comment marketing, and so on.

They can also be bought from link farms, though this is generally considered a bad practice [black hat SEO practice] and I don't recommend this.

How to Backlink for SEO? - [Backlink Building or Link Building Strategies]:

The infographic details of the most effective link-building or backlink building strategies for SEO performance are shown below:

Image Source - Semrush

Here's another under-utilized reverse image SEO backlink technique that SEO professionals consider to be among the most straightforward and powerful.

It’s important to note that not all backlinks are equal; some are more valuable than others. Search engines give more value to high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites than they do to low-quality links from less trustworthy sources.

Quality backlinks should come from relevant websites that have content related to your website’s topic.

Few key metrics you should consider when evaluating the quality of backlinks:

Relevance - The link should come from a website that has content related to the topic of your website.

Authority - The link should come from an authoritative website with a high domain authority score.

Trustworthiness - The link should come from a reputable source that users trust.

Anchor Text - The anchor text of the link should be descriptive and relevant to the content of the page it’s linking to.

However, it’s important to remember that quality is more important than quantity when it comes to backlinks. A few high-quality backlinks can be more valuable than a large number of low-quality links.

“It takes an average of 3.1 months to see the impact of a link on search ranking, with very few saying it takes longer than 6 months or less than 1 month” - AuthorityHacker

Type of Backlinks:

When it comes to backlinks, there are two [2] main types that you should focus on: dofollow and nofollow. Dofollow links are links that pass on the SEO “juice” from one website to another, while nofollow links don’t.

Dofollow links are considered more valuable because they help to increase your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). They also help to increase your website’s authority and relevance within a particular industry.

Dofollow links can come from a variety of sources, including other websites, blogs, forums, and social media accounts.

Nofollow links, on the other hand, are used to inform search engines that a link should not influence rankings. These types of links are typically used when linking to websites that you don’t trust or don’t want to pass on any SEO juice to.

Nofollow links can also be used when linking to pages that contain sponsored content or ads.

When it comes to backlinks, it’s important to make sure that you focus on quality over quantity.

What do backlinks do for your website?

You want to make sure that any backlinks you build are coming from high-quality, authoritative websites. This will help ensure that your website has the best chance of ranking highly in SERPs.

It’s also important to keep in mind that building backlinks take time. It’s not something that you can do overnight, so it’s important to be patient and consistent with your efforts.

“According to internal analysis, we estimate that an effective link building campaign can represent up to 40% of the positive result of an SEO cycle” – CONVERSION Email.

If you put in the effort and focus on getting quality backlinks, you should start to see positive results gradually in a few months.

Statistics and Facts about Backlinks:

Here are the latest interesting stats and facts about backlinks that were based on multiple in-house studies conducted at Ahrefs over the years.

Image Source - Ahrefs Tweet [H/T:@siquanong]

Overall, backlinks are an essential part of SEO and can help improve your website’s rankings in search engine results pages.

Here's related information that might be useful to you – Google’s Various Systems For Search Engine Ranking [18 Major Findings from New Google Guide]

P.S: Visit Digital Marketing Forum that answers [most un-answered] questions.

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