fbpx
Table of Contents

What Are Backlinks & Why Are They Important for SEO?

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Share on reddit
Reddit

To a business owner, SEO (search engine optimization) jargon often sounds like a bunch of gibberish. What are backlinks, anyway? And why are they so important for SEO?

The landscape of SEO is always changing but link building managed to stay relevant through the years.

In this article, we will shed light on the importance of backlinks, and give you seven tips for making your website more SEO-friendly.

what are backlinks and why are they important | Handmade SEO
What Are Backlinks & Why They Are Important for SEO | Handmade SEO

What Are Backlinks?

It’s pretty simple: backlinks, or inbound links, are links which are directed towards your website.

They are the building blocks of good off-page SEO and incredibly important for your website’s ranking.

Focus on High-quality Backlinks

Quality trumps quantity.

If you want to rise through search engine rankings, focus on earning high-quality backlinks.

Think of each backlink as a recommendation letter for your website.

If you have quality backlinks coming from reliable sources, your website will be considered trustworthy and reliable in Google’s eyes.

While spamming low-quality backlinks can give your site a temporary SEO boost, it is a black-hat SEO tactic that will eventually get your site banned from search engines completely.

Google’s bots are getting smarter about recognizing spammy backlinks every single day.

These tactics are no longer worth the risk if you want to build a website (and business) that lasts.

3 Reasons Why Backlinks Are Important

1. Higher search engine rankings

Google is focused on giving it’s users the best experience possible and the most relevant content possible.

When Google considers your website trustworthy and useful, it will give it a higher ranking.

2. Increased organic search traffic

When your website starts ranking higher, you will get more organic search traffic coming your way.

Did you know that 33% of all search traffic goes to the first result? The second one only gets 18% and the third one gets just a little over 11%.

The numbers get even bleaker from there.

By the time you get to the 10th result (the last result on the first page of Google), your website only gets 2.4% of traffic.

And if your website is not even on the first page?

You can forget about generating serious traffic entirely.

Without organic search traffic, you will have to spend an extraordinary amount of money on paid advertising to get found by potential customers.

Earning high-quality backlinks and raising your website’s search engine ranking is much more cost-effective.

3. Faster indexing

A website with a higher number of backlinks will get discovered by search engine bots quicker.

This is especially important if you are trying to launch a new website.

New websites have very little SEO juice due to their low domain age, so every little bit helps!

7 Ways To Create Backlinks

1. Create stand-out content

The first (and the most obvious) way to earn backlinks is creating stand-out content that other users will want to link to.

Long-form blog content, like ultimate guides and in-depth how-to posts, works great for this purpose.

2. Make “the ask”

Don’t count on your blog readers to share and link to your newest article on their own.

Ask them to do so with a strong call to action near the end of your blog post or social media post.

3. Reach out to influencers

You do not have to wait for people to find your content on their own.

If you have created content that might be of interest to an influencer, email them and share that piece of content with them.

Just make sure the content you are referring to is relevant to them and try to personalize your message to avoid looking spammy.

4. Guest posting

You can create content on other websites, by writing guest posts, to earn backlinks with lots of SEO juice.

Pick a few high-ranking websites in your niche, check the guest posting guidelines, and start pitching your ideas!

5. Comment on other blogs

Blog commenting is a popular link-building tactic that has been around for ages.

Just leave a comment with your website link and you are good to go!

6. Submit your content to web directories

You can submit your content to web directories to earn backlinks.

This includes free business listing pages like Yelp and general link-building directories like Jasmine Directory.

You can also use paid directories like Best of the Web.

7. Consider broken link building

A great way to build more links to your website is checking other websites for broken links.

When you find a broken link in your niche, let the owner of the website know, and offer your own content as a replacement.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to do this manually!

Instead, you can use a Google Chrome extension called Check My Links to check a website for broken links.

How Handmade SEO Can Help

Creating high-quality backlinks is an important part of any SEO strategy.

If you’d like to know how your website is doing in terms of SEO, consider taking our free Digital Marketing Assessment.

It includes a free SEO audit to help you understand why you have not gotten that top spot in Google’s search results – and how you can do better.

Did we mention it’s completely free?

Get your free Digital Marketing Assessment here.

Get Weekly SEO Tips and Updates on Growing Your Business?

Sign up to our newsletter and receive our weekly tips and updates on what you can do to take your business to the next level.

DISCOVER...
5 Mistakes You Should Avoid
And How to Overcome to Grow Your Business

By providing us with your information you are consenting to the collection and use of your information in accordance with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.