Backlinks explained

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High-quality backlinks are one of the most effective ways to separate your website from the rest of the competition in the cut-throat world of Search Engine Optimization. If you’re not familiar with SEO, you may be asking yourself what backlinks are and how they can impact your website’s search engine positioning. Luckily for you, this article will provide you with everything that you need to know about backlinks and how important they are for every SEO campaign.

Backlinks Defined

Simply put, backlinks are the links from other websites to yours. They are also widely known as inbound links and are crucial in your website’s popularity and relevance on the Internet. If your site has good quality backlinks, this simply means that other sites are encouraging their visitors to use your website. When it comes to backlinks, quality beats quantity. You don’t just want numerous backlinks on your site but numerous high-quality ones.

SEO and Backlinks

Google uses backlinks to ranks sites in terms of relevancy for a certain keyword. The higher the amount and quality of backlinks, the better it would be for your site’s rankings. Bonus points are given to if the backlink comes from a relative, authorative website.

One of the best ways to obtain high-quality backlinks is through reputable and renowned directories that Google classifies as a good quality link. Yellow Pages, Bing, and Microsoft, are one of these directories. To be part of their directories, you simply need to sign up for their sites.

Backlinks just don’t work perfectly for SEO, but they are also an excellent source of traffic. When Internet users see a link to your website that comes from a website that they are currently visiting, they will be more than likely to visit your website and trust its content as well.

The important things that you need to remember in creating backlinks for better search engine rankings include:

  • Diversity of Domain Rank – You need to avoid generating tons of links that are of mediocre quality as this will only lead to poor domain rank diversity. What you want is to create links organically by reaching out to other websites. Build links from a diverse array of websites that enjoy extensive authority. Google and other search engines will more likely consider you as a trusted site if you diversify your backlinks.
  • Links from varying IPs – Relying on a clever link building strategy like a link wheel (a group of websites that link to each other) might sound enticing, but it would actually do your website more harm than good.  Because your links are generated only from a single or couple of IP’s, Google will consider this an unnatural and suspicious and they can punish your website as a result.
  • Diverse Anchor Text – The anchor text is the text that carries the hyperlink. Normally, the text will look like “click here” or can be something that is more descriptive. With anchor texts, visitors will know what site they will be redirected to. With that being said, it is vital to utilize keywords that are relatively straightforward. Avoid using long and complex keywords that may confuse and fend off users. Also, Google hates these kinds of keywords so it would be best to avoid them at all cost.