If you are a part of race to the top of the SERP, you have probably come across the term “backlinks” and that’s definitely what led you here. Playing a key role in off-page SEO, backlinking is a highly effective, yet frequently-ignored, SEO process given its challenging nature that requires a long-term effort. Mastering the art of backlink-building, though, will take your SEO game to a whole new level and is worth understanding and undertaking.

What are backlinks?

Let’s begin with understanding the notion of backlinks. A backlink (also known as an “inbound link”, “incoming link” or “one-way link”) is a link from one website to a page on another website.

Why is backlink building important?

Treating these links like votes, Google and other search engines use backlinks as a way to measure the note-worthiness of your website’s content thereby making backlinks a major metric for the ranking of a webpage. To a search engine, the more backlinks aka. votes you have, the higher your domain authority.

How do backlinks help in SEO?

Backlink building plays an essential role in the SEO process and the overall strategy for growing your website. They enable search bots to crawl your site and use the content found there to rank it correctly.

The idea is pretty straightforward: a page with a lot of backlinks tends to rank higher on all major search engines, including Google. But not all backlinks have the same kind of worth, of course. In fact, a single high-quality backlink can be worth more than 1,000 low-quality backlinks.

High-quality backlinks can help increase a site’s ranking position and visibility more effectively in search engine results (SEO).

How can you get backlinks?

Getting authentic and high-quality backlinks is not a one-day task. It’s a long-term task that calls for consistent effort and collaboration. While a lot of people shy away from it, the challenge is worth it and definitely worth the effort.

• Here are a few ways to help you with your backlink building.
• Collaborate with other bloggers in your field and trade backlinks
• Create content such as “how-to” posts, “why” posts, infographics, or posts with embedded videos that are more likely to get backlinked.
• Write “ultimate-guide” posts with several thousand words that cover a topic in its totality.
• Write guest posts on other blogs and websites and link back to your site.
• Contact influencers in your niche or industry and tell them about an article on your site that they may want to link to.
• Add links to your site on your social media profiles.

Have you already tried some of these backlink building methods or would like to share your thoughts on backlinks? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below. If you’d like more tips on other topics related to SEO, stay tuned to our blog.