Digital
Marketing / SEO / What are Backlinks? A Simple Guide
A Basic Definition
Backlinks
are links from one site or webpage to another. Search engines (Google, in
particular) treat these backlinks as "votes" or recommendations. If a
quality site links to your page, that tells Googles basically "Hey, this
page is good and trustworthy!" Backlinks are also referred to as
"inbound links" or "incoming links."
An explanation
with a compare
Let's say
you are trying to find the best pizza restaurant in the city you are new to.
You ask ten
locals for their recommendations. If seven of them confidently recommend
"Tony's Pizzeria," you will probably feel good about heading to Tony's.
Backlinks
work the same way on the internet. Each link from a website to your page is
like someone personally recommending your page. When a lot of trusted websites
are "recommending" your page with a link, Google is going to see this
and go, "Wow, this page must be a really good and trusted resource for
this topic!" The trust will help your page rank higher.
Concrete
Examples in USA
The
High-Authority National Link:
A financial
technology startup in San Francisco writes a comprehensive data-driven report
on "The Future of Digital Payments." A journalist from The Wall
Street Journal is writing an article on the same topic and finds the report. In
their article, they write, "According to a recent report by FinTech
Innovations..." and link to the startup's report. This is an incredibly
powerful and high-quality backlink from a nationally respected authority.
The
Relevant Niche Community Link:
A woman in
Portland, Oregon, maintains a well-read blog about organic gardening. She
uploads a detailed guide about "How to Build a Raised Garden Bed." In
a large online community forum where thousands of enthusiast gardeners in the
US share tips and ideas, there is a discussion on starting a new garden. A
senior member says, "If you're going to build a raised bed, this guide
from 'Portland Organic Gardening' is the best I've seen," and posts a link
to her blog post. This is a highly relevant backlink for her blog and will
bring traffic that is highly targeted.
Why It's
Important
Backlinks
are crucial for SEO success for three main reasons:
1.) Higher
Search Results - This is top of the list because it matters most. The more high-quality
"votes" (or backlinks) you have from authoritative websites, the more
authority your website has as far as Google is concerned. Authority is
important for you to rank above competitors in search.
2.) Traffic
(Referral Traffic) - Backlinks generate human visitors, not just search engine
bots. If someone is reading the Wall Street Journal article, and they click the
link to your report, they have already arrived on your website, based on their
interest in your article. Also, referral traffic is usually highly engaged!
3. Faster
Discovery - When Google's crawl bots crawl a reputable website, they follow all
the links on that page. If a popular site has a link to your new article, it
will help Google find you and index your content a lot quicker than it would
have without the backlinks pointing to the article.
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