A backlink is a link from one website pointing to another, a somewhat seal of approval between websites, backed by Google. Some of the most popular websites, such as Amazon, Nike, or Microsoft, have hundreds of thousands of backlinks pointing to them – some created intentionally via backlink building methods, and others generated naturally.
For example, some backlinks are politely asked for from other websites. However, it’s important to note that purchasing backlinks goes against Google’s guidelines and may result in a penalty. A Google penalty impacts the ranking of your website and, thus, the amount of traffic you’ll generate.
How do you build backlinks?
There are several methods of building backlinks, some more legit than others. However, legitimate methods include:
- Guest posting
- Politely asking for links from other websites
- Sponsored posts
Above are the most basic methods of building backlinks, excluding purchasing links that breach Google’s guidelines.
Why do you need backlinks?
Essentially, a backlink boosts the strength of a website page or post. The more backlinks a post has, generally, the higher it will rank. However, not every website contains the same backlink strength. The higher a domain score for a site, the stronger the link. Usually, it’s better to have fewer backlinks from higher domain sites than multiple links from weaker domain sites, so if possible, keep this in mind when searching or asking for backlinks.
Furthermore, when writing keyword-focused content, the more difficult the keyword to rank, the more useful backlinks are in increasing your page ranking.
Posts and pages with difficult keywords will benefit from backlinks more than others, increasing the chances of these ranking on Google’s first page.
The bottom line
Backlinks are a crucial component when it comes to ranking blog posts and website pages. In general, you should build links to your home page and individual blog posts and pages, especially those that contain difficult to rank keywords.
All businesses should implement a backlink strategy, whether that’s emailing and asking for links themselves or seeking outside help to support building these links.
