In very simple terms, backlinks are simply links to your site from elsewhere. Sometimes called incoming links or inbound links, if another site has a link to your website, it would be considered a ‘backlink’ from your website.
Why are backlinks so important?
In short, backlinks are one of the key ways that search engines determine how relevant your site is, and that impacts where you appear on the search results. The higher up the first page you are, the more traffic will be sent your way.
At one point they were the only way search engines would determine relevance, backlinks were effectively votes. The more backlinks a site had, the higher it would appear in search results. This resulted in many sites gaming the system, simply setting up a page with countless links, for example. The practice, known as link-bombing or even Google-bombing, no longer works, now, it’s having high-quality backlinks that is a powerful way to ensure a first-page Google result.
What are high-quality backlinks?
Google, and other search engines, have become much more sophisticated, and now look around the backlink to determine its value. It’s not about the quantity of links to your site, but the quality of them.
Google is secretive about what goes into its algorithm, being keen to avoid the reinvention of Google-bombing. But, through what Google have revealed, and knowing what works in practice, it’s possible to understand what they are looking for.
A key factor is the quality of the linking site. In the early days, backlink sites would be nothing but pages of links. These were only intended to be read by Google’s crawlers. Now, though, Google will assess the quality of the page the link features on. A page of nothing but links will have little impact, but a link featuring on the page of a high-quality site will carry more value in its algorithm.
It will also look at relevance. Again, more weight will be given to links on relevant sites. For example, a link on a local business directory will be considered more relevant than a link on a global directory hosted on another continent.
Essentially, Google is taking a more human view of backlinks. If a person would consider them relevant and useful, it’s more likely to score highly in Google’s algorithm, and more likely to result in a higher page ranking.
How we can help
Building backlinks is not just about hoping that people link to you, although that, obviously, helps. Our team have helped many local businesses get to the front page of Google with relevant searches, and that means those businesses have been getting more sales generated through natural traffic.
Part of our service involves working with you to develop a great site and content that people want to link to — no-one wants to link to a site they find drab or difficult to navigate. But we will also actively build high-quality backlinks, ensuring your site features in relevant directories and link roundups. With the right choice of keywords, and the targeted backlink building, you’d be surprised how quickly you move up the search-engine results pages.
If your site needs more traffic, and you want to be at the top of that Google search, call or email us to find out our backlink building can help you generate sales from search.
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