What Are Backlinks? & Why them are important for SEO?
When it comes to ranking websites, Google uses a complex algorithm with over 200 factors. Among these, backlinks are one of the most crucial elements.
In this article, you will learn:
- What backlinks are
- Why backlinks are important for SEO
- What makes backlinks high-quality
- How to get quality backlinks
What are backlinks?
BACKLINKS, also called incoming links, are links from one website to another.
When website A links to website B, it’s like giving website B a vote of confidence. And the more links website B get from credible sources, the higher the trust. This endorsement signals to Google that the content on website B is useful and relevant.
For example, here in the screenshot, the trusted site Medium links to expired domains with backlinks service Gone.Domains.
This is called a backlink.
Why backlinks are important for SEO?
Google uses several ranking factors to decide which pages appear at the top of search results.
These include relevance, content quality, user experience, backlinks, and domain authority.
A well-crafted page that satisfies user needs and matches the search intent is more likely to rank higher, especially if it has strong SEO signals like quality backlinks and good user engagement.
Backlinks can increase Domain Rating. Domain Rating is a metric that shows the strength of a website's backlinks, ranging from 1 to 100.
Higher scores mean a stronger backlink profile. This metric is commonly used in SEO to gauge a website's potential to rank well in search results.
Links to your website can increase visitors through referral traffic. When other websites link to yours, they can bring visitors who arrive at your site by clicking those links.
Backlinks can help speed up the indexing of your website.
How does this work?
Imagine you have a backlink on another website that leads to one of your pages.
When Google’s crawler encounters this backlink, it follows it to your page, which can lead to it being indexed more quickly or prioritized for indexing soon.
What makes a backlinks “hight-quality”?
Not all backlinks for SEO are the same.
To rank higher on Google, focus on getting high-quality backlinks.
Quality backlinks are those that meet at least some of these conditions:
Topically related backlinks
A site linking to yours should be topically related.
For example, if your site is about web design, the backlinks to your site should also be related to web design or digital topics.
Backlinks from websites about sports nutrition, for instance, do not benefit your site; in fact, they can harm it.
Backlink includes target keywords
It would be GREAT if the anchor text of backlinks (the clickable text of a link) included your target keyword.
Anchor text is important for SEO because it helps search engine understand the link's context and can affect the rankings of the linked page.
Authority of backlinks
Quality and authority backlinks are links from trusted and authoritative websites. When your site has a link from a trusted website, it signals to Google that your content is useful and valuable.
Google values these trusted resources.
So, try to get backlinks from authoritative and trusted sites.
A backlink from an authority site can also attract more visitors because these websites usually have a lot of traffic.
Backlink "Dofollow"
A "dofollow" link is a type of hyperlink that allows search engine crawlers to follow it and pass on link equity, or "link juice," to the linked page.
This means that when a website links to another website with a dofollow link, it essentially endorses that page, contributing to its search engine ranking.
In contrast, a "nofollow" link that instructs search engines not to follow the link or pass on any link equity.
Getting quality backlinks
Quality backlinks come from authoritative and trusted sites. There are a few ways to get incoming links from trusted websites.
You can write an interesting article with a link to your site and publish it on a trusted website related to your topic. This works if the site allows user-generated content.
Another way is to create really useful content and publish it on your site's blog. When visitors share your content, they will include a link to the original.
This method is more powerful, but also more difficult, because creating valuable and useful content takes a lot of time and energy.
Leaving comments on social media with a link to your site can also help build your backlink profile.
The key is not to spam links to your site. Your comments should be genuinely helpful to users.
This way, you’ll not only get quality backlinks but also attract new visitors to your site.
There are directories based on specific topics where you can list your site for a fee, as well as free ones. Finding these directories, signing up, and getting your materials ready—like descriptions, titles, logos, screenshots, and videos – can take a lot of time.
Some websites let you pay to publish your content. First, find these websites. Then, write an interesting and valuable article. After that, contact the website owner by email to discuss the terms of publication. Finally, pay for the publication. This process takes time and effort.
Another way to get quality backlinks is by buying expired domains with backlinks and redirecting them to your site.
This method is simpler and takes less time and effort. You don’t need to create content or reach out to people. It allows you to gain backlinks from trusted and high-authority sites.
You can use Gone.Domains for backlink building.
Gone.Domains is a service that finds expired domains with backlinks on high-authority websites. In other words, it’s like a database of quality expired domains with backlinks. It can be called a backlink-building service.
The service includes a filter to help you find relevant expired domains with backlinks related to your site’s topic.
You can also see the anchor text and a link to the page where the expired domain was mentioned.
Find expired domains related to your site and buy them from any registrar.
Then, set up a 301 redirect to your site or a specific page on it. By doing this, you'll transfer all of the expired domain's backlinks to your site.
This greatly improves your SEO and boosts your ranking in search results. It also increases your Domain Rating.
Check out my expired domains, which I bought and set up with a 301 redirect to my site. You can see that this gives me more backlinks and boosts my domain rating.
