What Are backlinks And Why Are They Important For SEO?

It's not easy to get that kind of endorsement, especially for small businesses or startups. But if you want to boost your SEO performance, you need to make sure you consistently earn high-quality backlinks to your website. 

 

The more of these 'votes' you have, the higher your site will rank in Google and other search engines. 

Using links in a search engine algorithm is nothing new. In fact, backlinks formed the foundation of Google's original algorithm (known as “PageRank”). 

 

Even though Google has made thousands of changes to its algorithm since then, backlinks remain a key ranking signal. 

There are two basic types of backlinks, and one is more valuable than the other.  

 

A nofollow tag tells search engines to ignore a link. They don't pass any value from one site to another. So, typically they aren't helpful in improving your search rank or visibility. 

 

dofollow links are the type of backlink that everyone wants, and those coming from respected sites that have a high Domain Authority (DA) score hold the most value. DA is used to measure the quality of a web page or site based on many different components, including PageRank, number of linking domains, age of the site, keyword density, and the reputation and trustworthiness of the domain name itself. 

 

The concept behind Domain Authority is simple: If a website is trusted, people will trust it too. This is why DA is often referred to as a 'trust score.' So getting links from websites with a high 'trust score' in turn tells Google that your site is trustworthy. This will help increase your DA, which in turn will help improve your search engine ranking. 

Bear in mind that it's more about the quality than the quantity of backlinks that will help to improve the search engine ranking of your website. So the best way to get trustworthy sites with a high Domain Authority to link to your site, is to write good quality content that people will want to read, and that businesses and organisations think will be of interest and benefit to their website visitors.  

 

A great way to achieve this is to write a blog post about how to solve a problem that you know your target audience are likely to have. Or you could create a YouTube video about something related to your industry. If you then put that on your website, you will have the opportunity for the video to get found on YouTube searches as well as Google searches. FAQ pages that really get into answers to questions that people are looking to be answered are another way to create content that people may want to link to. 

 

Once you have posted great content on your website, you need to tell the world about it. You want people to find it and link to it, so their website visitors can read it. Posting on social media and emailing your customers is a great way to do this. But you will also need to get beyond your current contacts. While social media can help with this, you could also reach out to businesses and organisations that are likely to find your content relevant.  

 

Brainstorm the types of companies and organisations that have a similar audience to yours, but who are not competitors. Then do a Google search to get a list of companies in that space, and email or message them with a link to your content. Keep it brief and don't be pushy or spammy, but mention that you think it could be of interest to their audience. They won't all link to your content, but the more you ask, the more links you are likely to get.  

So there you have it. Backlinks can help you improve the search engine ranking of your website, but they need to be from trustworthy sites to make a positive difference. 

 

You need to create content that is worth linking to, and then reach out to sources that may (or may not) link to it. All of this takes time. But as your website rises up the search engine rankings, and people click on the links to read your content, the increase in enquiries your site generates could pay dividends for months, and even years to come. 

 

If you would like help with creating high quality, link worthy content, get in touch with us at it’seeze Horsham to see how we may be able to help you.  

At it’seeze Horsham, we combine professional web design in Horsham with ongoing expert support to create high-quality websites that deliver results. We ensure the websites we build are easy to understand and edit, with an extremely easy-to-use website editor, backed up by a national team of web designers, web developers and domain experts. For a web designer with completely transparent pricing and affordable website packages, call us today to create the website of your dreams and turn your business into a success. Contact us for more details, or click on the button below to book a free 15 minute phone call.