What are Backlinks | Best Tips & Tricks in 2022 for Beginners

Backlinks are one the most important ranking factors on search engines such as Google. Because they are considered a vote of confidence for the website being linked. Thus, search engines prefer those pages with a higher number of backlinks than those with a lower number.

Inbound links, one-way links, or incoming links are other names of backlinks. It is a way to refer readers either to the credible source of information on the page or to guide them to a more detailed version of the same subject.

After reading this guide, you will be crystal clear about what’s backlinks and how to build them.

What are Backlinks?

A backlink is a link by which readers on one website page can go to another page. For example, you publish a page on your website about the best shoes and talk about Adidas. Now, you can add a link to Adidas online store on your page to further guide your readers, and Adidas will get a backlink from you.

What Is Link Building?

The process of building backlinks is called link building. Link building is one of the most crucial steps in establishing an online business. It can be defined as the practice of giving a one-way link from one website to another to boost the SEO of the website receiving the link.

Link building in itself is a vast subject. But online business developers/owners stay stick to the methods of link building to cover what they need to. Content marketing, PR, email marketing, and broken link building are all methods of link building.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

When Google was not a thing, there used to exist Alta Vista and Yahoo! as popular search engines. Both search engines ranked websites based on the content published on the website’s pages. Then, the era of Google started, and the game changed.

Google not only added subtle details into its job of serving billions of users with answers to their queries but also complicated the process for business owners to rank higher on SERP. Now, your content is one of the many ranking factors.

Google analyzes the quality and the value of the content published on your website and checks the number of people linking to your website. Thus, backlinks make essential ranking factors. Even Google has emphasized backlinks.

Here is an overview of three reasons backlinks are important for your online business.

1- Ranking

When someone links your website on a page of their website, they are approving your website/giving you a vote of confidence. The more votes of confidence you receive, the more your value, credibility, and authenticity increases, and the more highly search engines view you. Thus, they rank you in higher positions on the SERP.

Backlinks are not new when it comes to the algorithm of Google and other search engines. They have always been an essential part of ranking factors ever since Google started. Starting as PageRank, backlinks have come a long way with Google’s algorithm since Google never let go of them as a key ranking factor. In fact, backlinks are one of the top 3 most vital search engine ranking factors of Google.

2- Discoverability

An exciting part of backlinks is that once you have built enough backlinks for your website, you have gotten your website a special place in front of search engines. Yes, search engines revisit your pages with many backlinks more often. Thus, you are more discoverable as compared to those pages or websites with a lower number of backlinks.

Once you are discoverable, no one can stop your website from upgrading in ranking or maintaining a top position on the SERP. You have to make sure that every time a search engine revisits your website, the number of backlinks is higher than before.

3- Referral Traffic

The more backlinks your website have, the more referral traffic it will receive. It’s because backlinks are a great source of traffic. Thus, you can improve the engagement rate and other elements of your business by bringing more traffic through backlinks.

What Types of Backlinks are Valuable?

Now that you know exactly and precisely what backlinks are and their importance for SEO. It is essential to understand what’s backlinks that hold value. Bad backlinks are useless for your business because search engines disregard them.

When you are aiming for a higher position on SERP, you should focus on building backlinks and the quality of the backlinks you are building. Even if your website has thousands of backlinks, it will still not rank well due to the low quality of backlinks. High-quality backlinks can do wonders to your business, even if they are not in the thousands.

Here are seven traits that distinguish a low-quality or useless backlink from a valuable backlink on the basis of utility and quality.

1- Get Links from Authoritative Websites

Imagine you are naive about cars, but you want to buy yourself one, so you decide to help others. Whose opinion and guidance would you instead believe, that of a random guy or a car expert working for a reputable automotive company? Of course, the latter one. The same goes for Google.

In fact, there is a term for this, Domain Authority. It defines the worth, authority, and credibility of a domain. The higher the number, the higher the DA, and the higher its backlink’s value.

When a website with high DA gives your website a backlink, they are basically sharing their authority with you through a link. It is challenging to get backlinks from websites with high DA, but they are definitely worth the struggle and hassle. Moreover, such backlinks are enough even in fewer numbers. You can also exchange backlinks with such websites.

2- Target Keyword Inclusion in the Anchor Text

Anchor text is another metric to measure the quality of your backlinks. It is the clickable word / a set of words that make the backlink. In other words, the visible part of the backlink that contains the link within itself is anchor text.

Google considers anchor text as an influential factor that determines the rankings on the SERP. There are several ways by which Google checks anchor text and proximity information to improve the search quality for users.

It prefers those backlinks that have target keywords in their anchor text. Many digital media and SEO companies have been striving to find out the correlation between keyword-rich anchor text and ranking position for the keyword. So far, the correlation has proven to be not strong.

The weak correlation shows that while anchor text plays a significant role, there is no need to go overboard with enriching it with the target keyword. The Google Penguin in Google’s algorithm filters out the websites with backlinks with keyword-rich anchor text.

3- Relevancy of the Backlink Giver to Your Website

Google is strict when it comes to relevance. It ensures the connection between the two websites (one website gives a link to another one). It checks if these two belong to the same niche/industry.

Backlink between the two websites that are relevant to each other is preferable to users and ultimately more preferable to search engines. Google has talked about the relevance of a reasonable surfer patent.

For example, an online digital marketing company has 10,000 backlinks. Out of the total links, 5000 come from digital marketing, SEO, digital media, and online business development websites, while the rest come from plumbing, fashion, and hairstyling blogs. It is the former 5000 backlinks that bring value to the digital marketing company. The rest of the backlinks are of no use because they have no relevance to the website they are linking to.

4- Do-Follow Versus No-Follow Links

Most websites build backlinks with no-follow tags in the heat of passion for link building. But search engines do not care about these backlinks since these are not a part of ranking algorithms. Thus, no matter how high the number of websites links to your pages via no-follow links, it adds no value to your business.

The do-follow links rule the game because they are clear, loud, and strong in their presence. In contrast, no-follow links come from sources that are not authoritative. These sources can be blog comments, paid advertising campaigns, or press releases. It does not matter for them to be no-follow because they do not count as an important part of SEO.

Since link building is a time-timing and tiring process, it is better to invest all your time and energy in building do-follow links. No-follow links are not entirely essential, but having them can be valuable to some extent.

5- Relationship Between the Backlink Giving Domain and Your Website

Search engines are smart enough to think ahead of online business owners. To avoid getting scammed by backlinks of a website, Google and other search engines check the number of times a website gives you a link.

For example, your run an online digital marketing company. There is a small blog dedicated to teaching SEO to emerge businesses. If that SEO blog gives you a backlink, Google will count it. If the same blog keeps giving you backlinks, Google will not count the ones coming after the first time.

Why? It’s because there is a high chance that you, the online digital marketing company owner, are behind the SEO blog. Or, the SEO blog owner is your vast fan, so they have their bias/favoritism involved in giving you backlinks. It goes against the terms and conditions of Google because Google prioritizes serving users with the best content in the most unbiased and just way.

Thus, ten backlinks from 10 different sources are better than ten backlinks from 1 source. The number of websites is as significant as the number of backlinks.

6- Traffic of the Referring Website

Backlinks are more than just a ranking factor for search engines. They are also a way to build a stronger community by attracting more traffic. When a website gives you a backlink, it sends traffic to your website. It is called referral traffic.

Websites with higher traffic can potentially send more traffic to your website as compared to websites with low traffic. That is obvious in terms of traffic. But does it matter for the ranking on SERP? Many studies and experiments have been conducted to find out the correlation between backlink giving website traffic and the ranking of the website receiving the link.

The correlation is not so strong; however, it does exist. DA of the website giving you backlink stays more critical than the website’s traffic. But the latter does play a role. Maybe in the future, Google will declare it an important ranking factor.

7- Placement on the Referring Page

Placement of the backlink on the page is of huge importance. It’s because users are more likely to click on valuable links. Yes, links have their value as well. For example, if a link is in the footer of the page, nobody will find it worth clicking and visiting the referred page.

However, any link in the header or the body of the page will get more clicks and thus, will bring more traffic to the linked page.

The font and color of the backlink also play a significant role. Because these distinguish a link from the rest of the content. If a backlink is hidden within the text, users will not click it, and thus, it will add no value to the referred business.

So, focus on the link placement on the backlink giver’s page. It is better to have links that can bring traffic to your business than to have links just for the sake of having them.

How to Build Backlinks?

There are many ways to build backlinks, but we ditch all the familiar ways in this guide. You can take an edge over your competitors by using the below-mentioned methods. Yes, here are six secretive/uncommon methods of building backlinks.

1- Create a Linkable Asset

A linkable asset is a content that businesses create with the sole purpose of attracting links. Creating linkable assets/something that is worth linking to can be a great way to build backlinks. It can be a video, a survey, a blog post, or any content. The only attribute it should have is value and quality so that people can find it worth linking to.

If you want to create a linkable asset for your business, you should be an expert in the field with experience. Otherwise, you cannot create something of high value. Or you can hire experts to work for you.

For example, you can create a long detailed blog post narrating how your Shopify store got successful. You can include each and everything you did and each and everything you did not do in the post.

2- Link Roundups

It might not sound convincing after our discussion on the attributes of a good backlink. But link roundups are a great and effective way to build backlinks. It is when websites publish content to give backlinks to other websites. Link roundups can be daily, weekly, or monthly.

For example, a person is running a blog on health and fitness. They conduct link roundups every week. For this, they prepare a post with valuable content and give backlinks to other websites in the health and fitness niche.

It is effortless to get backlinks from link roundups. You have to find a link roundup in your niche, contact them, and request them to link your linkable asset in their next post.

Good link roundups link to only high-standard pages. So, make sure that your content is good enough to contact an excellent link roundup.

3- The Moving Man Method

The moving man method is a link-building method that most bloggers/online business owners are unaware of. So, you can take advantage of their unawareness by dedicating your energy and time to this method.

For this, you first have to find such online presences (page/website/business/recourse) that are outdated or rebranded.

Then, conduct an analysis of the business, and find out all the websites linking to the business. Contact the backlink givers and suggest linking to your site instead for the last step.

Ensure that the outdated website belongs to your niche and that your content is so good that backlink givers do not hesitate to link to your page. You can also offer them to publish your infographic in place of the one that belongs to a shutdown business. Be creative while you use the moving man method.

4- Reclaim Your Backlinks

There are many backlinks that a business loses because of a tiny mistake on the part of the referring businesses. Sometimes, someone meaning to refer to your website mistakenly refers to another domain name, and you lose a backlink. You can spot such links by the mentions on your website.

Link reclamation is when you find out mentions of your business with backlinks referring to the wrong websites. Instead of cursing the referring website or being the big person in the situation by forgiving the link giver, you can take control of the situation smartly.

You can contact the website and request them to correct their mistake. Make sure to keep your tone polite and requesting. Many online tools help you find the mentions of your website. It will save you from losing all the backlinks that could be upgrading your business.

5- Conduct Reverse Engineering of Your Competitor’s Backlinks

Reverse engineering of your competitors can open many opportunities for you to build backlinks. This way, you can find backlinks from relevant websites with high DA. Moreover, you can take ideas from them about how they are dealing with the ranking factor of backlinks.

There are many things to look out for in reverse engineering your competitor. Number one is the number of backlinks and referring domains. Your aim should be higher than their number.

The second thing is the type of websites giving those backlinks. Note down all the influencers and bloggers sharing your competitor backlinks. Then, get in contact with the same influencers. You can either collaborate with them or send them your product to review online. It is a time-consuming process, but it can surely source a considerable part of your business’ success.

6- Use Content Formats that can Generate Links

Research and find out content formats that are more likely to generate links. Here are a few examples of such formats: Why Posts, What Posts, Near Me, Infographics, etc. Such formats do not even need many social media shares because a big portion of Google users demands such content.

Conclusion

There was a time in history when content was everything. Now content is one of the many things. Out of 200 ranking factors of Google, backlinks include the top 3 most important ones. It also takes an infinite amount of time, patience, and energy to build the kind of links that Google approves of. But the success that comes with it is worth the hard work.

However, it is humanly not possible for a business owner to take care of content and other factors and take responsibility for building quality backlinks. You should take help from experts on backlinks. One such company to help you grow your business through quality backlinks is Wacklink. Visit our marketplace to find out more. You can get the assistance to buy backlinks and even exchange backlinks for free. It lets you search and get the backlinks quickly and effortless.