How Backlinks Boost Website SEO

A question we hear a lot at S9 Digital is, “What are backlinks, and are they useful for my website?” Basically, when someone else links to your website, you can call that a backlink. When the search engine sees that your site has acquired plenty of backlinks – and more importantly, backlinks from quality websites – your organic search engine rankings get a boost.

A great backlink tells the world and search engines, “You know this website is worthwhile because [insert highly-regarded website here] seems to like them!”

A Portrait of a High-Quality Backlink

Google and Bing use backlinks as evidence that other people perceive value in your content. And the more important those other people are, the better the backlink.

It’s kind of like a high school cafeteria. Sitting with the cool kids (AKA earning backlinks from highly authoritative websites like those ending in .gov or .edu) means you’re cool in Google’s eyes. Associate with spammy or unsecured websites could mean you have hundreds of poor backlinks pointing to your site, and search engines don’t like that one bit.

If an amateur blog with 100 monthly visitors publishes a post with a link to your website, that backlink helps a little. If a major website with a strong reputation links to you (think The Los Angeles Times or The Wall Street Journal), that’s much better.

Actually, search engines are even smarter than that now – as relevance even matters. As an example, a new tech startup wants backlinks from techcrunch.com. Likewise, as home remodeling company wants backlinks from diynetwork.com or thisoldhouse.com.

Basically, desirable backlinks are those published by other websites that relate to your industry, on sites that readers respect and hold dearly. You can’t fake it, but you can know the criteria and use that knowledge to create great content that warrants great backlinks.

Building Backlinks the Right Way will Improve SEO

Before the search engines got wise, people created dummy websites for little purpose other than building backlinks. Remember those annoying search engine results with skeletal content and tons of links and keyword stuffing? Nobody liked that, so Google updated its algorithms to figure out how to rate the quality of backlinks. They even police this stuff, punishing or banning sites with bad practices.

There’s also a gray area of guest blogging, shared blog rolls, and link sharing. These tactics can still be okay if 1.) the content is worthwhile for real people searching the web, and 2.) the URLs are relevant to each other topically, geographically, or otherwise.

So how do you develop quality backlinks these days?

Quality content is the short answer here, which entails:

Create content that other people will gladly share
Offer answers, info, or entertainment (don’t just rehash what’s already out there)
Project authority on a topic or industry
Avoid aggressively selling all the time, on every page (people don’t want to link to overt sales pitches, they link to useful content)

It’s wonderful when they find your content on their own, but you should expect to get the ball rolling. Share your content on social media, practice good SEO otherwise, and put yourself out there – if you’ve demonstrated value in one of the above ways, the backlinks will come.

This is why a landscaper gives away DIY lawn and garden tips on their company blog. By offering something of value to online searchers, you show your audience – and the search engines – that your website has plenty of great content to offer.

Affordable SEO Services for Small Businesses

S9 Digital’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals can help you get in front of the right clients and customers. How do we achieve this? Through keyword-rich SEO copywriting, backlinking, local search marketing… and all that other stuff you’d rather not spend time learning about. Our SEO services help you improve your rankings on search engines with the end goal to increase organic web traffic, leads, and ultimately sales. Call us today at 206.476.3013 or contact us online to learn more!

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