Backlinks: What They Are, And Its Impact on your Website – (2020 Updated Guide)

What is a backlink?

A backlink can be described as a link created when one website links to another.

Backlinks can otherwise be called “inbound links” or “incoming links.” Backlinks are very essential and important if you want to climb high on Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERP).

A backlink as explained above is when one website mentions another website by linking to it.

The link has to be a clickable link in order for search engines to recognize them as backlinks.

Take for example, using TechieBreed as a case study, https://techiebreed.com will not count as a backlink but https://techiebreed.com will, because on links out, while the other does not.

 

Backlinks

You should also be aware of the fact that high quality backlinks are major determinant that helps your website increase its rank in search engine results. In addition, these backlinks should be on sites as same niche as yours or bears a related content.

Also, these sites should be authoritative sites that are in high ranking positions. The more high-quality backlinks from different sites you have, the higher you climb the ranking ladder.

In a nutshell, what this means is that the number of domains linking to your site is one of the major important ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. The more domains that link to your site, the more authoritative your website appears to Google. Therefore, the more domains that link to your site, the higher your rank will be on Google for keywords related to your niche.

 

Why are Backlinks So Important?

Backlinks are more importantly essential for SEO because they represent a “vote of confidence” from one site to another.

In essence, backlinks to your website sends a credibility signal to search engines that other website can vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines automatically assumes that such content is worth linking to, and invaiably, it is assumed that such is worth surfacing on an higher position on SERP.

Backlinks are also one of the many ways of promoting your website by leaving comments on credible sites and also sharing on social media pages. If the pages you are trying to rank has a poor content, you will still not rank high on SERPs.

You also stand the chance of winning a referral web traffic from backlinks on top websites. A large percent of top website traffic comes from search engines. Referral traffic means that people are clicking on links within content and being taken to the linked content. Thats a plus to you.

 

How To Build Backlinks on your Website

1. Posting

Ensure you are writing articles that contains popular keywords that relate to your website or company or product or services, that are beneficial to a large audience and worth linking back to from potential users.

2. Commenting

One beneficial backlinking method is by Posting comments on other website’s articles that relate to your website or product. When you start commenting make sure to reference your website or product or services that relates to that article. You never know who is going to write an article about your site or give you a backlink.

3. The Broken-Link Building Method

The technique is a little tricky, it involves you contacting another website owner to report broken links you discovered on their website. Following this process, you thereby recommend your websites content to replace that particular broken link you’d discovered. Because you are doing the website owner a good favor by reporting the broken links, the chances of they accepting your website content as a backlink to those broken content link are high.So, to use the broken-link method, first find top relevant websites in your niche. You can do this by using these search queries in Google:

  • your keyword + links
  • your keywords + resources
  • keywords inurl:links

For example, if I have a tech related website with post on SEO, I’ll search for SEO + links.
To easily find broken links on those pages, download and install the Google Chrome plugin called Link Audit Checker.

Using this plugin, I quickly discovered just one 404 links from this page which is marked with red.

 

When reaching out to the website owner, be friendly and courteous as possible and introduce yourself. Tell them you just discovered a valuable content on their website that links to a broken link. Do this by being detailed as possible, provide the exact url of the post you discover as well as the broken links, so they can be easily found.

Then hereafter give some alternatives to replace those links as well as selling your own website content to them. Try to be helpful, not greedy to get a backlink. This method should work depending on your manner of approach and friendliness.

 

4. Guest Posting

Guest posting is is also another method of building backlinks. By publishing articles on other popular websites, you will win a backlink and as an additonal advantage, you’ll get your content in front of new readers and win more exposure. Sometimes, it’s not just about the backlink, but about increasing your online reputation or your social media followers.

These search queries should be helpful to find blogs that accepts guest posting

Replace ‘your keyword‘ with your site content keyword.

  • your keyword + guest-posts
  • your keyword + become a contributor
  • your keyword + submit an article
  • your keyword + contribute
  • your keyword + become an author

 

5. Content Promotion

You should already know by now that great contents will get you backlinks provided you know how to promote it rightly. You have to get out in the world as well as emailing your subscribed audience on your best articles.

One of the best approach to this is to contact bloggers or websites running weekly or monthly roundups.

To achieve this, you can use Google and search for queries like “keyword + roundup.” Make sure you choose, in order to see results only from the past week or month.

 

After getting the desired result, you can the contact the webmasters and give them a quick introduction to your website. With your message, send a link to one of your best tutorials or guides. If they find your resource useful, they may link back to you in their next weekly roundup.These bloggers are constantly looking for great content, so they definitely want to hear from you. So take the bull by the horn to contact them rightaway.

 

Backlink Tools

Here are a few backlink tools to help you get started and monitor any website links.

 

Conclusion

Earning reputable backlinks can sometimes be challenging, but you can easily find link-building opportunities by using the right resources and methods. Follow through the guide provided and you will surely appreciate the results.

If you’ve got any comment or feedback for me, do well by using the comment box below.