Backlinks = trust/vote of confidence, authority, relevance, value, etc.
More backlinks = More trust = Higher rankings
As Google’s Andrey Lipattsev (Partner Development Manager, Search and Integrations at Google) reveals Links, Content, and Rank Brain are the top three ranking signals in Google’s search Algorithm.
Statistics also show that Backlinks are the most difficult & challenging task in SEO. But it is worth it when you get them for your blog/website.
- The number 1 ranking page on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than pages in positions 2-10.
- Only 5 % of all websites online have backlinks pointing at them. Approximately 94% of content on the internet never gets backlinked.
- 92% of marketers believe links will still be a critical ranking factor in Google’s algorithm in the next 5 years.
- 41% of SEO experts consider link building to be the single most difficult & challenging part of search engine optimization.
Table of Contents
What is a backlink?
Backlinks are incoming links to your blog/website. Also known as inbound links and one-way links.
After Content and Keywords, Backlinks are the third most crucial component for your blog SEO. Backlink is the vote of confidence, relevance, and value. It helps you to rank higher in search engines.
Another side of backlinks you should understand is that, of course, backlinks help your blog rank in higher numbers. However, having large numbers of backlinks (low quality) pointing to your blog/website does not help you rank higher. What matters is, that backlinks should be high quality and come from a reputable source because Google’s algorithms, now place less emphasis on the number of backlinks and more emphasis on the quality of those links. Which includes:
- The relevance of the linking website
- The relevance of the anchor text used in the link
- the overall authority of the linking domain
So, like in the early days of SEO ……..
Backlink spamming – unethical tactics to acquire backlinks to boost their rankings
Link farming – A Group of websites would link to each other to boost their backlink counts
Automated link building – Tools that generate a large number of low-quality backlinks from irrelevant websites
…… doesn’t work nowadays, and your blog can be penalized by Google for unethical practices and manipulation of link building.
Instead, it would help if you focused on creating high-quality, valuable, and relevant content that is helpful to your readers/targeted audiences. This not only helps you to get organically earned backlinks but also improves ranking on SERPs and builds trust with search engines.
Creating long-form high-quality valuable content and building relationships with other websites and industry experts helps you to earn more natural, organic, and high-quality backlinks.
Source: Backlinko
The importance of backlinks for SEO
You have got a glimpse of the backlink and what is it? Whether it is your blog website or company website, backlink plays a vital role in SEO for ranking in Search Engine. Backlink provides a measure of the popularity, authority, and relevance of the website and/or its page/s.
To understand in simple language, how backlink helps your blog/website in SEO and ranking, you don’t have to go far. Just think about it locally. When an election happens in your area how do you choose the candidate? You will vote for the popular one, you will choose the candidate that your friends and relatives recommend, right? The popularity, credibility, authority, and value of that candidate have and provided plus the recommendation gives you confidence of certainty that you made the right choice.
Similarly, in SEO backlink provides a vote of confidence to the blog/website and its page/s. A blog/website and its page/s only get backlinks when it has high authority, relevance, valuable content, popularity, etc. So, backlink is directly related to the success of your blog/website.
The importance of backlinks, the importance of backlinks for SEO, the factors to invest in backlinks for your blog/website, etc. you name it in any phrase. They give you the same meaning. What you have to understand is, why you need backlinks for your blog or website. So, let’s discuss the top and strong factors/advantages/benefits of backlinks for your blog/website SEO one by one.
1. Ranking
It has already been mentioned that the main role of backlinks in your blog/website is to help you to reach in top position of the SERPs. Why? You may have already got the answer too. If still not clear, let’s expand.
Search engine like Google uses the ranking algorithm to rank the blog/website and its page/s depending upon more than 200 factors. Among them, backlink is one of the top three factors.
Backlink is a major part of Off-page SEO. Search engines count backlinks as a vote of confidence. It measures the quality and number of incoming links in your blog/website. And the more quality backlinks you can get, your overall SEO score will be better and higher. A better and higher SEO score means more popularity and a chance to rank in a higher position in SERPs.
Source: monsterinsights.com
2. Visibility
A backlink often includes anchor text, which is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. When other websites link to your blog/website, a search engine like Google sees those links as indicators of your website’s credibility, authority, and relevance.
When the anchor text contains relevant keywords, it can help search engines understand the context and topic of your blog/website’s content. As your keyword ranking increases, the more visibility your content will get in the eyes of potential customers and search engines.
As visibility in search engines is the share of traffic that a website receives from its ranking in the organic search results, it leads to higher click-through rates (CTRs) on organic search results pages. That means more people will exposed to your content and brand message.
Source: Backlinko
3. Indexing
Backlinks help you to index your blog/website and its page/s index faster and deeper. When search engine bots crawl the web, they follow links from one site or page to another. If your website has backlinks from other reputable and indexed websites, it can help to discover new content on your site more quickly.
Without backlinks, your blog/website’s pages might remain unnoticed if they are not directly linked to your blog/site’s main pages. Backlinks can lead search engine bots to discover such pages at deeper levels of your website, ensuring that a broader range of your content is indexed.
Blogs/websites with strong backlink profiles tend to be crawled more frequently by search engine bots. These bots often prioritize crawling and indexing pages that have more inbound links. As backlinks are a key signal for search engines to determine the authenticity and naturalness of a blog/website, having organic and relevant backlinks leads to better indexing and ranking.
4. Authority
Among the number of SEO metrics that experts take into consideration when measuring the quality of a blog or website, the blog/website’s domain authority and page authority are the crucial SEO metrics.
Both domain authority and page authority metrics are scored based on the backlinks or number of inbound links your blog/website has. The higher your blog/website’s domain and page authority, the better the possibility of ranking in the SERPs for its target search queries. Backlinks play a significant role in enhancing both the domain and page authority of your blog/website.
Domain Authority
Domain authority is a measure of the overall strength and authority of an entire domain or website. It’s influenced by various factors, including the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to the domain. Here’s how backlinks help enhance domain authority.
- Quality backlinks: When authoritative and reputable websites link to your domain, they are essentially vouching for the credibility and value of your website. Search engines view these endorsements as a positive signal that your domain is an authoritative resource within your niche or industry.
- Cumulative impact: The total number of quality backlinks your domain accumulates over time can have a cumulative effect on domain authority. As you earn more high-quality backlinks, your domain’s authority is likely to increase.
- Diversification: Having a diverse range of backlinks from different sources, rather than just a few, can demonstrate to search engines that your domain is relevant and valued by various communities.
- Steady Growth: Consistently earning quality backlinks over time shows that your website maintains its authority and relevance, contributing to a steady increase in domain authority
Page Authority
Page authority refers to the strength and authority of a specific webpage within your domain. It’s influenced by factors such as the quality and relevance of the content, on-page optimization, and the backlinks pointing to that particular page. Backlinks have a direct impact on enhancing page authority.
- Relevance: Backlinks from websites that are relevant to the content of your page provide context and show search engines that your content is valuable to users interested in that topic.
- Anchor text optimization: The anchor text used in backlinks can influence how search engines understand the topic of your page. If the anchor text includes relevant keywords, it can boost the page’s authority for those keywords.
- Quality vs Quantity: High-quality backlinks from authoritative websites have a stronger impact on page authority than a large number of low-quality backlinks. Quality always outweighs quantity.
- Internal linking: Internal links (links from one page on your domain to another) also contribute to page authority. They distribute authority within your blog/website and guide search engines to important pages.
5. Traffic
Traffic is the most valuable asset for your blog/website. And quality backlinks can bring more traffic directly from other websites that link out to yours. This traffic is known as referral traffic or direct traffic depending on where it originates from.
When a website links to your content, users who are browsing that website may come across the link and click on it voluntarily or out of curiosity. This brings visitors directly to your website and will stay long reducing the bounce rate of your blog/website.
When your content is referenced or cited in an article on another website, users who are interested in learning more might click on the link to your website to gain deeper insights or more information on the topic. This can result in a steady stream of visitors coming from various sources.
Hence, backlinks from authoritative, relevant, and reputable websites are more likely to drive meaningful and engaged traffic to your blog/website. You have to always aim for natural and organic backlinks that provide genuine value to both users and search engines.
Source: ahrefs
6. Branding
In the blogging business, if you are not doing blogging for a company, it is very important to build your personal brand to get success in your blogging business.
Besides, consistent messaging, excellent customer experience, effective online and offline marketing efforts, etc. for branding. Backlinks play a crucial role in the branding of a blog or website contributing to its online reputation, visibility, recognition, etc.
Backlinks from authoritative and popular websites act as endorsements for your brand. When well-established websites link to your content, it signals to users and search engines that your blog/website is credible and trustworthy within your niche and industry.
Backlinks can introduce your brand to new audiences who may not have been aware of your website before. Users who follow these links to your website are likely to learn about your brand. Backlinks from other websites within your niche or industry reinforce your position as an authority in that field. This helps establish your brand as a go-to resource for information, products, or services related to your niche.
When other websites consistently refer to and link to your blog/website, it reinforces your brand identity and message. This consistency across various platforms helps build a strong brand image.
7. Credibility
Backlinks from reputable and authoritative websites can enhance your credibility and trustworthiness. When users see that your content is being endorsed by well-known sources, they are more likely to click on the link to visit your blog/website.
Backlinks from other blogs and websites serve to you as third-party indicators or votes for both users and search engine algorithms to consider when ranking your blog/website and its page/s. Search engines aim to provide users with the most relevant results.
For that, Google takes the authority, and value of the blog/website into consideration. The higher number of backlinks pointing to your blog/website means your blog/website is authoritative, trustworthy, relevant, and valuable. Hence, the higher the number of quality links directed towards your blog/site, the higher your credibility factor.
Backlinks signal positive reviews or endorsements from respected niche leaders or industry leaders to the search engines and users. That gives users the confidence that they dealing with a trustworthy and reliable source whose information, content, products, and services are worth investing in.
8. Long-Term Value
Backlinks provide lasting benefits and value to your blog/website. Although the value of individual backlinks can vary based on factors such as the quality of the linking site and the relevance of the content, the overall impact of a strong and diverse backlink profile tends to endure over time.
Once you get high-quality backlinks from authoritative and reputable sources, it won’t fade away over time as long as the linking websites remain active and relevant.
Backlinks are not temporary links. It continues to signal to search engines that your blog/website is a credible resource over the long term. This results, in your website being more likely to maintain or improve its search engine ranking. The referral traffic streams will provide a consistent flow of visitors to your site over an extended period.
Once your blog/website’s page is indexed with the help of backlinks in the search engines, they remain in the search engine’s database and potentially bring in organic traffic for years to come.
Backlinks are the source of continuous promotion of your blog/website. It is not like traditional or paid marketing techniques where you stop your ad and the flow of traffic stops. A good quality backlink will continue to send referral traffic.
In this way, backlinks that make up your blog/website’s link profile are strong enough to help the content across the entire domain rank in the search engines for its target queries.
9. Relationship Building
By adopting the backlink strategy for your blog/website, you are not only creating relevant links, but also creating the opportunity for networking, collaboration, and relationship building within your niche community and industry.
Collaborating with influencers, partners, or other brands in your niche or industry often involves backlinks. Such collaborations can expose your blog/website to their followers and customers, helping you tap into new audiences.
Through backlinks, you might discover websites that share similar interests or complementary content. This shared connection can lead to opportunities to collaborate on joint content, webinars, workshops, or other initiatives that benefit both parties.
The list of opportunities in relationship building and collaboration with the help of backlinks goes on. In conclusion, here are some more opportunities you can get from backlinks:
- Resource sharing and content partnerships
- Interviews and features
- Networking events and conferences
- Co-authorship and collaborative content
- Referral Traffic Exchange
- Cross-promotion
- Brand alliances etc.
10. Revenue
Finally, from backlinks can get what every blogger and website owner aims for i.e., revenue from the blog or website.
As you have learned from the above benefits backlink brings more traffic to your blog/website. It will give better SEO metrics and scores for your site. This creates more opportunities for revenue generation.
With the help of backlinks, your blog will appear higher in search results, leading more potential customers to you. You will able to sell more of your products and services resulting in more revenue from your blog/website.
Do you always need backlinks to rank in Google?
Backlinks are the vote of confidence, it the one of the top 3 factors of ranking in Google, etc. You have already learned that.
You can’t deny the fact too that there is a very deep correlation between traffic and backlinks. The more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from search engines.
Then what about the blog/website and its page/s without backlinks?
Can they rank in search engines like Google?
Do they get traffic from Google?
When you see the statistics presented by Ahrefs studying over 1 billion good-quality pages on the internet, the result is very frustrating. You can see it in the pie chart of them.
The number one reason why your blog/website and its page/s don’t get traffic is, not having backlinks according to Ahrefs’ study. This means it seems that you can’t get traffic, can’t rank in search engines, and can’t get success in your blogging without backlinks or link building.
Now, the remaining question: Is it possible to get organic traffic without links? Or do you always need backlinks to rank in Google?
The answer to this question is, it depends. This means you can say both Yes or No. When you can meet the criteria for ranking in Google without backlinks, you will rank in the top position and get lots of traffic. Those criteria are:
- Lack of pages on that topic or keyword in Google or on the Internet
- The top 10 ranking pages should have 0 backlinks pointing at them
- You should have a higher domain rating
But it looks like a very tough task and almost impossible to meet those criteria, right? Besides, even though your domain rating is high, without backlinks, you will get very little traffic to your blog as shown in the data below. Thus, the conclusion is you need backlinks to rank in search engines, to get traffic to your blog/website, and to get success in your blogging.
Final Words
It is important to note that not all backlinks are created equal. The quality of the backlinks matters more than the quantity. High-quality backlinks come from authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy websites within your niche and industry help you to build a solid backlink profile to enhance your blog/website’s visibility. Whereas low-quality or spammy backlinks can actually have a negative impact on your blog/website’s visibility and ranking.
Building a strong backlink profile takes time and effort. It involves creating valuable and shareable content, reaching out to relevant websites for collaborations and guest posts, and engaging in ethical SEO practices.
You should always aim for natural and organic backlinks that provide genuine value. Aim for long-term keywords with low competition in your blog post in the beginning so that you can rank in search engines as you have already learned the method to rank in Google without backlinks. You should avoid unethical link-building tactics and practices, the shady link-building methods to be safe from search engine penalties, especially Google’s penalties.
