Backlinks: What are they and how do they affect your website traffic

As a web owner, one of the most difficult things to do is "getting traffic to our website". A simple google searches and we'd get results telling us to use keywords related to our niche, guest blog, and try google ads. In fact, 61% of marketers say their biggest challenge is generating traffic and leads. There are many ways you can increase traffic to your website, and in today's post, we'll be looking at a certain SEO technique called "Backlinks", and how they affect our web traffic.

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WHAT ARE BACKLINKS?

backlinks are links on a page from one website to another, usually, this receiving end is referred to as the income links or inbound links. If you're linking to others, it's called external linking or outbound link. The easiest way to conceptualize backlinks is to think of them as votes. When a page receives a backlink, it's essentially another website vouching for the content on the page. And the more "votes," you get from credible sources, the higher the trust and hence more traffic. Search engines like Google or Bing, use backlinks as a ranking signal because when one website links to another, it means they believe the content is noteworthy.

Note: Page with more backlinks can rank higher on search engine results pages.

IMPORTANCE OF BACKLINKS IN SEO

Backlinks are a critical component of SEO. Earning authoritative backlinks is one of the most important signals that Google considers for ranking content. We may never know exactly what Google's ranking factors are, but it wouldn't hurt to go all out and get that organic traffic to your website.

1. Backlinks help Google and other search engines determine which pages should rank the highest for a given query (search) or keyword.
2. Backlinks can send you visitors through referral traffic.
3. Backlinks can help search engines discover your pages faster.
4. Backlinks help to build trust in your website: If a quality website with an excellent reputation links to your site, that's a fantastic vote of confidence. Because google views external links as votes of popularity for a website or webpage.

TYPES OF BACKLINKS

It's important to note that not all backlinks are created equal, at a basic level there are two types of backlinks and one is more valuable than the other. Let's learn about the different types of backlinks your site can acquire:

1. Nofollow Links; Let's say you shared a link from a website to your site, and you don't want to vouch for the website but still need to link to it? Nofollow links use the rel="nofollow" attribute to inform Google and other search engines that they shouldn't pass trust (PageRank). They don't pass any value from one site to another, so typically they aren't helpful in improving your search rank or visibility.
2. Follow links; A followed link passes trust (PageRank) and does not add the Nofollow attribute. just keep in mind that those coming from respected sites hold the most value. This kind of backlink can help improve your search engine rankings.

Note: there is no "follow" attribute as any link is considered "dofollow" unless an attribute is added. It's important to know that wrong inks can harm your website's ability to rank or negatively impact any ranking you already have. "Bad" links are often referred to as toxic or unnatural links. Toxic backlinks, which usually come from low-quality of suspicious websites, directly violate Google's Webmaster Guidelines and exist solely to try and manipulate search engine rankings. Toxic backlinks may cause Google to penalize or even de-index your site. Remember, it's not about the number of backlinks, but rather the quality that makes the difference in ranking.

WHAT ARE "HIGH-QUALITY" BACKLINKS?

Earlier, we stated that not all backlinks are created equal. At a basic level, there are two things that separate a "high-quality" backlink from a "not-so-good" backlink.

1. Topic relevance: Google talks about this in their reasonable surfer model which explains the likeliness of a link being clicked relates to its importance. Let's say that you have a web page on "How to make cars," if you were to label this topic with a category, it would likely fall under automobiles. Now assuming this page had two backlinks one from a shop activity blog and another from a teaching blog, the latter would hold more weight since there's higher topical relevance from the page and domain.
2. Authority: Talking about "Authority" we refer to the quantity and quality of backlinks from the referring websites and pages. Google places a score on this called "PageRank", but since these numbers aren't publicly available, third-party tools use their own proprietary metrics like Domain Rating, which represents the overall strength of a website's link popularity, and URL Rating which represents the overall strength of a page's link popularity.

HOW TO CHECK BACKLINKS ON ANY WEBSITE

Checking sites for backlinks is helpful whether you're planning a link-building campaign to benchmark your site against competitors' sites. There are two places you can actually do this for free:

• The first is Google Search Console which gives you an insight into what your link profile looks like, but it won't provide any information about your competitors. On Google Search Console you'll be able to see insights into:
• External links: How many external links point to your site.
• Top linked pages: The pages on your site with the most backlinks pointing to them.
• Top linking sites: The website which links to your site the most times.
• Top linking text: The most common link anchor text used for external links.

The second is to use Ahref's Backlink Checker, just enter the URL or domain that you want to examine and you'll be able to see the top 100 backlinks pointing at your target

HOW TO GET BACKLINKS

1. To earn them.
2. To create them.
3. To build them.

EARNING BACKLINKS

This involves getting natural organic traffic growth, this is when people discover your page through any medium like Google search, social media, or word of mouth and choose to link to your page.

CREATING BACKLINKS

This involves adding a link on another website that points to your site, this can be done through forums, blog comments, directories, etc.

BUILDING LINKS

This is usually done through strategies collectively known as "link building". You can build links by reaching out to other site owners, editors, or webmasters and asking them to link to your page.

CONCLUSION

Backlinks are a key aspect of Google's algorithm when ranking content. You'll need to earn backlinks from relevant and authoritative sites to build your website's profile. They are a great way to drive traffic to your website, increase website traffic, or get millions of traffic to your website, however you want to put it. I hope this guide helped you learn what are backlinks, and how you can use them to grow your website. Leave a comment about what you think.