What Are SEO Backlinks and How Do They Work?
What are Backlinks?
Operating a successful website in 2023 is no easy task. You will need to optimize your website’s layout, create lots of engaging content, and update the code to match Google’s latest SEO requirements and constant algorithm updates. In addition to this, you will also need to set up a robust network of SEO backlinks.
You may have heard SEO experts mention website backlinks without fully explaining what they are and how they work. In this guide, we will delve into what exactly SEO backlinks are as well as how you can craft a network of SEO backlinks.
What are Backlinks?
You’re probably familiar with ordinary website links. These such links can be embedded in different places around the internet and direct the people who click on them to a different webpage or an entirely different website.
A backlink is essentially the same type of link. However, the key distinction between ordinary links and backlinks is that the latter refers to links that direct users to your website.
For example, let’s say you operate a website that sells kitchen spatulas. Your friend or relative who runs a cooking blog would like to recommend your kitchen spatulas to their readers. So, they embed a link to your online spatula store website in one of their posts. By doing this, they have essentially set up a backlink to your website.
What are the Benefits of Backlinks?
In the example mentioned above, the most obvious benefit of backlinks is that they bring more traffic to your website. If you run an online store, more traffic can lead to increased sales. This makes backlinks incredibly important for small business owners seeking to attract potential customers to their website.
Backlinks also play an important role in boosting your SEO. Your website’s SEO determines its ranking in organic search results on Google. So the better your SEO is, the more likely it is that it your website will appear on the first page of Google search results.
Why Backlinks are Important for SEO
You might be wondering why exactly Google considers backlinks important for SEO. After all, a website with many backlinks to it probably doesn’t need any help from Google to pull in traffic. The truth is that Google tends to rank “authority” sites higher in its search rankings. It determines a website is an “authority” by looking at the number of backlinks to it.
For example, let’s say you operate a website that publishes scientific papers and studies related to health and fitness. Over time, dozens of health and fitness bloggers stumble onto your website and find your content to be informative. They may then include a link to your website in their content, thereby making your website appear as an authority in the online health and fitness sphere.
How Google Assesses Backlinks
As mentioned earlier, Google ranks websites with many backlinks higher than websites with few backlinks. However, this doesn’t mean that it treats all backlinks equally. Instead, the search engine giant looks for high-quality backlinks. So, what are high quality backlinks?
Google hasn’t disclosed what exactly it considers to be a “high quality” backlink. However, most SEO experts would say that such backlinks tend to be natural, relevant, and reputable. Let’s examine what each of these characteristics mean.
What Are the Best Backlinks?
Natural Backlinks
A website backlink must come off as “natural” to be considered high quality. For example, if someone that rarely includes links to other websites in their web content includes a link to your website, it will come off as natural.
By contrast, if your website is backlinked by a website that includes dozens or even hundreds of other website backlinks, none of the backlinks will be considered natural. This is because Google will assume this website is attempting to game the system by offering paid backlinking services for other websites.
Some people also interpret a “natural” backlink to be one where the link appears in the content in a seamless manner. Therefore, the link is attached to a word in a natural-sounding sentence rather than being forced into the content through a keyword that makes the sentence sound improper.
Relevant Backlinks
When SEO experts refer to a “relevant” backlink, they are referring to a website link that is relevant to the content it has been placed in.
For example, let’s say your friend with a food blog mentions the importance of using a heatproof silicone spatula to make the perfect scrambled eggs in one of their recipe blogs. They then include a link to the silicon spatulas in your website store.
In this example, the jump from talking about a silicon spatula to linking to a website that offers silicon spatulas feels relevant. Therefore, Google may consider this backlink to be a high quality one.
By contrast, if someone who runs a car maintenance blog links to your kitchen spatula website without an appropriate lead in, Google will assume you have simply paid for the backlink and consider it to be a low quality one.
Reputable Backlinks
Google is also likely to consider a backlink to be high quality if it is from a reputable website. After all, it makes sense that the search engine giant would give priority to the links embedded on websites it considers to have a good reputation. So what is a “reputable” website?
A reputable website is one that has received numerous positive reviews, a large number of social media shares, and has high quality backlinks. In other words, a reputable website is the type of website you aspire to turn your website into with the help of backlinks.
What are White Hat Backlinks?
Backlinks that combine all of the qualities described above are known as white hat backlinks. Such websites have conformed with Google’s webmaster guidelines and have the power to massively boost your website’s SEO through backlinks. Therefore, every website owner that would like to boost their SEO through backlinking must focus on white hat backlink building.
White Hat Backlinking Strategies
White hat backlinking can be tricky to do, so you will need to be inventive to create a large network of backlinks from reputable websites. Some useful white hat backlinking strategies to try out include:
Guest Blogging Backlinks
Websites must put out valuable and informative content regularly to maintain a good SEO ranking. However, many website owners are unable to keep up with this task. After all, putting out engaging content multiple times per week would leave most content creators feeling stretched thin.
For this reason, many websites allow people to write guest blogs. These are blogs that are written by people who aren’t affiliated with the company or brand, but they include interesting content on topics that would interest the website’s visitors.
You can approach a reputable website owner and offer to write a guest blog for free. In return you can ask the owner to allow you to include one or two backlinks to your website in the blog’s content. This strategy is a win-win because the website owner will get free content and you will receive a high-quality backlink to your site.
Audio Blogs
Another great strategy is to create high quality audio versions of the blogs from reputable websites. You can then approach the site owner and tell them that you have created audio files for visitors who would prefer to listen to their website's blog content instead of reading it.
If the website owner agrees, you can upload the audio file to your own website and then have the reputable website’s owner link visitors to this file using a link in their blog post. This strategy can be useful, but it might not always work.
This is because many website owners would like to keep visitors on their website for as long as possible rather than redirect them to another site. However, the website owner may agree to it if you create high quality audio files that entice people to check out the reputable website’s other blogs.
Directory Submission Backlinks
A low effort white hat link building technique is to list your website on business or website directories around the internet. Many websites allow you to submit your own website in their directories for free, so you won’t have to worry about paying for this type of backlinking. However, you should be careful about the websites you submit your listing to.
Be sure to look up the directory website’s Domain Authority and Page Authority to determine if it is reputable. The higher the Domain Authority and Page Authority are, the more valuable the backlink will be.
YouTube Backlinking
YouTube backlinking is another great white hat link building strategy. So what are YouTube backlinks? These are simply links that direct people from YouTube to your website.
To do this, you simply need to create a YouTube account and place your website link in different places. For example, you can include the link in your YouTube profile “Links” section. Alternatively, you can add it to your YouTube profile banner.
Many people also include their website link in descriptions for the YouTube videos they upload. This strategy can be useful if you create engaging video content that receives thousands of views.
What are No Follow Backlinks?
Reputable websites can decide whether they would like to pass their authority onto the websites they have backlinked. The websites they would like to pass their authority onto are backlinked using “Do follow” backlinks. The websites they do not want to pass their authority onto are backlinked using “No follow” backlinks.
Website owners can turn a “Do follow” backlink into a “No follow” backlink simply by changing a bit of HTML code. If you want to boost your website’s SEO, you should hope that the backlinks you have received are Do follow backlinks. This is because only Do follow backlinks positively impact your SEO.
If you have received No follow backlinks, they aren’t likely to directly boost your SEO. However, they will still generate traffic to your website, so they aren’t necessarily harmful either.
What are Toxic Backlinks?
You might be wondering if there are backlinks that can harm your website’s SEO. The answer is yes.
Toxic backlinks are those from websites that use “black hat” SEO techniques. These are unethical methods that some websites use to “game” Google’s SEO rules and get better rankings in search results.
Google is always using its algorithms to catch such websites and penalize them. However, this penalization doesn’t affect only the offending website itself. It also impacts the websites that are backlinked from it. So if you have a backlink from a black hat website, it is “toxic” for your SEO.
The good news is that it is possible to identify toxic backlinks and remove them using different tools. However, you will need to repeat this process regularly to ensure you stamp out any new toxic backlinks that spring up.
What are Black Hat Backlinks?
Black hat backlinks are outside links created with the intent of artificially boosting a website's search rankings without providing real value in return. This type of link building is often accomplished through manipulative tactics like cloaking, keyword stuffing, using link farms and buying automated backlinks. All of these methods will have a negative effect as they are often penalized by popular search engines, including Google. It is important to differentiate black hat backlinks from what is known as white hat techniques, which make it possible for users to provide natural and useful content for other websites to reference. White hat methods are what should be used when creating legitimate links that will provide lasting value and protect against any penalties due to shady practices.
How Mobile OPZ Can Help
As you can see, backlinks can significantly impact your website’s SEO. Any website owner that is serious about improving their website SEO must develop a comprehensive backlink building strategy. However, such a strategy can be difficult to create and execute if you aren’t familiar with different backlink building strategies. In such situations, you can turn to SEO experts such as Mobile OPZ for assistance.
At Mobile OPZ, we understand the ins and outs of SEO and are always up-to-date with Google’s latest SEO rules and regulations. We can help you create a winning backlink building strategy that will boost your website’s SEO and benefit it in the long run. Please contact us to take your website’s SEO to the next level.
