Google views external links as votes of popularity for a website and there is a strong correlation between websites with a lot of quality backlinks and that website’s higher rankings. But keep in mind…having a lot of backlinks from spammy, low-quality websites is not as impactful as having a few backlinks from authoritative websites that are relevant to your business.
OK…so what are backlinks? Backlinks are links on one website that point to another website. They are also known as inbound or external links. Visually, the link could be placed in a line of text, on an image, or as a button. As long as the source is a different website, all of these connections count as backlinks. In SEO, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for every major search engine out there.
Backlinks can:
- Improve rankings
- Boost your credibility
- Send referral traffic to your website
Backlinks also help Google find your content more easily. When Google follows a backlink to a new page, it crawls the page to discover all the links on it. This means Google can follow a backlink to your website and continue to follow internal links to new pages within your website. Google crawls your site, then indexes those pages. Which makes your website pages more likely to appear in search results.
Not all backlinks are created equal. Quality matters just as much as quantity when it comes to backlinks. You'll want backlinks that come from websites that are:
- Authoritative - The website has an authoritative backlink profile, generates a lot of traffic, and ranks high on major search engines.
- Relevant - The website shares a similar topic or niche.
- Unique – The website refers to your website and not your competitors.
Solutions by Design offers various SEO and Social Media packages to help your website rank high and attract new customers. We monitor backlinks through a backlink audit to ensure Google and other search engines are ranking your website correctly and efficiently. Learn more about our SEO services and contact us with questions.