What are Backlinks? Importance & How to Build

SEO strategies are the work that websites need to appear on the search results page of search engines. SEO strategies are formed by the combination of many different applications. One of these applications is backlinks. It is very difficult to succeed in an SEO strategy without backlinks. However, just gaining backlinks does not cover the entire SEO work of a website. Backlinks are essential for your website’s SEO power and prominence in search engine results. Its biggest purpose is to establish a link between your website and other sites. In this article, while looking for the answer to the question of what are backlinks, we will also discuss the benefits they provide to SEO.

What Are Backlinks?

Reference links from one website to another website are called backlinks. A website that receives reference links from reliable and authoritative websites is considered more reliable and authoritative by search engines. This contributes to the website’s search rankings on search results pages.

Importance Of Backlinks For SEO

Backlinks are one of the most important tools to achieve high search rankings among search engine results such as Google. It also creates opportunities for companies to establish good relationships with different companies.

A visitor who comes to your site by clicking on a backlink from another site can instantly become a customer.

Gaining backlinks to your website also increases your brand awareness. Thus, you gain authority in your industry and increase your market share. Companies that know how to give backlinks do not give backlinks to poor quality content or dangerous websites.

Backlinks are not only needed by company websites. Webmasters whose aim is to make money from ad clicks also add backlink building efforts to their site’s SEO strategies.  Because all website owners want to appear in the high search rankings of search engines. They know that SEO is indispensable for this. They are aware that one of the most important issues of SEO is backlinks.

Types Of Backlinks

There are many types of backlinks preferred according to the SEO studies carried out. The most common types of backlinks are as follows:

DoFollow Backlinks: DoFollow backlinks are website links that are monitored and evaluated by search engines. These backlinks are generally considered content-relevant and valuable links.

NoFollow Backlinks: These are links that are not tracked or evaluated by search engines. These types of links are used by websites to encourage users to click on certain links or to avoid spam links.

Relevant Backlinks: Relevant backlinks are links that are related to the content of your website and are linked to the same industry or topic. These types of links are evaluated positively by search engines because there is a relationship between the content and the link.

Anchor Text Backlinks: The text contained in backlinks is called anchor text. A good anchor text should be text that clearly describes the target of the link and includes keywords.

An anchor text may contain internal backlinks or external backlinks. Internal backlinks direct the visitor to another page of the site where the text is published. In other words, it is a reference link to another page within the same site. External links are reference links within the article that direct to another website.

Quality Backlinks: These types of backlinks come from highly authoritative and reliable sources.

Bad Quality Backlinks: Bad quality backlinks are links from low authority or spammy sources. These types of links may be evaluated negatively by search engines and may lower your website’s ranking.

Local Backlinks: Important for local businesses or services. Local backlinks include links to local businesses’ websites from local sources, such as local directories, reviews, or local news sources.

Social Media Backlinks: Social media platforms provide backlinks by sharing your website’s content and adding links to that content. Social media backlinks can help increase traffic and reach more people. Social media links can be shared by both site visitors and site owners.

How To Build High-Quality Backlinks

Quality backlinks are extremely important to improve your website’s SEO performance and increase its authority. However, getting these links requires the right strategies. Tips for getting quality backlinks are as follows:

• Create valuable and unique content.
• Contribute relevant and authoritative resources.
• Do link outreach for external resources.
• Contribute to product and service reviews.
• Use social media effectively.
• Avoid link exchanges.

Quality backlinks can impact your long-term SEO success. However, getting these links requires patience, effort, and consistent quality content production. Quality backlinks can increase your website’s authority, helping you attract more organic traffic and rank higher in search engines.

Common Mistakes To Avoid When Building Backlinks

Common mistakes when building backlinks can reduce the effectiveness of your SEO efforts or harm your website. The most common mistakes to avoid when building backlinks are as follows:

• Receiving poor quality or spam links,
• Adding non-relevant links,
• Constantly using the same anchor text
• Creating connections very quickly,
• Producing insufficient content,
• Copying rival sites,
• Buy links from websites with poor quality,
• Untrusted link exchanges,
• Being dependent on a single source,
• Not reviewing and updating links.

It is important to take a careful and natural approach when building backlinks. Creating quality, relevant and distinctive links is the most reliable way to improve your website’s SEO performance. Avoiding poor quality links or spammy techniques is critical to the long-term success of your website.

Tools To Help Monitor And Analyze Backlinks

Some popular and useful tools to monitor and analyze your backlinks are listed below:

1. Google Search Console: Search Console is Google’s free tool. It is useful for tracking your website performance and monitoring backlinks. You can use Google Search Console to see the links coming to your site and how effective they are.
2. Ahrefs: This tool helps you analyze your website’s backlinks in detail. It gives you access to important information such as the authority of source websites, anchor text usage and validity of links.
3. Moz Link Explorer: It helps you evaluate whether links are spam and analyze the impact of links.
4. SEMrush: In addition to tracking your website’s backlinks, SEMrush allows you to perform competitive analysis and keyword research.
5. Open Site Explorer (Moz Pro): Open Site Explorer, part of Moz Pro, helps you discover and analyze your website’s backlinks. This tool visually presents the sources and values of links.
6. Monitor Backlinks: Monitor Backlinks allows you to manage your own backlink profile as well as monitor competitor websites. It also tracks keyword rankings as well as links.
7. Linkody: Linkody is a useful tool that you can use to track your website’s backlinks, monitor spam links, and make SEO improvements.

How To Remove Or Disavow Bad Backlinks

Identifying bad backlinks and removing them from your website is extremely important to improve your SEO performance and prevent negative effects from search engines.

Steps on how to remove or disavow bad backlinks:

• Identify bad backlinks,
• Remove the links by contacting the site owner,
• Use disavow Link. If you are unable to remove the link or contact the source of the link, you can use Google’s “Disavow Links” tool.

Dealing with and avoiding bad backlinks is critical to the long-term success of your website. You can help search engines evaluate you positively by reviewing your backlink profile and producing quality content regularly.