What are Backlinks?

This article describes what backlinks are and how to use them to improve the SEO of your website.

Basics Backlinks

Backlinks are incoming links. They are links from another website to your own one. You can also call them a reference or a recommendation.

The ranking of your website in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) depends, among other things, on the number of backlinks linking to your website. Google (and other search engines) build their search engine like a scientific research. In science, the more often an article is cited by other articles, the more important and relevant it appears. Google uses this technic to rank websites in their SERPs.

Paid Backlinks

In the past it was easier to rank higher because it was possible to buy backlinks. Bought links were published on a lot of website linking to your content. That showed Google that your content was good and your rank higher.

Nowadays Google knows this technic and says that they can evaluate the backlinks. So it’s more difficult to rank higher with bought links. It’s more important that you have high quality content and the backlinks come from wide-ranging and various websites. With that you’ll have a healthy structure of links.

Two typs of links

No-follow and Do-follow You use no-follow links when you have a link e.g. to a log-in page. You say Google to not follow the link to avoid spam or that link can be found via the search. Do-follow links are the opposite of that. You want Google to follow these links. In the internet you have both typs of links mixed.

Avoid bad neighborhoods! You should take care that you don’t land in a community with bad content and bad backlinks. Bad neighborhoods can consist of links from suspicious countries or topics. Google possibly punishes your website and rank it down in the SERPs.

How to build up a good link structure?

• Provide good content on your website so that others voluntarily refer to your website

• Ask other website owners in the same niche if they want to work together for backlinking

• Search for professional help from an SEO-agency

• Have a user-friendly landing page for your conten

Why you should use backlinks?

• Important part of SEO

• Backlinks are a factor for your website’s ranking in SERPs

• They generate traffic to your website

#seo #searchengineoptimization #backlinks #seohelp