The importance of Backlinking in SEO

Search Engine Optimization or what we call SEO is the new normal, and it seems like without sufficient SEO knowledge, you can’t survive, if you’re a marketer.

Contrary to the popular perception, we only understand SEO as using ‘keywords’ and optimizing all forms of text to the same. But we often ignore the relative impact of backlinking.

What is a Backlink?

A backlink or an incoming link is when one web resource connects to the other in the form of a comparable reference or a citation.

Such links are extremely important for onsite and offsite SEO especially when either of the websites is expressing their confidence in each other. Not only does it improve a particular site’s ranking, in fact, but also betters its search visibility and authority. Google and other search engines may rank a web resource higher if it has more backlinks or ‘votes’ from other websites.

Why are Backlinks Important?

Using links for improving search engine rankings, despite the odds is still relevant. Backlinks were one of the first criteria to fit Google’s ranking algorithm (Page Rank)

How do Backlinks work?

Though creating Backlinks sound like an easy task, they require in-depth research and resource building. A web source cannot link another web source just off the charts to establish authority. They need to undergo a process of ‘link building’ or ‘link earning.’ Backlinks can vary in terms of value and authority. For instance, Forbes, WebMD, The Guardian may be mentioned on every other blogging platform, because they are high authority links with relevant content, meta tags, page authority, and so on. But if we consider it vice versa, a small blog or a website mentioned on either of these high authority links can be a significant boost and may upscale its value amongst other readers.

At the end of the day, a single high-quality backlink can be more valuable than a 1000 low-quality ones. And therefore we need to look out for one, which:

• Comes from trusted and authoritative websites (with high domain authority).
• Includes target keywords as ‘Anchor Text’.
• Is relevant to the site creating the link.
• Is a unique domain that hasn’t linked to a particular site before.