What are Backlinks for SEO: The Importance & How to Get Them

You have created amazing content, but you’re not getting organic website traffic.

All you need to do to attract visitors is create great content. 

Wrong. 

Even if you’re creating fantastic content, it doesn’t mean search engines automatically notice it. 

Building backlinks is one of the best strategies to boost traffic and domain authority. As a website owner, you must learn how to get backlinks to your website. 

Some businesses pay top dollar to gain a single link on high-quality websites. But not all businesses can afford to buy backlinks. For owners of new businesses, getting backlinks might seem out of reach.

Here’s the good news:

Even for someone running a newer website, getting backlinks is entirely doable.

This guide will give you seven smart techniques for getting backlinks for your business website. 

What are backlinks?

A backlink is a link to your business website on another company’s website. This website backlink can be text, an image, or a button. 

It goes both ways. A backlink tells search engines how your content relates to other websites and pages on the internet.

Importance of backlinks for SEO: Why do you need them?

Getting backlinks for your business website is one of the factors Google and other search engines use to determine your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. Backlinks also foster brand recognition by reaching people who might need to be made aware of your business. 

You’ll be empowered to improve your website’s domain authority when you know how to get backlinks to your website. 

Domain authority is a metric that determines how powerful your website is with search engines. Unfortunately, small businesses and new websites in the early stages of growing traffic have low domain authority. 

When high domain authority websites link to your website, it tells the search engine crawlers that your linked-to website is valuable. 

You need high-quality backlinks to improve the visibility of the search engine results page (SERP).

Practical tips for how to get backlinks to your website

You have already written and published your content. Perhaps the question in your mind is, “How do I get backlinks to my website?” This can be the hardest part of SEO, especially for small startups. 

Relax. 

Many website owners don’t know how to score a backlink from high-domain websites. But, various tactics and link-building strategies can help your website earn high-quality backlinks and improve ranking.

Here are seven of the most practical tips to get you started as you consider how to get backlinks to your website.

Tip 1. Convert unlinked brand mentions to links 

People might mention your business across the web without linking to you. That’s a missed opportunity to get quality backlinks to your website. 

Unlinked brand mentions are one of the easiest backlink-building opportunities for your link-building campaign. These people already like your brand and know what you do — that’s why they mentioned you.

Converting unlinked mentions requires you to track the mentions and reach out to the website owners to get a backlink.

So, how do you find unlinked mentions? 

Here is what you need to do:

• Use the SEMrush Brand Monitoring Tool. Set it to notify you as mentions of your brand occur.
• Use Content Explorer to look for existing unlinked mentions. This is a mini search engine within Ahrefs.
• Reach out to authors who have mentioned your business positively and ask them to link to your brand.

Look for unlinked mentions of branded products, services, company representatives, and slogans

Tip 2. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is an online platform that helps journalists get feedback from the public to use in their stories. You generate backlinks on authoritative news sites, and reporters get relevant content.

Here is how to get backlinks to your website from HARO:

• Sign up as a source on HARO’s homepage and select a pricing plan. Journalists are always looking for expert opinions to include in their articles.
• Check your email three times a day from Monday to Friday. HARO will send you a list of articles for which the reporters need information.
• Look for articles that cover your area of interest. But, of course, you won’t be able to respond to every query.
• Send in your pitch. Include your answer, your contact information, and a link to your website.

You are not guaranteed to get a backlink from every single HARO query you respond to. But you will likely get a backlink for most of the response’s reporters use. So, it is also an opportunity to get free referral traffic.

Tip 3. Write guest blogs for external publications

Your first concern should be to bring people to your website. But unique, valuable content makes people stick around. And high-quality, spammy content will help your backlinking efforts.

One of the best tips for getting backlinks to your website is to submit guest posts to well-established websites with high domain authority and lots of traffic. For example, even Google accepts guest contributors on its Google Analytics blog.

Here are tips for posting your guest blogs:

• Show that you’re qualified as a writer. A testimonial could be an important asset.
• Demonstrate your qualifications by sharing links to your previously published content.
• Make sure you have unique, high-quality content. Writing spectacularly might be your only bargaining power.
• Present your pitches to medium domain authority websites if you’re just starting as a guest writer with no previous work to show.
• Keep pitching. Websites will not always respond to your pitches, but don’t get discouraged. 

Tip 4. Check out your competitors’ backlinks

As an entrepreneur, gathering as much information as possible about your competitors is important.

This empowers you as a blogger to decide if the most effective SEO digital marketing techniques that work for them will do the same for you. In addition, auditing your competitor’s link-building strategies can give you ideas about how to get more backlinks to your website.

Analyze your competitors’ strategies by

• Identify their resource page links and find which websites you can add to your connections.
• Following them on social media. 
• Subscribe to their newsletters to learn what strategies they implement in their business.

Tip 5. The broken link building method

With the broken link method, you contact a webmaster to report a broken link on their webpage. At the same time, you recommend a link to your website as an alternative to the broken link.

The chances of getting a backlink to your website are high since you’re helping them improve their web page’s quality by reporting the broken links.

Here are the broken link method steps:

• Search for relevant websites in your niche and go to their resource pages.
• Type any of the following on Google to find the links and resources:
• Main keyword + links
• Main Keyword + resources
• Keyword inurl:links
• Download and install the Check My Links plugin for Google Chrome to find the broken links on those pages.
• Download the search results with Ahrefs SEO Toolbar or the Scraper extension. 

When you reach out to the webmaster, introduce yourself and be professional. Tell them in a friendly way that they are linking to a resource that no longer exists. Give them the broken site links’ exact locations so they can find them easily.

Tip 6. Create and amplify infographics

An infographic is a graphic representation of information or data. Visual data is easy to understand and share — which puts them among the most popular methods to drive traffic to your website. 

Here are some tips for creating shareable infographics for your website:

• Make well-designed images with well-researched statistical data for your audience. 
• Ensure that your visuals address trending topics.
• Research topics that people care about and consider useful.
• Take the time to collect good-quality data. You can use secondary data from trusted sources or collect data yourself.
• Make your infographic easy to share. Their value lies in their ability to be shared and promoted to others. 

Tip 7. Legitimize your website & create killer content!

Content marketing requires you to prove to your visitors that your website is trustworthy. They want to feel safe interacting with your website. 

Here are a few ways to legitimize your website and give the right impression to your visitors:

• Prove that you are a real business by including your phone number and address on your contact page. You can also post profile photos of you and your employees.
• Cultivate a professional appearance. Avoid cluttering your web pages with unnecessary elements like sponsored ads. Ensure your images and graphics are high-quality, and the layout and typography are clean.
• Correct errors. Misspelled words or images that don’t load properly can lower your website’s credibility. Likewise, remove broken links as they give the impression of a neglected website.
• Add trust badges to show that your business partners are trusted industry experts and your website is secure.
• Create 10X content on every single URL that can get crawled and indexed by Google.
• Update content on a regular basis to show your visitors you’re an active business.

Gathering backlinks, or link building, sounds complicated, but there are many other ways you can obtain links to your website with minimal effort. 

Free Internet Directories – Are they worth it?

Before search engines, the web was filled with directories, and people browsed them to find the website they were looking for. This has left thousands of online directories, such as Dmoz and Jayde, many of which are still in business and accepting new website links now.

Most of these directories all work in the same way; you choose the most relevant category that suits the nature of your website then you suggest your URL to be included. 

Once your link has been approved, your listing will go live, and you will have just achieved your first backlink. Use Google to search backlinks for free website directories. 

A word of caution: Avoid submitting your website and domain to “free internet directory” websites that promise thousands of backlinks.

Link Exchanges – Are they worth it?

A link exchange describes two websites linking to each other. For example, Website A links to Website B, and Website B also links to Website A. 

Leverage existing partnerships and relationships that you already have. In addition, focus on interlinking content that will be helpful for the user. At the end of the day, a link that generates clicks and website traffic is going to have more value than a link that never gets any clicks, even if it’s on a high DA website.

Link Bait – Is it worth it?

Link bait is a term used to describe articles or pages on your website that are intended to attract backlinks from other websites. 

Controversial subjects, useful tools, case-studies, and free resources are just a few ideas; link baiting is about creativity – going in an angle never thought of before.

Link bait is the most difficult form of link building, but since the backlinks are 100 percent organic, the results are very rewarding.

When building backlinks, you can use any of the strategies above. However, the winning edge in search engine results pages (SERPs) goes to marketers who know how to implement these backlink-building techniques. 

Now that you know how to get backlinks to your website, ensure you are not violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Avoid spam links, paying for links or participating in illegal link schemes. Get authoritative websites to link to your website, and you’ll generate conversions and improve your SEO. What other ways can you use to get backlinks for your website? Tweet your thoughts and comments to @bluehost.

Types of backlinks

Backlinks are critical for search engine optimization (SEO) and can be categorized into various types:

1. Follow links: These are standard backlinks that pass authority and SEO value from the source page to the linked page. Search engines like Google consider these links when ranking websites, making them highly valuable for SEO.
2. Nofollow links: Nofollow links are tagged with a rel=”nofollow” attribute, indicating to search engines not to pass authority to the linked page. These links are often used for user-generated content or when the website doesn’t want to endorse or vouch for the linked content.
3. Sponsored or paid links: These links are used to indicate that a link has been paid for or sponsored in some way. They should also be marked with the rel=”sponsored” attribute to comply with search engine guidelines. Failure to do so can lead to penalties.
4. User-generated content (UGC) links: UGC links are created by users on forums, comments, or social media platforms. They are often nofollowed to prevent spam and to maintain the integrity of a website’s link profile.
5. Editorially placed links: These are links that are naturally earned and editorially placed within the content. They are typically seen as the most valuable type of backlink since they indicate high-quality content and trustworthiness.
6. Link schemes: Link schemes involve artificial methods of building links that violate search engine guidelines. These can lead to penalties. It’s important to avoid link schemes and focus on natural, high-quality backlinks instead.

Perform competitor backlink research

Performing competitive backlink research involves analyzing the backlinks of your industry or niche competitors to gain valuable insights for your SEO strategy. 

• Start by identifying your main competitors and use SEO tools to gather data on their backlinks, including metrics like Domain Authority and the sources of their links. 
• This analysis helps you understand where and how your competitors are earning backlinks, whether it’s through content types like blog posts, videos, or partnerships with other websites. 
• By evaluating anchor text, link sources, and content strategies, you can refine your SEO efforts, identify gaps in your backlink profile, and target similar websites for link-building opportunities. 

Ultimately, competitive backlink research is a strategic approach to improving your website’s authority and search engine rankings by learning from the successes of your competitors.

How to analyze backlinks?

1. Authority score: Evaluate the quality of your backlinks using metrics like Domain Authority (DA) or Page Authority (PA), which indicate the trustworthiness and credibility of the linking websites.
2. Referring domains: Assess the number of unique domains that link to your website. A diverse set of referring domains can be more valuable than numerous links from a single domain.
3. Backlinks: Examine the total number of links pointing to your website. A higher number of backlinks can positively impact your website’s authority and search engine rankings.
4. Monthly visits: Consider the amount of web traffic generated by the referring domains linking to your site. More traffic from backlinks can indicate the effectiveness of your link-building efforts.
5. Keywords: Analyze the relevance of anchor text in your backlinks to your targeted keywords. Anchor text should align with your SEO strategy and the content of the linked pages.
6. Outbound domains: Pay attention to the websites your outbound links are pointing to. Ensure that they are reputable and relevant to your content to maintain a positive user experience and SEO value.
7. Follow/Nofollow: All things equal, a followed backlink will have more value than a nofollow backlink.

Why are backlinks often overlooked?

Despite their proven potency in SEO, backlinks are frequently overshadowed in digital marketing strategies.

First, cultivating high-quality backlinks demands effort and long-term commitment, which contrasts with the instantaneous allure of PPC campaigns or social media blitzes. Second, the landscape of backlinking is fraught with misconceptions, from fears of penalties due to black-hat practices to uncertainty over their direct ROI. Moreover, with Google’s algorithm updates, marketers are wary of relying heavily on a single SEO tactic.

This wariness is exacerbated by the industry’s rapid evolution, making it hard for marketers to distinguish between outdated practices and modern, effective strategies. Lastly, while on-page SEO offers direct control, backlinking requires third-party collaboration, which can feel less predictable.

As a result, even though backlinks remain a cornerstone of domain authority and organic ranking, they’re sometimes relegated to the backburner in favor of seemingly more controllable or immediate tactics.

Common questions about backlinks for SEO

In conclusion

Backlinks play a pivotal role in increasing website traffic, authority, and SEO ranking in 2023. Creating exceptional content alone isn’t enough; you must actively seek and cultivate backlinks. 

This guide has provided a comprehensive understanding of backlinks, emphasizing their significance in SEO and offering practical tips on acquiring them. 

By putting these strategies and insights into action, you can effectively harness the power of backlinks to boost your website’s visibility and authority in the online world.