Why are Backlinks Important for SEO?

If you want to increase traffic to your website, then backlinks are important.

What is a Backlink?

Backlinks are created when other websites link to yours.

There are three crucial elements to making your website rank highly in search engine results – what we call the 3 Pillars of SEO. These are:

• Keyword Research – to determine the keywords that people are actually searching for when looking for a business like yours;
• Onsite Optimisation – placing those keywords strategically in your website copy and settings, as well as improving the user experience (eg ensuring your site loads quickly); and
• Offsite Optimisation – which primarily involves trying to gain quality backlinks to your site.

So Why are Backlinks Important?

This is because the search engines look at your backlinks as a way of gauging your website’s reputation and authority, and whether it is worth including on the front page of search results.

So what do links do?

• In machinery, a chain of links transfers power from one place to another; in SEO, links transfer power (or “link juice”) to the website they are pointing at.
• The links in snow chains on a car’s tyre, increase the amount of grip on the road in icy conditions; in a similar way, links in SEO help your website gain traction in the search engine results!
• In jewellery, links are used to connect something valuable; the same principle applies in SEO.
• Even the Good Book says that there is strength in building links: “A cord of three strands is not easily broken”. This applies to SEO as much as to our relationships!

The Best Backlinks

The best backlinks:

• come from relevant sites;
• are from sites with a decent Domain Authority;
• and fit naturally into the content on that site (ie they are not obviously spammy – we’ve all seen webpages stuffed with hundreds of links and not much else).

The more reputable the website that is linking to yours, the more Google likes it. Both quality and quantity are important, if you want your site to do well in search results.

And never, ever pay for links!

An Online Popularity Contest

In a way, it’s an online popularity contest!

Remember how the cool kids used to rule the schoolyard?

It was pretty tough to break in to their circle, if you were a newbie or just a small, quiet kid. Nobody wanted to hang with you, unless somebody noticed there was something special about you … and a cool kid started hanging out with you. Once one cool kid gave you the time of day, more would follow …

Getting backlinks to your site, and ranking well in search engine results, is much the same!

It can be particularly tough if you are a small or new business, to get people to notice your website, let alone want to hang out or link up with you. But as your site shows it has something special to offer, and a couple of websites start sending a backlink your way … there is a snowball effect. The more popular you are, the more backlinks you tend to get!

All of a sudden, the search engines realise that your site is actually pretty great, so they start telling other people about it …

It’s a bit of a Catch-22, and all sounds pretty overwhelming when you are just trying to run your business. You know you “should” be more competitive in the online space, but there are only so many hours in a day …

SEO is important – it shouldn’t be left to when you have a “spare minute”. By signing up for one of our affordable SEO packages, you will:

• free up your valuable time;
• benefit from expert SEO knowledge, skills and contacts;
• gain peace of mind, knowing that your website is generating qualified leads for your business, 24/7.

So now that you know why backlinks are important, don’t waste any more time thinking about it – contact us today and find out how we can help you get the edge on your competitors!