If you’re getting started in the SEO world then one of the first terms you’re likely to hear is the word ‘backlink’. A lot of people just starting out will struggle to understand the term.

In short, backlinks are incoming links to a page on the web.

When one external webpage links to another, it’s called a backlink. Backlinks are a major metric that determine rankings, the higher the number of backlinks a web page has the more it tends to be trusted and viewed favorably by Google, boosting its rankings.

Once upon a time, quantity mattered more than quality when it came to backlinks. Generally people could get away with spammy practices and low quality links, because search engines could not discern the difference. This has all changed in recent years and now quality is much more of a determining factor in rankings. It is important that backlinks come from high quality web pages with good authority and content. Sites should also be relevant when backlinking, unrelated content will be ignored or confuse search algorithms.

Why are they important?

According to SEO Shark all backlinks are important to your website because they improve SEO in a number of ways, chiefly by improving your organic ranking. Building good backlinks will help you to improve your organic position in search results, improving the traffic your page will receive.

Another positive is faster indexing because bots find you web page by following other links. Backlinks will lead to faster discovery, allowing your site to be crawled sooner and allowing it to index faster.

One of the top benefits of backlinks is that they contribute to referrals. Readers of another webpage may come across the link and follow it to your page.

How do you get backlinks?

There are several steps you can take in order to gain good quality backlinks. If you’re serious about gaining backlinks you should recognize that it will take some proactive effort on tour part, and a well thought out strategy. Here are few of the things you should be doing if you want to increase your backlinks.

Write good content

If you want other websites to link to you then you need to create high quality content. Genuinely useful, interesting content will attract backlinks with little effort – some people might actually seek you out and ask you if they can link to your content.

Writing good content for your website or your map is all about ensuring that you address a problem or answer a question. You could have a unique take on a topic, or take a different approach then your competitors. If you have expertise on the topic that you’re covering then people may begin to view you as an authority on the topic. It is important to make your content very easy to read, it should flow naturally and be legible. Variation of sentence structure and good formatting with the use of headings and paragraphs to break text up are important to help make your content enjoyable to read.

Guest blogging

The concept of guest blogging is basically that in exchange for writing a free article for another website, you will be able to create a link or more to your own website.

Finding sites to guest blog for can be a challenge, keep your eyes out for websites with open calls for contributors as they are usually looking for this kind of exchange.

Otherwise stay on the lookout for websites that cover the kind of topic that you’re interested in and that’s relevant to your website, even if they are not openly looking for guest contributors they may accept your pitch.