A Beginner’s Guide To Backlinks

Finding and improving on different methods to boost your SEO is an important part of growing your business. If a goal you set for yourself in 2024 is to drive more traffic to your website, building backlinks is a tried-and-true way to help accomplish that goal. The most challenging part of utilizing backlinks is figuring out how to use them in a way that meets search engine standards.

What Are Backlinks?

A backlink is an inbound link coming from another website to yours. This link could be coming from text, an image, or a button- anything you can click to take you to a different page. As long as the source is a different website, it counts as a backlink.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Although you can still run a successful business without many backlinks, they can greatly improve your SEO. A backlink is basically a recommendation from someone you are not affiliated with, saying that your information or products are worth the time of their audience. It helps promote you as a trusted source, expands your audience, and books you on search engine rankings. The quality of backlinks matters, for you and the person posting the backlink to your site. You want to make sure the backlinks are up-to-date and relevant for them to be helpful.

Ways To Earn Backlinks:

One of the best, and easiest, ways to earn backlinks is simply by creating high-quality content. Content that is valuable, engaging, and informative is likely to be noticed and shared. Although creating quality content takes time, it benefits your business even without the benefit of backlinks and is something you should be spending effort on regardless. Building an audience that follows your content takes time, but if you are consistent you will see it grow.

Reach out to your vendors or manufacturers to see if they would be willing to post a backlink for you. This is simple for them to do, and allows their audience to learn more about you when shopping on their site. Not everyone is willing to do this, but it can be a great benefit with a connection you already have!

Include backlinks to other websites in your own content. If you find an article, infographic, video, or product that you think would be helpful to your audience, share it! Although it might feel like you are simply helping other businesses generate leads, it also helps improve your credibility and visibility. Other businesses will often take note if you backlink their articles and might even return the favor.

Find places online where you have been mentioned, but there is no link included. Adding links often gets overlooked, especially when it is not a direct reference to information that you have shared. As long as you are mentioned positively, it is perfectly acceptable to politely reach out and ask that a proper link be included. Make sure that you are not demanding, and the link will be relevant to the media that it is attached to.

Consider trading backlinks with other reputable brands. If you find another business that regularly creates content that you enjoy, or has a product that you think would pair well with one of your own without rivaling you, reach out and see if they would add a link to one of your pages in exchange for you doing the same. If you do this, be very intentional about why you like their information, and how you think their audience can benefit from your link that you are asking them to send. If you build a good relationship, it can be mutually beneficial.

Creating valuable content and keeping a professional, respectful attitude is one of the fastest ways to build backlinks. Create content that is valuable to your audience and peers, and don’t be afraid to reach out where you think your backlinks would be a benefit.