What Is SEO?

To understand how backlinks are an important part of any serious marketing campaign, it’s important to understand what SEO means. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a series of strategies and practices designed to make a web page rank higher in organic searches and seem more appealing to guests.

For any business looking to make an impact online, the value of a good SEO campaign is obvious: more visitors to the site generate more customers. The more people a business owner can get on their site, the higher the chance that an aesthetically pleasing and convincing web page will entice them to buy a product. 

SEO strategies help an individual web page stand out from the competition, and given that the average Google searcher doesn’t venture into the forbidden wasteland known as “Page 2,” competition for the Google Snippet — or even just hitting that coveted first page — is fierce.

Major search engines list the order of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) depending on the user’s query; websites that appear at the top of the SERP are more appealing to internet users and much more likely to receive valuable clicks. 

Searching “SEO agency Denver,” for example, will yield the top results most relevant to those keywords. You can expect a few different agencies to show up. These companies have all built their reputation at least in part thanks to a team of skilled SEO strategists.

Organic Vs. Paid Placement

A lot of SERPs are purchased using Pay-Per-Click Ads (PPC), denoted by a small “Ad” text next to the URL. 

The organic search results appear directly below these, and these listings are highly coveted for the simple reason that the website has performed well in the algorithm for its niche.

There’s no way to boost a website’s organic search ranking—it’s simply a function of good SEO strategies, including backlinks.

How Do Backlinks Work?

Backlinks are when a website provides a link to another website. These can be included in the anchor text, which are links embedded in text on the page, or just a plain old URL slapped somewhere on the bottom of the page. 

Oftentimes, hyperlinking from one website to another is a good way to refer directly to sources so that the reader can view the source website at their leisure. Each time a user is directed to a particular webpage, that website earns more repute in major search engine algorithms.

It’s not wrong to think of backlinks as being like votes cast in a website’s favor. On Reddit, users upvote posts they find humorous, engaging, or relevant to them, and backlinks work similarly in that they are the ‘upvote’ of the search engine algorithms.

It demonstrates to the algorithm that the information on the backlinked website is relevant, useful, and oft-quoted in other media.

Backlinks and SEO

The tie-in to a comprehensive SEO strategy becomes clear with the understanding that backlinks are like tokens exchanged for a higher organic ranking on major search engines; remember, there’s no purchasing a higher rank on Google. It’s all down to the merit of the information on the webpage and the SEO strategies used.

Backlinks specifically have been part of Google since the days of the very first Google algorithm PageRank. With thousands of changes made to this algorithm over the years, backlinks have remained an important part of Google’s key ranking system.

Google itself has confirmed the relevancy of backlinks, with Search Quality Senior Strategist Andrey Lipattsev expressly describing content, backlinks, and RankBrain, Google’s machine learning algorithm, as the three most important factors in organic search rankings.

Domain Authority

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that not all backlinks are created equal. Google’s algorithm considers the ‘weight’ of each backlink in ranking a website by how valuable the website is that includes the backlink.

As such, backlinks provided by websites that are already in good standing with the almighty Google algorithm tend to have more weight.

Keyword-Specific Anchor Links

Another metric commonly used to assess the quality of backlinks is whether the anchor text includes the website’s target keyword.

For example, a pet company wanting to rank higher in Google would significantly benefit from other websites’ backlinks anchored in text like “best pet food,” “healthy pet food,” or “best value pet accessories.” Anchor text including the business name is also beneficial.

Self-Backlinking

Another essential part of an effective backlinking strategy that’s visible on just about every dominant website is the inclusion of backlinks that point to other parts of the same webpage.

For example, this run-of-the-mill article by CNBC (you’re welcome for the backlink, by the way) discusses Netflix’s new growth in the third quarter of 2022. 

Pretty standard stuff, but delving deeper into the article, it’s packed full of backlinks leading to other CNBC articles, which themselves are also loaded with backlinks.

These strategies not only tally up those favorable backlink points, but they also increase dwell time on the website, which is a measure of the amount of time a user spends on a web page.

More time spent following through on a link to check out different articles means more of a nudge to the algorithm that someone viewing the site is not only following backlinks, but it’s also spending a significant amount of time on the site.

The Bottom Line

Backlinks are, in essence, a way of driving people to a website through external links. Other pages, blogs, or videos that want to reference the information on the target website will include a backlink. 

When a user follows this link, it signals to the algorithm that the information on the backlinked page is relevant to the user’s query, and, in combination with a myriad of other SEO strategies, can help drive more traffic to the site via organic searches.

The post What Are Backlinks for SEO? (Why Do They Matter?) first appeared on SEO Calling.