There are a lot of backlinks definitions and a lot of talk of the importance of backlinks SEO, but to put it simply: Backlinks (also known as “incoming links” or “inbound links”) are links from one website to a page on another website. Search engines like Google use backlinks for ranking because when one website links to another, it means they believe the content is important and reliable. The higher the rating of the site that is pointing to your content, the higher your ranking will be.
Backlinks are, maybe, the biggest part of off-site optimization because they give your content credibility by improving your ranking on SERP and by providing you with additional traffic to your website.
Those are some of the direct effects of Backlinks, additional indirect effects include building name and brand recognition.
If somebody well-known online mentions your brand or “gives a shoutout” to your website people will come looking for your content.
There are a lot of definitions and typings of backlinks, based on how they are earned, where are they posted, what additional attributes they have, but the most important split is per their “follow status”.
We can divide them into do-follow and nofollow backlinks. This typing is defined by adding the “rel” attribute to external links.
These are your regular, run-of-the-mill links that have no additional rel attribute
<a href="https://searchengineoptimization.tools">Do Follow</a>
Google’s official definition of the nofollow tag is, “‘Nofollow’ provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines ‘Don't follow links on this page’ or ‘Don't follow this specific link.’”
They have an additional attribute that defines that behavior:
<a href="https://searchengineoptimization.tools" rel="nofollow">No Follow</a>
Google ignores “nofollow” links but is expecting the website to have a mix of both varieties. If the website has only “dofollow” links, Google assumes that you bought those links.
Gaining backlinks is an essential component of off-page SEO. The process itself is known as link earning or link building.
Some backlinks you get will be more valuable than others. Followed backlinks from reliable, successful, high-authority sites are considered the most desirable backlinks to gain, while backlinks from low-authority, potentially spammy sites can potentially reduce your SERP rating.
Whether or not a link is a “dofollow link” is certainly relevant, but don't neglect the value of nofollow links.
Even a simple mention on high-quality websites can give your website a push and provide additional traffic.
Just as some backlinks you gain are more important than others, links you share to other sites also have a different value. When linking out to an external site, the decisions you make about the page from which you link, the anchor text you use, if you choose to follow or nofollow the link, can have a huge impact on the value you present
To get backlinks you often have to also give them. There are a few ways to get backlinks, both free and paid ones. Of course, free backlinks are better since they are, more often than not, gained organically.
It’s important to build trust and provide quality content that people want to read, and they will link to your site without you needing to ask or pay them. To build that trust, question forums such as Quora or Yahoo Answers are the best place. By answering people’s questions and linking back to your content, but not being spammy, you present yourself as an authority on the topic in question, and again, get additional traffic.
One of the common ways of getting backlinks is blog guest posting. By creating a post on somebody else’s site/blog and linking back to your site, you usually get a dofollow backlink.
The most common way of getting paid backlinks is getting a shoutout from somebody “famous” or paying for guest posting.
For starters, you should check how many backlinks you already have, and what type of links there are out there for your site. You can do that by using our backlink checker tool. Which will give you a rough estimate of where you are currently. You should also check your competition to check where you are supposed to be
You should also try and eliminate all the broken links that you have on your site. To do that you should periodically run checks and see if all links are still working.
Having broken links will not only reduce your ranking but will also create a bad experience for your users.
You can do it manually, but it’s much easier to use a tool built for that.
There are some additional checks you should run to check if your website is ready:
