What Are Backlinks, and How Do You Get Them?

New to SEO, or just want to get a little more traffic? Backlinks will be important. In short, backlinks are links to your site from another one. If someone links to your site, then you have a backlink from them. If you link to another website, they have a backlink from you.

Backlinks are good. You want as many backlinks as possible. Google and other search engines really, really like them – and the more backlinks you have, the more your page can climb the search engine rankings.

Why are backlinks important?

Google themselves confirmed what SEO experts always suspected back in 2016 that, alongside content, backlinks are one of the two most important signals used to rank websites. But why?

It’s because backlinks are a way that non-human algorithms can understand the authority of a page. The more backlinks you have, the better reputation you probably have, right? If Website A links to Website B, that probably means it’s a trustworthy source. If websites C through Z also link to that website, it’s probably a very trustworthy site that many people see as a reliable source of information.

In the offline world, say five people who didn’t know each other all recommended a particular restaurant as the best in your city. You’d probably think you would be able to get a good meal there, as multiple individuals would be vouching for it.

Not all backlinks are created equal

Trust is what matters. So while sheer quantity of those backlinks does matter, the trust and reliability of the backlinking website also matters. So while building backlinks is a good way to make your own site more trustworthy, you have to make sure those sites backlinking to you are trustworthy themselves. Otherwise, Google gets a bit suspicious.

Just as you would trust a recommendation from a trusted friend or industry expert, Google trusts backlinks from senior, authoritative websites over those from those which are newer or less reliable.

This is why if you manage to get a backlink on Forbes, it will be ten times as valuable as a backlink from johnnynobody.com/blog.

Relevance is also a factor here, as well – if you’re a video marketer with backlinks from two pages, one about video editing and one about farm insurance, chances are the former is more valuable and Google will weight the results accordingly. This idea doesn’t just play out on the content of the pages, but right up to domain level. Google assumes readers of videoediting.com are going to be more likely to click onto a video editor’s website than readers of farminsurance.com.

How traffic factors in

Backlinks from high-traffic pages are more likely to send you more referral traffic than those from low-traffic pages – or so says simple maths. But, will this translate into Google rankings? Do backlinks from high-traffic pages boost your SERPs more than those from low-traffic pages?

In 2020, AHREFs.com set out on a quest to answer this problem. They took the top-ranking pages for 44,589 non-branded keywords and looked at organic traffic to the pages that link to them. The results were small, but meaningful:

As you can see, there’s a small but noticeable correlation between rankings and backlinks from pages with a lot of organic search traffic. However, the actual number of backlinks from unique websites and high-authority sources seem to be more important.

NoFollow, DoFollow, Sponsored and UGC

We know that all backlinks are not created equal – but to add even more spice into the mix, there are different categories of backlinks you need to know about.

Nofollow links are what to use if you don’t want to vouch for a website, but still need to link to it. For example, if you were writing an article about fake news, you might find it useful to link to an example of fake news without signaling to Google that it’s a reliable source. Nofollow links use the rel=”nofollow” attribute to inform Google and other search engines that they shouldn’t be trusted. A nofollowed backlink looks like this:

<a href="https://www.domain.com/" rel=”nofollow”>this is a nofollowed link</a>

Nofollowed links won’t help you rank higher on the SERPs. But in September 2019, Google announced changes to the nofollow attribute which means this link attribute was again being included in their evaluation of which links to consider or exclude within search page results. Some people believe this could mean Google might pass trust through nofollow links in some instances, so we can’t be sure on this one.

Dofollow links don’t technically exist – they just don’t have the nofollow attribute added. A followed link is one which does pass trust onto Google’s algorithm. A followed backlink looks like this:

<a href="https://www.domain.com/">this is a followed link</a>

Meanwhile, a sponsored link is a relatively new addition to the backlink family. It’s used whenever you need to tell Google that a link is sponsored, paid for or otherwise compensated – and you should always tell Google when this is the case. Say you pay an Instagram influencer to promote your product. If money, or a product or service, has changed hands in return for that link, a rel=”sponsored’ attribute needs to be added.

But beware – paying for backlinks is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results. That’s why the rel=”sponsored’ attribute stops your site from being negatively impacted by these links.

A sponsored backlink looks like this:

<a href="https://www.example.com/" rel=”sponsored”>this is a sponsored link</a>

And finally, a link with the UGC attribute tells Google that the link has been placed by a user, and not the owner of the website. It’s useful for forums and blog comments, and it’s good for telling Google that you’re not responsible for what anyone else says on your site.

A UGC backlink looks like this:

<a href="https://www.example.com/" rel=”ugc”>this is a UGC link</a>

How to get backlinks

So now we know about the types of backlinks, why backlinks are good, and how they build your reputation – but how on earth do you get them?

There are a few ways to do it. Like most things on the internet, you’ll get better results the more work you put in. Let’s review some of the most popular ways to get backlinks:

Guest posting

When you write a guest post on someone else’s blog, you (should) get a byline which includes your name, bio, and a link to your socials. If you can work in a link to your blog as well, that’s a good quality backlink – as long as the site you’re posting on is as high authority as possible.

Submit your site to a directory

No matter your industry, somebody’s probably compiled a list of all the sites or sources in that niche which people can refer to. Search for <yourniche> intitle:”directory” to find lists, and see if you can submit your site.

Steal your competitors’ ideas

…Ethically, of course. SEMrush’s backlink gap tool helps you discover untapped backlink opportunities by comparing your domain against your main competitors to find out where they’re getting linked from, and you’re not.

To sum up, get your site linked from as many places as possible – but make sure those places are ones that you trust and which Google sees as reliable. A good backlink-building strategy will place you miles ahead of your competition, so go about it wisely and you can’t lose.

Got some more backlink buildings tips? What do you think of ours? Let us know in the comments!