What Is A Backlink?

Introduction

What are backlinks and why are they important? To understand the benefits backlinks hold, we first need to get to grips with what backlinks actually are.

So to start off, backlinks are links from one website to a page on another web page. Think of it this way, whenever a backlink occurs it’s like receiving a vote for a website. The more votes you get from sites with authority, the more positive an effect there will be on a site’s SEO. This impacts something known as 'Authority Score' - a metric that gives a rough quantification of your website's authority in the eyes of Google.

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Do Backlinks Help SEO?

Backlinks are used by search engines to judge how credible and relevant your site is for the keyword or category for which you are ranked. Backlinks to your website indicate to search engines, like Google, that your material is being acknowledged and supported by other websites, indicating that your content is valuable and trustworthy. This in turn nudges to these search engines that your content is worth being ranked higher on search results pages- and so you begin moving up. Remember, think of a backlink as a vote from another site that your website is rank-worthy.

Backlinks Increase Traffic

Backlinks aren’t just a helping hand for your business, they’re also useful for the site users. These links connect searchers with information on other resources which is relevant to what they’ve searched and found. The link is shown as a hyperlink with anchor text that provides further information and stands out from the rest of the content, like this, indicating that if the searcher clicks it they will find additional information beyond what is on the page.

Link building and knowing how to do it organically is vital when it comes to improving SEO. Having hundreds of thousands of random backlinks or only having links from one website isn’t going to have any positive affect on your rank position. You need to have the tools and knowledge to get unique and authoritative links in order to achieve higher ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and improve your SEO altogether- which is where Paddle Creative can help.

Relevance Matters

As we elude to above, having backlinks from random websites will have a marginal impact. Having backlinks from other websites that are highly relevant to your industry on the other hand will greatly improve your SEO results. Google will see other sites, in your industry are giving you the big thumbs up, and so will start to give you more authority, within your niche.

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Do-Follow vs No-Follow

Not all links are equal. Some links are marked with a ‘No-follow’ attribute which is basically a website saying to Google, ‘hey, here is a link to that site but we are not saying it is good or bad’. Do-follow links on the other hand does, in the eyes if Google, a firm thumbs up in the direction of the website it is linking to. Therefore, do-follow links are the preferable option to help improve SEO rankings. That-said, Google have indicated that no-follow links do carry some weight, just not as much as do-follow links.

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Anchor Text

The anchor text is the text which appears as the link. If we were to put something like this to our web design page, the anchor text would be ‘web design’ . This is important because it tells the user, and Google what the link refers to. This can help with SEO but needs to be done in a natural manner.

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Quality Links Matter

One last thing to know is that backlinks are all about quality, not quantity. Every website is assigned an ‘authority score’ (or domain authority). Links from higher authority sites will have a bigger impact on improving traction in SERP. Conversely, links from spammy sites could have a negative impact on results.

Google’s algorithm is continuously changing and evolving and so there are always new things to be aware of and new ways to achieve. We here at Paddle Creative are highly knowledgeable on all things SEO, Google, backlinks and more so you know you’re in the right place if you have any queries.

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Conclusion

We’re always up for a chat, so if there’s anything you want to know more about, get in touch!

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