What Is Backlinking, And Why Is Backlinking Important For SEO?

Business owners looking to stand out from competitors know that their digital presence is key in these days of online everything. That can mean anything from social media marketing and pay-per-click advertising (PPC), to content marketing,as well as working with a trusted Cleveland SEO company to ensure that your website and social platforms are perfectly curated, right where they should be. At the same time, your business needs to be seen as a reliable yet relatable authority in your field.

One central strategy to improving your website’s online ranking in search results is to improve backlink building. What is this practice, and how can it boost SEO performance? Let’s get into it.

What Is A Backlink?

It’s pretty much as it sounds–a link on another company’s website that, when clicked, leads users back to your website. This link is typically a hyperlink that is embedded in anchor text–ideally a word or phrase that relates to the content on your site. Extra points if the anchor text is also a research-backed keyword. A backlink–also sometimes called an inbound link–can be embedded within text, images, buttons, infographics, and other content.

On the other hand, links within your own site, say when you link your blog article to your services page, are called internal links. These are important too, but play a different role to backlinks. Another term you’ll hear in relation to backlinking is referring domain. That’s the web address of the website that has included a backlink to your website on one of their pages. 

Benefits Of Backlinks and Domain Referrals

Both backlinks and domain referrals help to establish relationships between information, both on individual pages and websites as a whole. They help to show that your website contains valuable content, and backlinks are a key way that search engine website crawlers move through the internet. Backlinks and anchor text inform what they learn about your website, both on its own and in relation to other pages out there. The resulting data they collect can then affect where you fall in search rankings.

High-quality backlinks from reputable websites can help to boost your website’s SEO standing. They’re basically digital endorsements of your business, helping you to stand out as an authority on the topic. These recommendations from other websites can end up leading more traffic to your web pages. The resulting bump in visibility is due to off-page SEO, which is different from the on-page SEO that involves your site alone. Regardless though, the point here is that backlink building makes your website more visible online and more readily found by people looking for the services or products you offer.

How To Build Backlinks

While backlinking can be relatively straightforward, it can be quite time intensive. It also requires some specific strategies to ensure the best outcome. Like any attempt at improving SEO, overdoing backlinking or having the wrong sites as the referring domains can be detrimental to your website’s rankings online. Besides strategy, there are also some clear rules to follow, and search engines reward rule-followers. Excessive backlinks can look like spam from Google’s perspective, or even send up red flags on their end, so it has to be done right.

There are plenty of articles out there about how to build backlinks–this is not that. The main tip we can offer is that, as is nearly always true, content is king. Outreach may be necessary, but having robust, engaging, meaningful content on your website is what will prompt others to link back to your site in the first place. And really, high-quality content should always be your goal–it can’t ever steer you wrong. 

Content with naturally placed, well-researched keywords is vital to your website being noticed by Google webcrawlers. The goal is always to show the user the content they’re looking for, and there are ways to tailor and customize your website to meet online demands. Heavy backlinking without good content to back it up can end up hurting you in the long run. Having the right pieces in place to boost SEO is a balancing act, to be sure.

Custom Web Design And Digital Marketing In Cleveland

How can you achieve a high-quality, mobile friendly website with top-notch content, while also hitting SEO markers and managing to efficiently run your business every day? Easy! Work with a digital marketing agency in Cleveland who gets SEO and takes the time to learn about you and your business. Things can get complex but when you work with Cleveland SEO experts like the team at Alt Media Studios (AMST), you can rest assured that SEO is covered from every angle.

Besides improving our customers’ SEO rankings, we also help with custom web application development, custom web design, conversion rate optimization, video production, graphic design and more. Need a monthly blog or new website content that will encourage backlinking? We can handle that too. For everything digital marketing, look no further–contact us today to learn more about our services and to chat about how we can help you excel online.