Is Backlink a Ranking Factor?
If you blog or sell things on the Internet, you must have heard the word "Backlink." But what is a "backlink," and how does it help SEO? What are the different kinds of backlinks, and do they play a big role in how well a site ranks?
Now let's talk about it in this article.
What is Backlink?
A link linking from one website to another is known as a backlink. Inbound links and incoming links are other names for backlinks.
Therefore, whenever someone links to one of your blog posts in a blog post, you will receive a backlink from that blog. It can be of various forms, such as Do follow and Nofollow.
Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are a key factor in determining a website's authority and are a significant ranking indication for Google. Google considers a page to be worthy of linking in SERPs if numerous websites link to it. They stand for a "vote of confidence" from one website to another in SEO.
Let's examine the various backlink types and determine which are crucial for SEO.
Types of backlinks
There are two kinds of backlinks. The first is Dofollow, and the second is Nofollow.
A dofollow link is one that passes a website's authority to the linking site, whereas a nofollow link does not pass any ranking signal or link juice to the other website.
As a result, it is clear that Dofollow links are extremely important for SEO.
However, there are some other types of backlinks, such as Sponsored, which is essentially a nofollow backlink that informs Google and other search engines that it is a sponsored link, or paid links, such as Affiliate links.
Several other types of Backlinks are :
- Editorial backlinks
- Backlinks from guest blogs
- Acknowledgment backlinks
- Backlinks from niche or local directories
- Links in social media posts
- Links in business profiles
- Links in bio
- Links in press releases
- Links in comments (UGC)
- Image backlink
The most important backlink is a Do follow Editorial Backlink, which is usually earned naturally and put in the blog post itself. The linked site gets a better ranking signal the higher the link is.
So, when you're building backlinks, try to get them at the top of the page and in the content itself.
Backlinks in the content are more useful than links in the sidebar, footer, or author bio.
You can also get backlinks by having other people post on your site. Where you have to write the content and ask the owner of the other site to post it. In exchange, you can ask them to link to one of your existing pages. In this way, you can get high-quality editorial links to your website that people will want to click on.
Most links in the comments section are nofollow user-generated content links that don't give any authority to the website. So, don't waste your time building links in this way.
Always use custom-made, high-quality images that aren't stock photos, like infographics, charts, etc. It helps you get a backlink to an image in a natural way. When someone uses one of your images on their blog, you will get an image backlink. It comes in the form of a source image link or if they use your image URL directly on their website.
And don't spend any more time building links to directories, because that's not important in 2022. This kind of link no longer works.
Internal links are links between pages on the same website. They are also called "internal backlinks." The On-page SEO of your website is helped by internal backlinks, while the Off-page SEO is helped by external backlinks.
Links that you should Avoid
Some types of backlinks harm rather than help a website's authority and ranking. As a result, you should always try to avoid such link-building practices.
- Paid links
- Sponsored guest posts
- Links in low-quality directories or forums
- Links on irrelevant sites
- spam comments with links
What is Link Building & why is it important?
Link building is the process of getting links from other websites to your website, or "backlinks." Some links are made by themselves, and others need to be made by hand.
Let's say you're in the top 10 for a keyword on Google and someone wants to link to your content as a source. In that case, they might use a link from the top 10 as a reference. Here, you don't have to do anything to get the link; it will happen on its own.
But for new sites, we have to add links to our blog by hand. There are many ways, such as sending out emails, guest posting, and so on.
You can also get backlinks naturally if you post content like statistics, infographics, charts, etc., which tends to get the most links.
So, you need to find websites in the same niche as yours and get to know the Bloggers who run them. This makes it easy for those websites to link back to you.
With link building, you learn about other websites in your niche that are similar to yours. This helps you figure out what your competitors are writing about. Getting backlinks will help you move up in the search rankings, which will lead to more traffic and more money from ads.
Conclusion
I hope this article has helped you understand what backlinks are, how they help with SEO, and how you can make links for your website.
Remember that building backlinks is an ongoing process, and it takes a long time to get a good number of them. But you should never try to buy links or spam other sites with links.
You need to get to know other bloggers in your field, and guest blogging is the most effective way to do that.