What are backlinks in SEO? The ultimate guide to building search authority that lasts

If you’ve been implementing on-page SEO strategies like writing high-quality content and using keywords appropriately, yet you aren’t getting the results you want, it may be because you are overlooking one crucial factor– backlinks. Backlinks in SEO are external links from other websites that point to a page on your website; they’re also known as incoming links or inbound links. 

Backlinks are among the top factors Google considers when ranking websites, because they signal to Google that your content is valuable and credible. A Backlinko study found that the number of domains linking to a page correlated with Google rankings the most. Yet, only 2.2% of websites have backlinks, likely because link building can be tough and often requires expertise and patience.

Still, 78% of digital marketers agree that building backlinks is worth the effort. Incorporating link building into your SEO services can improve your search rankings, lead to more traffic on your website, and strengthen your brand authority. 

In this article, we’ll explore why backlinks matter for SEO and walk you through how to build backlinks for your website. It doesn’t matter if you are just getting started with SEO or a professional with years of experience, this guide is packed with tips to help you get desired results. 

Why are backlinks so important in SEO?

Google started taking backlinks seriously in the late 1990s when it launched its PageRank algorithm. PageRank works by counting the number of links to a page and ranking them based on that. The algorithm was trained to think the more people link to a page, the more “important” or “helpful” the content must be. 

Each webpage on the internet receives a PageRank score between 0 and 1. The score is based on the probability that a random person clicking through links would end up on that page. For example, imagine the total web links on the internet are coloured marbles in a glass jar, the chances that if you pick a marble, it would lead to your website, is your PageRank score.

Before PageRank, Google ranked blog posts based on keyword density and on-page optimisation, but soon found that they weren’t enough to determine the quality of an article. Since then, backlinks have acted as proof of quality and a source of referral traffic. 

Backlinks and E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, is the framework Google uses to gauge a content’s quality and determine how to rank it. Here’s how backlinks and EEAT work together:

• Experience & Expertise: When high-authority websites in your niche link to your content, it alerts Google that your content is insightful and credible.Think of  how an academic paper gains more respect, the more it’s cited. Or how everybody thinks a job applicant is more credible when endorsed by a higher-up. 
• Authoritativeness: Backlinks act as validation. The more reputable websites link to your content, the more “respect” your domain gets . 
• Trustworthiness: Backlinks in SEO act as votes of confidence or endorsements. Google decides whether to trust your content based on how many reputable sites link to it. 

Key link building terms explained

Dofollow backlinks

Dofollow backlinks are backlinks that can pass on link equity (SEO value or authority) to the web page they link to. 

Nofollow backlinks

Nofollow backlinks, on the other hand, don’t pass on link equity. They usually have a rel= “nofollow” attribute that directs Google not to pass on authority or ranking power to your website. For example <a href=”https://example.com” rel=”nofollow”>Example Website</a>

While nofollow backlinks may not boost your SEO rankings, they can be a great source of referral traffic and contribute to a healthy backlink profile.

Anchor text

Anchor text is the clickable text of a hyperlink. Descriptive and keyword-rich anchor texts are usually more beneficial for SEO than generic ones. For example, if a website links to your home and garden website, a backlink with an anchor text like “pruning your garden” will be far more impactful than one that says “click here.”

Link equity

Link equity is the authority or ranking power that one web page passes to another web page through a dofollow backlink. 

Backlink (Inbound Link)

A backlink or an inbound link is a hyperlink from one website to another. Backlinks let search engines know your content is authoritative and trustworthy.

Referring domain

A referring domain is the website that hosts the backlink. One domain can have multiple backlinks pointing to your site.

Link juice

Link juice is the SEO value or authority passed from one page to another via backlinks.

Domain Authority (DA)

Domain authority is a MOZ metric between 0-100 that estimates how likely a domain is to rank well in search engines.

Domain Rating (DR)

Domain rating is an Ahrefs metric that measures a website’s backlink profile strength.

Trust Flow / Citation Flow

Trust flow or citation flow are Majestic SEO metrics measuring link trustworthiness and influence.

Relevance

Backlink relevance is the topical similarity between the linking site and the linked site. Relevant backlinks carry more SEO weight.

Spam score

Spam score is a measure (from tools like Moz) estimating the likelihood a site is spammy or low-quality.

Natural backlink

Natural backlinks are backlinks you get organically when other websites link to your content voluntarily.

Manual backlink

Manual backlinks are backlinks gotten through link outreach, partnerships, or content submissions.

Editorial link

An editorial backlink is a backlink placed naturally within a piece of content by an editor or writer because it adds value.

Guest Post

A guest post is content written for another website in exchange for a backlink.

Broken link building

Broken link building is the process of finding broken or inactive outgoing links in a website and suggesting your content as an alternative.

Differentiating high-quality and low-quality backlinks

Seeing how important backlinks are in SEO, it’s tempting to want to go overboard and acquire as many backlinks as possible. But not all backlinks are created equally, and the wrong links can harm your website’s SEO. When it comes to backlinks, prioritise quality over quantity.

What are high-quality backlinks?

A high-quality backlink is really any backlink that can direct relevant traffic to your website or make your content rank higher. These are some of the factors that makes a backlink high-quality:

Relevance

Backlinks must be relevant to your content to contribute to your search rankings. For instance, a backlink from a food blog to your construction website may not do you much good, but a backlink from a home improvement website could boost your rankings. 

Authority (high DA/DR)

Domain authority is the credibility and trustworthiness of the referring domain. A backlink should have some authority to be able to pass on ranking/SEO power to your page. You can check a website’s domain authority using SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs. A good backlink should be relevant to your content and should have a DA/DR score within or above the industry average.

For example: 

• A link from Forbes or Investopedia to your blog post on cross-border payments
• A guest post on MOZ or Semrush linking back to your content marketing website 
• A link from a news website talking about your business achievements

Context: Google favours in-content links—backlinks that blend naturally with the flow of the content and feel like part of the discussion, rather than those that are placed awkwardly or placed outside the main content. 

What are toxic/low-quality backlinks?

Toxic or low-quality backlinks are backlinks that don’t offer any real value or violate Google’s policy and can lead to penalties. They are spammy and usually come from link farms or shady domains. A trusted SEO tool like Semrush is great for spotting harmful backlinks. On Semrush, click on “Link Audit” and enter your website’s domain. It may take a few minutes but Semrush will provide a report showing your good links, bad links and other information about your backlink profile. 

If you find potentially harmful links, reach out to the webmaster to have it taken down or use Google’s disavow tool. These are some examples of bad or not-so-great backlinks: 

• A link to your beauty content from an autorepair company 
• A backlink gotten in exchange for money 
• Hidden links to your website (white text on a white background) 

How to get backlinks for your website

You need to build backlinks if you want to rank higher on Google and want to strengthen your search authority. Whatever strategy you use, remember to keep it within Google’s guidelines to avoid getting penalised.

Here are some white-hat link-building strategies to get started with: 

Create linkable assets

_{Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/infographic-examples/}

Linkable assets are any content people naturally want to link to because they provide immense value. They usually offer new insights and address a common challenge in the industry.

For example, if you own a digital marketing agency and conduct original research on how to rank in AI-driven search and publish it, other websites in your industry would naturally want to cite your findings to support their own content. Some of the most popular linkable assets are in-depth guides, white papers, infographics, charts and original research. This could be a white paper on cloud computing and cyber security if you are in tech, or a pie chart showing top travel destinations if you run a travel website.

Competitor backlink analysis

Your competitor’s backlink profile—a complete list of websites linking to them—is a goldmine for finding backlink opportunities for your own website. 

An SEO tool like Semrush or Ahrefs  can help analyse your competitor’s backlinks. To use Semrush, login and head over to “Backlink Gap”. Enter your domain and your competitor’s domain and run the query. 

You’ll get a report of backlinks your competitor has that you are yet to acquire. Look out for dofollow links from reputable websites that are relevant to your industry and avoid spammy links or links from unrelated or low-quality websites. To find high-quality websites that might link back to your content, filter the backlinks and referring domains by authority score, country, industry or whether they are nofollow or dofollow backlinks. Then you can reach out to the relevant websites.

Taking advantage of broken links 

In broken link building, you check the outgoing links of relevant websites to identify broken or inactive links and suggest your content as a replacement. This works because broken links can negatively impact user experience and credibility. By helping them fix the issue, you are creating a win-win situation.

Use Ahrefs or Semrush to run a link audit on a website and identify pages with broken links. Then reach out to the site owner or editor, letting them know about the issue and offering your content as an alternative.

Digital PR

Digital PR is a strategy that uses online media coverage to build brand awareness, credibility and backlinks for a website. The goal is to get news, stories, features and mentions on authoritative websites. These features and mentions act as a vote of confidence and signal to Google that your website’s content is valuable and trustworthy. A digital PR campaign usually involves creating link-worthy content, pitching journalists or publications and earning editorial coverage. It’s all about building relationships with other websites and doing something newsworthy. 

Here’s how to use Semrush’s topic research tool to identify trending topics to contribute to:

• Login to semrush and head over to “topic research”
• Enter a topic you’d like to use for your campaign e.g. top travel destinations
• Choose your preferred country (great for regional PR) and hit search
• Scan the topic cards to spot angles journalists might be interested in
• Click a promising card to get more information like top headlines, number of backlinks to sample articles and social shares (this helps you gauge the newsworthiness of the topic)
• Export the questions and top headlines for your PR brief (decide which ones would be best for listicles, opinion pieces or original research)
• Create the content and pitch to journalists

_{Source: https://www.semrush.com/kb/815-generating-content-ideas}

You can also use Semrush to find publications to pitch to. All you need to do is reach out to those that have linked to your competitors–they would often be open to similar content. Here’s how to: 

• Login to Semrush and head to backlink analytics
• Enter your competitor’s domain or URL and click “analyse”
• Go to referring domains and filter by “newspapers” and “follow links” (you’ll see a link to publications with dofollow links to your competitor)
• Export your links and begin your campaign

Guest posting

Guest posting is a great way to share your expertise, build authority and get backlinks to your website. In guest posting, you write content for niche-relevant websites as a guest contributor and include a link to your own website. The link should flow naturally with the content. For example, if you run a financial consulting website, you can write a guest post on websites like Forbes or Investopedia and link back to your website.

To find guest post opportunities, use Google search operators such as: “write for us” + [your industry] or “become a contributor” + [topic]

Blog directories

Submitting to blog directories is another great way to earn backlinks. Blog directories are online listings of websites or businesses in a particular industry, and people often use them to discover new brands or resources. Although most links from blog directories are nofolllow and may not directly contribute to your domain authority, they can still boost your website’s credibility and can provide referral traffic. 

While link building is a very effective SEO strategy, it often requires a lot of effort and patience. In fact, 52.3% of marketers consider link building to be the hardest part of SEO and it takes about 3 months to start seeing results. Many website owners prefer to outsource link building to an SEO agency because of this. 

How to monitor and maintain your backlink profile

Maintaining a healthy backlink profile is non-negotiable if you want to improve your website’s SEO and build authority that lasts. However, you don’t have complete control over the backlinks your website receives, as anyone from anywhere can link to your website. That’s why regular link auditing is important. 

Link auditing involves monitoring the backlinks your website receives to identify and address toxic or low-quality backlinks that could harm your rankings. It also helps you take stock of your backlink profile and identify patterns and opportunities for growth. Here’s what to look out for when assessing your backlink profile:

SEO tools for link auditing 

Google Search Console

To review your backlinks in Google Search Console, sign in and navigate to “Links Report”. There you’ll find data on top linked pages, top linking sites, top linking text and internal links. You can export the data (as CSV or Google Sheet) to inspect your backlinks manually. When reviewing backlinks, look out for spammy or irrelevant content, websites with thin or duplicate content, or unnatural link patterns.

SEO tools – Ahrefs/Semrush

SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs make link auditing easier and less time-consuming, although you may need to get a paid subscription. On Semrush, enter your domain name into the backlink audit tool, you’ll get a report showing your total number of backlinks and referring domains. Semrush automatically groups backlinks based on their toxicity level: non-toxic, potentially toxic and toxic. You can also track weekly changes in your backlink profile. 

Disavowing toxic links

Toxic backlinks can harm your website’s search rankings. If you identify any toxic links during your link audit, reach out to the webmaster and kindly request that they remove them. If that doesn’t work, you can disavow the backlinks using Google’s disavow tool. It’s important to note that the Google disavow tool is very powerful and you should only use it when you have a considerable number of spammy links that violate Google’s spam policies and could get your site penalised.

Conclusion Link building is essential for a successful long-term SEO strategy because it signals to both Google and your audience that your content is credible and valuable. You can build high-quality backlinks by creating linkable assets, analysing competitor backlinks, guest posting and launching a digital PR campaign. Building backlinks requires a long-term and strategic approach, but the results are worth it. If you are ready to develop a link-building strategy that provides long-lasting results for your website’s SEO and search rankings, Pixelstorm is here to help. Get in touch to discuss how to build backlinks that improve your search authority and rankings.

FAQs

What are backlinks?

Backlinks are links from one website to another. Backlinks are essential in SEO because they signal credibility and trust, telling search engines that your content is valuable. The more backlinks you receive from reputable websites, the stronger your search visibility becomes. 

Are backlinks still important? 

Yes. Backlinks remain a vital part of your website’s SEO and are the foundation of authority and trust in Google’s E-E-A-T framework. Backlinks help your content rank higher in search results, which leads to more organic traffic, web visibility and brand awareness. Additionally, backlinks are a great source of referral traffic, especially if you receive a backlink from a high-traffic page. When building backlinks, prioritise quality over quantity. Use white hat SEO strategies like creating linkable assets, broken link building, and digital PR to build a healthy backlink profile.

Can I rank without backlinks?

Technically, you can rank by creating exceptionally high-quality content and optimising your content for relevant keywords. But high-quality backlinks are the key to building authority and search visibility that lasts. In essence, backlinks give your website’s SEO a stronger foundation. 

How do I check for toxic links?

You can check for toxic links by using Google Search Console or an SEO tool like Ahrefs and Semrush.
Look out for links that are: 

• From spammy or irrelevant websites, like gambling or adult content
• From link farms and private blog networks
• Over-optimised with exact match anchor text
• Paid or exchange-based
• From hacked or malicious sites

Should I remove or disavow bad backlinks? 

If you find spammy or low-quality backlinks, reach out to the webmaster and ask that they remove it. If that doesn’t work, you can disavow the links with Google’s disavow tool, but only use it  when you are sure the backlinks are negatively impacting your website’s SEO.

How many backlinks do I need to rank?

Link building is less about the number of backlinks but more about the quality of backlinks. Focus on publishing high-quality content and getting backlinks from relevant websites with high domain authority.

Are paid backlinks worth it?

Buying backlinks is a direct violation of Google’s policies and can lead to severe penalties. Although buying backlinks can be tempting, especially if you are just starting, it may not be worth the risk. Earning backlinks naturally through valuable content and white-hat link-building strategies is best for long-lasting results.