Inbound links are links that point from a page on one site to a page on another. These are links from third-party sources that point to your site, as compared to internal links that exist between two pages on your site.

Backlinks  are one of the most important SEO ranking factors to look out for if you want to increase your site’s traffic. In fact, in 2016, Google itself confirmed that, along with content, backlinks are one of the two most important signals used to rank websites.

But if you’re new to SEO or starting your own business and trying to increase your traffic, you probably don’t know what backlinks are and why they are so important. Keep reading and we’ll share everything you need to know.

# 1 Understanding Backlinks and Their Role in Your Strategy

As the marketing community becomes more aware of SEO techniques, backlinks are becoming more powerful. We create content that adds value to the product for potential customers.

Backlinks effectively amplify content and are a great example of how you can organically expand your reach to your target audience.

Confidence

If you want to be successful in SEO for your website, you need to look at Backlinks as Google and other search engines use them as a way to understand page authority.

Think of them as the reputation of the website on the Internet, with the link from website A to website B being viewed as a vote that is a credible source. If five people who didn’t know each other recommended this or that restaurant as the best in your city, you would probably believe that you could eat deliciously there, since several people will vouch for it.

Popularity

This is how Google views backlinks as popularity votes for a website or webpage, and there is a close relationship between those with more links pointing to them and higher rankings.

Any link from someone else’s website to yours (or any other site) is a backlink, but not all links are created equal. Just as you trust the recommendation of someone you respect, search engines trust backlinks from trusted, reputable sites to ones that are either less trustworthy or unknown.

This trust manifests itself in the form of PageRank, one of Google’s algorithms that measures the quality and number of backlinks pointing to a page to determine the relative importance and authority of that page.

# 2 Types of backlinks

We already mentioned that backlinks are not the same, and below are the different types you need to know and understand.

Nofollow links

Links are like votes for trusted resources, but what if you don’t want to vouch for a website but still have to link to it? Nofollowed links use the rel = ”nofollow” attribute to inform Google and other search engines. engines they shouldn’t trust (PageRank). A backlink without a link looks like this:

<a href=”https://www.domain.com/” rel=agednofollowcasts> this is a link without a link </a>

Given that unlinked links don’t go through PageRank, they won’t help you rank higher in the SERP.

However, in September 2019, Google announced that they were developing the nofollow attribute, stating that “when nofollow is introduced, Google will not consider any link flagged in this way as a signal for use in search algorithms. This has now changed. All link attributes are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude from searches. “

DoFollow links

Simply put, the next link is the one that conveys the PageRank and therefore does not have the nofollow attribute added.

Note : there is no “follow” attribute and “dofollow” backlinks are not a thing.

This backlink looks like this:

<a href=”https://www.domain.com/”> this is a link here </a>

Sponsored or paid links

Sometimes, you can pay a blogger or influencer to promote some of your content, or to publish a review of one of your products. If money, or a product, or service was transferred in exchange for a link, the rel = “sponsored” attribute should be added to inform Google.

The rel = “sponsored” attribute prevents these links from negatively impacting your site.

A sponsored backlink looks like this:

<a href=”/ https://www.domain.com/ “rel=abilitiessponsoredgoti> this is a sponsored link </a>

UGC Links

One of the new attributes coming in 2019 is UGC (User Generated Content) links. These are links similar to blog comments or forum topics. The UGC attribute indicates that the link was posted by the user, not the webmaster .

The UGC backlink looks like this:

<a href=”/ https://www.domain.com/ “rel=otedugc book> this is a UGC link </a>

Highly Authoritative Backlinks

Highly authoritative backlinks are those that come from trusted sources; for example, from a newspaper (that is, the search engine will 100% trust the link from the New York Times) or from another reputable website that is credible.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, Google’s way of measuring authority is through their PageRank algorithm, but that is no longer a public metric as it stopped updating and removed PageRank from its dashboard in 2016.

When assessing whether a link is good or not, factors such as credibility and how quality content the site is sharing should be considered, whether it is of real value to users.

Toxic links (unnatural links)

Incorrect links can damage your website ranking high and can even negatively impact the ranking you already have. “Bad” links are often referred to as toxic or unnatural links.

Toxic backlinks are links that come from substandard or suspicious websites or are in direct violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and exist solely to try to manipulate search engine rankings.

This could mean paid links or sponsored links that are not nofollowed, links from low-quality directories or bookmarking sites, widely used footer links, or an unnatural number of links using exact match Anchor text.

# 3 Why are backlinks important?

Backlinks are an important area of ​​SEO to focus on. But why? They will help you climb higher in natural search engine results.

Without good backlinks pointing to your site, you are missing out on one of the most important ranking factors that helps demonstrate that you are a trusted authority in your industry and therefore deserve to be ranked # 1 for key search phrases.

Backlinks correlate with higher rankings

For links to boost your rankings, you need to make sure you are getting quality links. You want to avoid those that violate the Google Webmaster Guidelines, such as those that fall under the classification designed to manipulate search results.

Follow the tactics we’ll cover and you won’t have to worry about knowing you’re getting links the right way.

This is one of the ways Google finds new pages.

Search bots use links to find new pages on the Internet – this is one of the main ways to find, crawl and index content. A link from a trusted source will help Google index your content faster, which means it should rank faster as well.

Good links increase your reliability and trust

Good links from reputable and reliable sources will help you rank better in terms of SEO, but they can also increase your credibility and credibility as a business.

Think of it this way … Let’s say you’re a tech startup. There is a good chance that not too many people know about your business (yet). So if you can manage to get press coverage and link from a reputable source, you will get a massive boost in the credibility of your business.

If you then continue to get authoritative links from serious industry publications and from recognized experts who talk about you, this will drive traffic to your site. Even if we ignore the value of SEO, it is worth its weight in gold for journalists and editors in key publications in your industry to link to you.

Backlinks send referral traffic to your page

When the web first appeared, links were purely navigational. The purpose of links, in their most simplified form, is to transfer web browsers from page A to page B, not only on one website, but also between different sites.

And while links are currently used by Google as a ranking factor, the principle hasn’t changed as good links send very valuable traffic to your page.

If we go back to the example above, the press can send interested readers to your site. This, in turn, introduces your brand to a new audience that can turn into a buyer.

You will also get the option to add this traffic to your remarketing list for targeting paid media channels to make your referral traffic perform a little better.

Don’t discount potential link traffic, this is a great way to determine if a link is valuable and think about whether that link might drive traffic from your target audience.

# 4 How to check Backlinks on your website

If you want to plan a link building campaign and take a look at the tactics you can use to earn more good links to your website, want to see how your competitors are performing in terms of links, you should know how to check backlinks and get an idea of ​​your link profile.