What Are Backlinks in SEO?
Optimizing your website for the notorious Googlebot and its AI search engine friends is essential if you want people to actually find your site through an online search. While the basic facets of SEO (search engine optimization) are metadata and headings, there are a lot more moving parts that we'll handle as your SEO company – from site indexation to backlinking.
Which begs the question: What are backlinks in SEO?
Backlinks are hyperlinks within a website that take readers to another website. Here's an example of a backlink to the Wix website that explains why backlinks are important. See the hyperlinked text? This is a backlink to Wix.
Now, let's talk about the point of these. Why create links between websites? We do this because, when built correctly, backlinks to other websites show search engine bots that we like to support what we're saying by referencing other experts. Wix is an expert in web building, therefore, sending readers to their site to confirm what we're talking about on this page is just like citing sources in a professional research paper.
We're saying – Look! Here's a topic we're knowledgeable about, and here's another expert source to back up what we're saying.
This link is good for both us and Wix. It shows Googlebots that we care about professional consensus, and that Wix is considered an expert on this subject. We both gain some clout.
Backlinks for Website Rank Improvement
When we perform an SEO audit on your website, we include a backlink check to see if there are any other websites out there with hyperlinks to your pages. The first backlinks are usually from social media accounts and local business directories, and as your brand grows, you'll start to see backlinks spread into non-associated websites by people who share your content to help back up their content.
Remember that having your website pages shown to people performing searches online is the ultimate goal of all SEO work, so strong backlinking is important. It's just as important, however, to ensure that yours are considered high-quality backlinks, not just random instances of your site on unrelated digital content. Build links within your industry and within your area of service first and foremost.
How We Find Backlinks with Google
So, how do we actually find out who's linking to your website? One of our first stops is Google Search Console. If you have Search Console connected to your site, head to the Links report, where Google provides information about external links it has found pointing to your website. You can see which of your pages are receiving the most external links, which websites are linking to you and some of the text people use when creating those links.
Keep in mind that Google Search Console isn't designed to provide a complete inventory of every backlink on the internet. It's a free, first-party Google tool that gives us valuable information about the links Google has identified, but we may use other SEO tools alongside it when we want a broader look at a website's backlink profile. Tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush can help uncover additional backlinks, compare link profiles with competitors and flag links that deserve a closer look.
Why bother checking? Because a backlink report can tell us a surprising amount about your website's reputation online. If respected businesses, industry organizations, news outlets and relevant directories are linking to your content, those links can help build authority around your website. On the other hand, a pile of strange links from unrelated or low-quality websites isn't the backlinking strategy we're after.
Want to Know More about Backlinks? Just Ask!
Backlinking is just one piece of the SEO puzzle, but it's an important one. At Cinch Communications, we look at backlinks alongside metadata, headings, content, keywords, technical performance, indexation and the other signals that contribute to search visibility. If you want to know what's helping or hurting your website's rank, contact our team for an SEO audit. We provide digital marketing and SEO support for businesses in Red Deer, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and beyond.
