What are backlinks, and why are they important in SEO?

You have probably heard about backlinks and that they are important. But what exactly are backlinks? And why do you need them? We will explain that in detail in this article.

What are Backlinks?      

Backlinks are links on websites that point to your website. Backlinks can help you rank higher in Google's organicsearch results. The more websites that link to yours, the better Google values ​​your website. That is because these websites recommend yours, as it were.

Why are 'recommendations' important?

It is very important that other websites recommend yours. You can compare the reason for this with finding the right primary school for a child. Every primary school can say that the child receives the best education from them. But you only believe which school you can best choose if other parents recommend that school to you. This is also how it works with websites. The parents play an important role here as a target group. The more other websites link to a website, the more Google believes it is indeed a good website. The search engine wants to show only the best websites in its search results to users. As a result, Google attaches great importance to a website that has many backlinks.

Are Backlinks Related To SEO?

At first glance, they may seem like two completely different things. Still, there is certainly a link between SEO and backlinks. The website that refers to yours says with a backlink, as it were, 'this is a website that contains relevant and good information'. You can see such a recommendation as a positive assessment of the content on your website. This is precisely why Google rewards websites with a lot of backlinks with a higher rank in the organic search results of the search engine. Google even counts backlinks for 50% when indexing your website. Because of this, there is not only a relationship between SEO and backlinks. In fact, having good backlinks is an essential SEO technique that every website should apply.

What are good backlinks?

Now that you know that creating backlinks is a fundamental SEOtechnique, you want to get as many backlinks as possible. When obtaining backlinks, keep in mind that not all links that point to your website are automatically good backlinks. That is why it is important to know what actually good backlinks are.

Backlinks from reputable websites

A good backlink is anyway a backlink that comes from a reputable website. The more Google values ​​the website that refers to your website the more value Google also attaches to the links to which such a website refers.

Websites with a high ranking in Google

It can be quite difficult to get a reputable website to point to yours. But other websites with a high position in Google are also excellent candidates to create good backlinks. These websites themselves already have a high rating from Google. Because of this, Google only finds it more credible that your website also deserves a high position, if these websites refer to yours. Therefore, try to get a backlink on websites that have a high position in Google.

Websites that are relevant to your website

In addition, a backlink is really good when there is a high relevance between the two websites. For example, is your website about the agricultural sector? Then the relevance between a website that is also about that for your website is high. It is best to try to get backlinks on such websites.

How do you get good backlinks?

Earlier we already explained in an article how to get good backlinks.  We will briefly explain it in this article.

We also call getting good backlinks link building. There are a few simple ways you can apply to get new backlinks.

Post good content

The first way is quite simple: place good and relevant content on your website. When you do this, you increase the chance that other people will refer to your website from themselves.

Place backlinks on websites yourself

On some websites it is possible to edit the content yourself. You can therefore place a reference to your website on these websites. Still, this is not always the best way to get backlinks. This is because these types of websites are usually not of the best quality. As a result, they are not highly regarded by Google. By placing / buying a link on such a website to yours, you literally create a link between both websites. As a result, Google can also appreciate your website less well. In that case, placing a backlink is counterproductive.

Ask webmasters to place a link to your website

This approach is quite difficult, because webmasters do not always want to cooperate. Still, the act itself is quite simple, making it always worth a try. In particular, contact webmasters with websites that meet the following points:

·         The website is about the same subject as your website;

·         The website has a high position in Google search results.

A webmaster will probably not cooperate at first. But you can always try. Especially when you publish very good content on your website yourself, a webmaster can see the added value of a reference on his website.

What are the best backlinks?

Now that you know what good backlinks are, you only want to generate the very best backlinks to your website. The best backlinks are actually references that together ensure that you have a link profile that looks natural to Google. A link profile is a collection of all links that point to your website. Google punishes websites that the search engine notices that they engage in targeted link building. Read an article about the 17 most commonlink building blunders here.

 

How do you get a natural looking link profile?

There are a number of ways you can build a link profile that looks natural. We are happy to explain them.

Don't just point large websites to yours

Generate backlinks not only on large websites, but also on medium and smaller websites. If you only have backlinks on large websites, you can quickly fall through the basket at Google.

Let your link profile consist of both follow and nofollow links

There are two types of backlinks: follow links and nofollowlinks. Follow links are references that count towards Google's ranking in the search engine results. No follow links are references that do not count for this. A website owner decides whether he wants a link to be follow or nofollow. A nofollow link does not seem to have any added value at first, but it does. Thanks to a mix of follow and nofollow links, your link profile will look a lot more natural.

Vary with anchor texts

An anchor text is the piece of text behind which the hyperlink to your website is placed. When all anchor texts are the same, this comes across as incredibly unbelievable to Google. It is a sign to Google that you could deliberately engage in link building. To avoid getting caught at Google, it is important to use various anchor texts.

In various tools, such as Majestic, you can look up which anchor texts websites use to refer to yours. If you notice that a particular anchor text is being used frequently, you can send some of those websites a different suggestion for the anchor text. You can make up different anchor texts by, for example, changing the order of words in the text. But you can also use synonyms, one time take the website URL as anchor text and another time just the company name and so on.

How can you check new backlinks?

When backlinks are added to your link profile, these are also called new backlinks. You can check whether your website has new backlinks with our free backlinks checker.

It is important to check regularly for new backlinks. This allows you to monitor whether any bad neighborhood websites refer to yours and whether the websites containing the new backlinks are relevant enough to your website.

Is generating backlinks for your web shop a good idea?

We've just talked about what backlinks can mean for websites in this article. But even if you have a web shop, it is important to generate backlinks. Good backlinks have the same effects for web shops as for websites: it can put your web shop higher in Google. This of course ensures more visitors, which also increases the chance of more sales. In addition, your web shop will appear more reliable to potential customers when they see a reference to it on another web shop or website. Not only for a higher position in Google, but also to attract more customers, it is a good idea to generate backlinks for your web shop.

Howcan you generate backlinks for your web shop?

Do you want to generate backlinks for your web shop? Also in that case, the best backlinks are references that together ensure that the link profile of your website looks natural. You build such a link profile for a web shop in the same way as for a website.

Conclusion

Backlinks determine 50% how high Google positions you in the organic search results of the search engine. SEO-technically, backlinks are therefore very important. It is smart for both websites and web shops to actively generate backlinks. You can generate good backlinks by posting strong content yourself that is shared by other people. Good backlinks come from websites that are relevant to your website and have a high position in Google. The best backlinks are links that together ensure that Google cannot see that you are deliberately link building. It is important to regularly check whether you have new backlinks. This gives you insight into whether new backlinks are coming from good and reliable websites and you can take action if necessary. 

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