By now you know that growing your business directly depends on increasing your exposure to potential customers. You know that most people find the services they need in search engines such as Google. If your business website is showing up on the last page of Google search results, your chances of receiving that all-too-important exposure are very slim. Here we will explore what backlinks are, and why your business needs them to perform well in search engine results.
So.. What are Backlinks?
You may have heard of backlinks by another name, they are also referred to as: Inbound links, Inward links, Inlinks and Incoming links.
Backlinks originated to facilitate web navigation before the birth of search engines. Now, their main purpose lies in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The search engines have become so sophisticated that they are now able to determine a collection of details about websites through backlinks, such as:
- How different websites are related to each other.
- The trustworthiness of a website.
- The popularity of a website.
The Good and the Bad on Backlinks
The higher your website is ranked in the above components, the higher your importance is considered by the discerning eyes of search engines. Here are 3 examples of practices to benefit your business with backlinks:
- Provide Quality Content. It is essential to produce quality content. When your business provides quality content relating to corresponding services, other websites will backlink to the useful information you supplied on your website.
- Connect With Globally Popular Sites. A website that has been linked to from websites all over the world is considered credible and prominent to search engines. This is the kind of website you want to associate your business with.
- Shares on Social Media. Although search engine algorithms around social media have yet to be fully understood, their importance is undeniable. A completed business profile on social media as well as frequent activity, results in increased shares that link back to your website.
So the more backlinks you have leading to your website, the better, right? No! Do not fall into this trap. Not only can “bad” backlinks hurt your website’s relevance and credibility, they can get your website banned. There are 3 prominent linking practices you want to steer clear of:
- Link Farms. Doesn’t the name sound innocent? Deceptive web developers began creating phony websites with the sole purpose of gaining inbound links. Search engines promptly discovered this practice and updated their algorithms. Now, linking to these sites could result in a ban on your website.
- Unrelated Reciprocal Linking Exchange. This is when web developers agree to link to one another’s website to increase website rankings, while disregarding actual relevance and topic relation. Although this will contribute to your amount of outbound links, it will not add to inbound links and can hurt your website’s relevance.
- Backlink Bombing. If you have created multiple web pages and linked them to each other, use caution. Interlinking websites that are associated with the same IP Address can appear suspicious to search engines and affect your authenticity.
We hope that this blog has given you a grasp of what backlinks are and which ones will help search engines recognize your business’s value. If you are concerned or unsure how to detect “bad” backlinks, contact your local web designer as they have software to recognize these pages. Ensure that you are selective when fostering backlink relationships, pick businesses that reflect the successful and positive qualities you possess.
Ready to unearth specific ways to obtain relevant backlinks? Check out the articles below!
