Backlinks: Why are they Important?

Getting your website ranked high in search engines depends on a combination of on-page and off-page optimization techniques. One of the most effective techniques is backlink building. This is an off-page optimization method whereby other websites link back to your website using particular keywords in the link’s anchor text.

Importance of Backlinks in SEO

Search engine spiders regularly scour the Internet reading website headers and checking inbound and outbound links to determine what positions the sites should occupy. Therefore, it is important to do internal linking properly and at the same time get outbound links from other quality websites.

The outbound links should contain your keyword/keyphrases in the anchor text for them to be effective. When search engine bots crawl and index the links, your website ranking will improve.

Where to Get Backlinks?

You can get backlinks from various sources and by different means. You can exchange links with other webmasters or bloggers. Getting links from authority sites in your niche is more effective than getting tons of links from different unrelated websites.

You can also get free backlinks by submitting articles to directories, building link wheels, social bookmarking, web directory submission, commenting or guest posting in blogs and forums, press release submission and building profile links.

Importance of Internal Linking

Apart from building outbound backlinks to your website, you should also work on your internal linking structure. Make anchor text links with your keyword to different parts of the page and test the links to make sure they work. Putting the keyword in the anchor text will provide more weight to the link and this will enable search engine bots to easily navigate your website and index the pages.

Also, build a Sitemap for your website. This page contains links to all the pages that make up the website. If you have a blog, you can automatically generate the Sitemap using a number of free applications.

Quality or Quantity?

Building more backlinks to your website will improve its rankings tremendously. However, this is only if you use high quality backlinks. Getting links from sites with high PR is beneficial than having thousands of links from low PR sites. You have to strike a balance between quantity and quality of links. However, quality should be given preference over quantity.

Make sure you also build the links in a natural way. Resist the temptation of adding hundreds of links in a day to rank high. This may make search engines to ignore the links and your efforts will be fruitless. In worst case, your website may be penalized by search engines.

Backlink building is the most powerful method of making a website rank and should form an integral part of your SEO campaign.