Backlinking 101: What is it and Why Should You Care?
As you look for ways to increase your SEO ranking, you may come across advice regarding backlinking. At Webstract we know it can be a complicated concept to fully grasp. It works well for some needs and doesn’t for others. Read on to learn the basics about it. If you want to know if it is a good choice for your particular company, contact us at 855-201-5800 or contact@webstract.com for a free analysis.

The basics of backlinking

Put simply, backlinking refers to creating a hyperlink from another website to your website – but that is simplifying it quite a bit. It is also an SEO tactic that can boost your page’s rankings. The best type of backlink is one called a “dofollow” link. These links tell Google that the backline should be analyzed and that the info Google gets should help determine how your page ranks. On the other hand, “nofollow” links tell Google that the backlink should not have anything to do with the index of your website.

Should you backlink?

There is a lot of speculation about how much backlinks actually affect a website’s ranking. One expansive study looked at one million search results from Google and discovered that there seems to be a correlation between how many backlinks a site has and how high it ranks on Google.
This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, as backlinks are often used with many other SEO tactics and there’s no way to separate them out to determine that it is the backlinks that are making the difference. However, even when other SEO factors are analyzed, it seems that backlinks seems to correlate more than these other factors. Does this mean you should stop all other SEO tactics in favor of backlinks? No, but it may mean that it makes sense to use backlinks as part of the SEO strategy.

How to backlink

The truth is that there is not one particular strategy that works across the board for all industries. You should remember first of all that not all backlinks have identical impact. One outgoing backlink with high domain authority will have a much bigger impact that a backlink from a company that has a low quality ranking. This is because Google is considering the relevancy, trustworthiness, and domain rating when deciding how important a backlink is.
So does this mean that you should find the most trustworthy sites and stick with only them? Not necessarily. Those companies often have policies that prevent backlinking, or they have slow response times that can take days or even weeks to get approved. This is why, if you are striving for a quick impact, you are going to try to find a middle ground between the highest possible domain ranking and the ability to successfully backlink.
The best news about all of this is that you do not have to take it on yourself. When you work with a digital marketing agency like Webstract we will determine what is most relevant and useful to your particular company in your particular industry. We will pursue those actions for the best results. Call us at 855-201-5800 now to get started.