Generating Backlinks: What it is, Why it’s Important

In any industry, a website plays a critical role in the success of a business. In fact, statistics indicate the Internet is where most people search for businesses. If you don’t have a website, your chances of reaching new customers will be significantly limited.

However, having a website isn’t the same as benefiting from a website. If your pages aren’t ranking high in Google search results when users conduct relevant searches, your website won’t deliver on its full potential value. 

There are many ways to improve search results rankings. Generating more backlinks to your site is one. This basic guide will cover what link building is, why it’s important, and what you can do to start developing an effective link building strategy.

Understanding the Importance of Backlinks

The programmers who develop Google’s search algorithm are constantly refining and tweaking it. Their goal is to ensure that when users perform searches, the pages that rank high are those which offer content that’s valuable and provides the information that users were searching for.

Google’s algorithm is designed to identify high-quality sites in a number of ways. For example, if a large number of people and publishers link back to a page on your site, this indicates to Google’s algorithm that the content on that page is useful, accurate or otherwise valuable. This will cause the algorithm to rank that page higher when users perform searches for terms related to the page’s content.

This is why it’s important to have a link building strategy. The content on your website may very well be valuable, but Google’s algorithm doesn’t immediately “know” that. You have to demonstrate your content’s value by generating backlinks. Although the best way to do so may be to partner with experts who specialize in developing and implementing link building strategies, the following basic tips will help you get started.

Publish Strong Content

It’s a simple point, but it’s one that some people end up overlooking. When you’re so focused on the more technical details of a link building strategy, you may forget that the best way to naturally generate backlinks to your site is simply to publish content that’s worth linking back to.

Hire experts to write this content for you if you don’t have the time or knowledge to write it yourself. This may involve spending some money, but the payoff will be worth the investment.

Partner With Others (to a Degree)

Google doesn’t want people manipulating page rankings by partnering with others to force links to their sites when doing so isn’t necessary. This is considered a link scheme. Google penalizes sites whose owners are found to be engaging in them.

However, you can partner with others and agree to only link to each other’s content when there’s a genuine reason for doing so. If links to your site exist for a natural and logical reason, you can generate more backlinks and improve rankings without being accused of attempting to manipulate rankings.

Submit Guest Posts

Look for blogs and online publications that are relevant to your industry and accept guest posts. Often, publishers allow guest writers to include links to their sites in lieu of payment when they submit guest articles and blogs. As such, submitting guest posts is a way to generate backlinks while also reaching a wider audience. Again, if you don’t have the time or skill to submit guest posts yourself, you can hire someone to write them for you.

Just be aware that it can take some time for a link building strategy to yield results. You shouldn’t expect your pages’ rankings to skyrocket simply because you got a few people to link to them. However, if you’re persistent, eventually, an effective link building strategy will pay off.