Why Do I Need to Get Backlinks to My Site?

If you're new to SEO you might be wondering why you need backlinks to increase your rankings. Before you can really understand, you need to know exactly what a backlink is.

What is a Backlink?

A backlink is simply a clickable link leading to your site. A link is like a citation. When someone links to another site it's like they are saying, "I recommend this site" which is why they share the link to refer readers to. The idea is that with more links leading to your site, you appear more authoritative. The more authoritative you seem to Google, the higher you will rank

Also, the authority of the page linking to you affects how much authority is passed. It's sort of like weighing the importance of a recommendation from a doctor versus a child. One bears much more authority and thus, their recommendation goes a much longer way.

But wait, There's More!

Authority isn't the only factor involved. The type of site the link comes from and more importantly the page it's on has a large impact on how the link affects your ranking. A link from a page about the flu won't necessarily help you rank for a keyword in a sports niche. Why should it? Well, the link might pass authority, but the other part of the puzzle here is relevance.

Links from pages on similar topics will help the most in increasing your rank. Furthermore, a link from a relevant page on a site with a similar theme will help even more.

Using Anchor Text

One more factor in deciding the relevance of a link is the anchor text. Anchor text is simply the clickable text in a link. The text closest to a link helps search engines decide what the link is about, even more so, the text in the actual link helps the most. This is why including part of or your whole keyword in your anchor text will greatly help to increase your rankings.

So Where do I get links from?

There are plenty of ways to get links. The best plan is to have a very diverse link portfolio and gain links from as many different sites as you can, and get as many different types of links that you can too. For instance, you might get links from blog comments and those all appear the same way at the bottom of a page. To switch things up, you could do some article marketing and get links that are actually in the content. There are many more ways yet that you can get backlinks to your site.

To learn more, click here for link building strategies and be sure to check out SEO Discovery for more ways how to get backlinks to your site.