What is a Backlink in WordPress?
A backlink is a link from one website to another. Essentially, when Website A links to Website B, it’s an indication that they think the content on Website B is credible and trustworthy, which search engines like Google recognize as a valuable ranking signal.
Therefore, amassing high-quality backlinks is integral to boosting your site’s SEO ranking position and visibility in SERPs.
How Does a Backlink Work?
If you’re still new to the term, backlinks are like a discussion among websites, and they play a role in search engine algorithms, SEO, and naturally growing your website.
For example, if I’m reading a post on Forbes that talks about how great meditation is, it links to an article on Huffington Post with similar content. Huffington Post just got a backlink from Forbes.
In this instance, Forbes is vouching for Huffington Post as a reliable source of information by linking to it in its own content. This sends a strong signal to search engines that Huffington Post is a credible website, which could lead to higher rankings in SERP.
What are The Types of Backlinks?
Did you know that there are two types of backlinks, and one is worth more to search engines than the other? Let’s explain briefly how each type works.
- Nofollow Backlink: Links set to “nofollow” do not improve your site’s visibility or search ranking because they don’t pass value from one site to another.
- Dofollow Backlinks: Dofollow links are the most popular type of link because they improve your website’s search ranking. These types of links occur naturally when one site links to another and acts as a bridge to pass value from one site to the other. When a link is set to “dofollow,” it tells search engines that this website wants to vouch for the content.
However, dofollow links are generally looked down upon as being ‘toxic.’ This is because these usually come from sites that aren’t the most reliable or have been gained by breaking search engine rules.
If Google discovers this, they could then penalize or even remove your site from their index altogether. So, it’s not about how many backlinks you have but rather their quality, which will make a difference in your ranking.
Do-Follow vs. No-Follow Backlinks
When a website links to another website, it can either pass along what’s called “link juice” or not. We call it a do-follow link if it does pass along link juice. If it doesn’t, we call it a no-follow link.
Link juice is the power or equity that passes from one website to another when they’re linked together. This happens because when one website links to another, it’s seen as a vote of confidence.
Google looks at this as an indication that the site being linked to must be high-quality since the linking site is vouching for it.
On the other hand, a no-follow link doesn’t pass along any link juice and doesn’t help improve your website’s SEO.
Google introduced the no-follow tag in 2005 to combat comment spam on blogs. They didn’t want people leaving random comments with links to their website in an attempt to improve their SEO.
The no-follow tag tells Google not to follow the link and, as a result, doesn’t pass any link juice.
Why are Backlinks Important?
Backlinks are important because they help search engine algorithms determine the quality and relevancy of your content.
For example, if you have a lot of high-quality backlinks pointing to your website, it tells Google that your site is credible and trustworthy. This, in turn, can lead to higher rankings in SERP.
Backlinks also play an important role in improving your website’s click-through rate (CTR).
CTR is the percentage of people who click on a link to your website after seeing it on a search engine results page. The higher your CTR, the more likely you are to rank higher in SERP.
How Do You Get Backlinks?
If you want your website to have a better chance of appearing higher up in search engine results, start by building backlinks. Creating backlinks can be done in many ways, but here are seven simple methods to get started:
- Create helpful and informative content
- Reach out to other bloggers and online influencers
- Submit your site to relevant directories
- Participate in online forums and discussion groups
- Add social media buttons to your site
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
- Get listed on local business directories
In addition, you can start to do competitive backlink research to see what your well-ranked competitors are doing. A SEMrush or similar backlink tool will help you find competitors’ links so you know which domains to target with your link-building strategy.
How Can You Check Your Backlinks?
After you understand how to construct backlinks, progression must be monitored closely. In doing so, strategies that function can be distinguished from those which require improvement.
Fortunately, examining your backlink profile is made simple with the use of tools like SEMrush or Moz. Not only will these give a thorough overview of current backlinks, but they also highlight beneficial links and their origins.
Monitor your website’s backlinks by utilizing Google Search Console. To check your backlinks, enter your URL into the search bar and select “Search Traffic” > “Links to Your Site.” This will populate a list of all websites linking to yours along with their anchor text.
If you want to get more in-depth insights, consider using a tool like Majestic or Ahrefs. These will give you data about link authority and velocity and can also help improve your link-building strategy as a whole.