How backlinks are good for SEO and boost your Google ranking
Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. The number of backlinks to your website is an indication of its popularity or importance which Google uses to help determine the site’s page ranking. Backlinks therefore, in addition to relevant, search engine friendly copywriting are good for your SEO and will boost your Google ranking.
The focus should not be on the quantity of backlinks. It’s more important to have quality backlinks to your site which are relevant to the keyword topic. For example, if your website sells lawnmowers, links from lawnmower spare parts suppliers are more relevant than links from a car sales yard. One way to view a backlink is that it represents a favourable vote for the receiving website from another consenting website.
There are several ways to create backlinks to your website:-
- Leaving comments on blog posts
- Guest posting on blogs which not only creates a backlink but adds value to the sites owner you are guest blogging for
- Customers linking to your website
- Online directory listings (eg, Yellow Pages, Hotfrog, True Local, Whereis)
- Listings in trade directories
- Google Places
Most directory listings are free and are a great place to start building backlinks. Once your website is more established and becomes more popular, the links from that site will matter more and hence will boost your Google search engine ranking.