What are backlinks, How to leverage them for SEO?
Google’s algorithms have been evolving for many years. Still, backlinks have always been a factor that marketers have looked at and are continually altering to boost a website’s search engine rankings. You’ve certainly heard a lot about backlinks from all of these digital marketers, but you don’t really understand what they are.
🔍 What are SEO backlinks?
An SEO backlink is created when one website links to another. They’re also called inbound links or one-way links, and they’re extremely important for SEO. If you are really interested in learning more about it, go ahead and read this blog to get to know more about what backlinks are and how you can leverage them for SEO.
⚙️ How does it work?
Backlinks promote your brand
They give more visibility for your internet presence just by being present. Backlinks allow your website and content to show on pages that are relevant to your sector, which helps you build brand awareness. As a result, your web traffic steadily grows, and you don’t have to put in as much effort to keep it up.
Backlinks boost your authority
The higher your website’s rating in relevant, organic search results, the more Google’s automated systems “respect” your authority. A high-quality backlink indicates to search engine crawlers that your online presence is genuine — that you are an expert in your field. This is the most important factor in Google’s assessment of your website’s authority, followed by registry listings.
Backlinks work well with social media
While social media links are typically 'nofollow,' promoting your content on social platforms increases its visibility. This can lead to more people discovering your content and choosing to link to it from their own websites, thus indirectly helping you earn valuable backlinks.
🔄 Types of Backlinks
There are two types of backlinks generally – Do-follow backlinks and No-follow backlinks.
✅ Do-follow backlinks
Backlinks with a dofollow attribute pass the authority from the referring site to the linked site. Crawlers keep track of these connections and their anchor texts. As a result, dofollow backlinks have a direct impact on your backlink profile since they inform search engines about the connected website.
🚫 No-follow backlinks
Backlinks with a nofollow attribute do not pass the authority. Nofollow links do not convey authority or anchor text to Google. The links with the rel="nofollow" property in the HTML code are known as nofollow links.
⚠️ Always remember that although do-follow links can help you rank, no-follow links will offer you vital traffic and interaction, both of which are important in the realm of SEO.
📈 Why Backlinks Remain a Crucial Ranking Factor?
Despite the fact that Google and other search engines are constantly updating their proprietary algorithms, the importance of link creation has not changed.
While Google has been coy about what it considers to be important ranking factors, it has stated that links are a Top 3 ranking component. Backlinks are frequently mentioned in industry research, with some claiming that they are the most essential component in search rank.
Backlinks provide your site with page and domain authority, which may help you boost your search rankings. Just as we do when we’re making a decision in the real world, search engines look for evidence that they’ve found the right entity to satisfy the searcher’s needs.
✅ Yes, backlinks still matter today.
Nowadays the number of websites that link to a website still matters a lot (as of 2025, it is strongly correlated with high search rankings). The quality of the sites that link to you, on the other hand, is significantly more essential than the quantity.
📊 A link from a high-quality website like the New York Times is worth more than 50 links from unknown blogs.
In summary, the most efficient strategy to enhance your Google ranking for the phrases that your clients are currently searching for is to gain high-quality backlinks.
🌟 What makes High-Quality Backlinks?
Relevance: The link comes from a site related to your topic.
Authority: The linking website has a strong reputation (high Domain Authority/Rating).
Placement: The link is placed naturally within the main body content.
Anchor Text: The clickable text of the link is relevant to the linked page.
🖼️ Image Courtesy: Freepik
Backlinks from high-domain-authority websites are necessary to improve your site’s Google rankings. Here are some pointers on how to obtain and maintain quality backlinks in order to achieve your traffic and ranking goals.
🛠️ How can you get high-quality backlinks, in 2025?
Obtaining high-quality backlinks is one of the most important goals for website owners in any niche. The more relevant donors you can target, the better your chances of scoring high across the board for all of the semantic keywords in the list. Guest Blogging: Writing articles for other websites in your niche.
Broken Link Building: Finding broken links on other sites and suggesting your own content as a replacement.
Creating Linkable Assets: Developing unique content that others will want to link to, such as original research, in-depth guides, or free tools.
Digital PR: Promoting your content and brand story to journalists and bloggers to earn mentions and links.
Unlinked Brand Mentions: Finding where your brand is mentioned online without a link and requesting that a link be added.
Alternative link-building tactics:
- Help you outperform competitors that focus only on-page SEO.
- Build a diverse network of connections rather than relying on a single tactic.
- Include links from reputable business sites, although they shouldn’t make up the bulk of your link profile.
⏳ Backlinking takes time, but the results are worth it. It’s a proven way to increase domain authority, which is one of the most important SEO ranking factors.
The more valuable your content is, the more people will link to your website.
✅ FINAL VERDICT
In conclusion, I hope you enjoyed reading this article on “What are backlinks, why are they important, and how to leverage them for SEO?”
Signing off: Sanjay Viswanthan