Backlinks: The Currency of the Web

We all know that content is king - the richer your content - high in that all important Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, the better it will rank on Search Engine Results Pages.

Google's PageRank algorithm doesn't work in isolation - as we all know. It uses hundreds of ranking signals, human reviews, and other opaque methods to sort the best pages from the rest. However, the cornerstone of Google's original PageRank was and still is the ongoing question: how many other pages link to this piece of content?

In the old days of Netscape Navigator and dial-up, having a link to your page on a major site like Yahoo! or AOL was the difference between being seen and being ignored. Many sites would team up together as "webrings," offering mutual link building. This meant more visibility among like-minded webmasters and fans.

This was the de facto "currency" of the web - the more URLs pointing toward your site, especially when that URL comes from a high-traffic or popular site, the more visible you were on the web. The founders of Google codified this into an algorithm which has endured for over 25 years.

Each link you earn is like a “vote of confidence” in the relevance, expertise, and trustworthiness of the information you present to the wider world.

If you gain more backlinks – especially if the link uses keywords relevant to your topic, business, or organisation. This is known as "anchor text."

Backlinking and Content - The double-sided coin of SEO

There's arguably two major planks of SEO - offering great content that other pages will clamour to link to.

Off-Page or Technical SEOs offer this as a service. It's known as Backlinking or Link Building. SEO copywriters use their expertise in SEO marketing to create pages with high E-E-A-T so other sites will find the content useful and relevant.

You can pay insertion into high traffic or authority websites, have it organically occur, "trade" links like for like, or add your site to lists manually. Most good SEOs won't rely on one method, but will use all four in tandem.

Ideally, an SEO will use "white hat" vs "black hat" techniques, the latter being ethically questionable and considered spam by Google.

It all starts with strategy

When you establish an SEO keyword and content strategy, you need to factor in backlinking using a blend of the four above mentioned methods.

The authority of a website linking to you is a major ranking factor. You also want other relevant sites (as many as possible) to link to your site as well. If there is more competition for SERPs, the higher authority you can garner, the better your backlinking will become.

Anchor text is also important in establishing a high relevance backlink. Let’s say a website links to your dating site with the anchor text “fish burgers.” This won't help you, because you're selling dating advice and not food. You'd want a link that contains, at the very least, the word "dating" as part of the text.

Placement of the link has weight too. Being part of the main body of content is best, with sidebar and footer content carrying less relevance as a matter of course.

Backlinking is a powerful tool to boost your website's SERPs and visibility. Paired with great SEO content, it can help your site climb the rankings quickly.