If you’re using search engine optimization (SEO) to drive your online business, you know that the criteria used to rank your site changes frequently. Sure, you can get direct searches by targeting social media ads and other marketing techniques, but organic search is crucial for the success of many businesses. To succeed in organic search, backlinks become important for you.
Over the years, experts have offered certain factors as areas for you to direct your focus on to generate traffic. One of these has been to get backlinks as organically as you can. Backlinks are considered to be one of the top factors used by Google when ranking sites, but are they still important today?
The Importance of Links for Your Website
Well-written, relevant content is still the most important aspect that you can have on your site. If the quality is high and it is meaningful enough, people will want to use your information as an expert source and link to it. There’s no reason for this to change, which means you must have good content on your site for Google to recognize and rank you.
However, another, almost as important, factor is the total number of referring domains and backlinks linked to your site. The total referring domains are those that are high-quality, not spam or irrelevant domains linked to you.
Backlinks are different from referring domains, though. You may have one domain with several links, but the general rule of thumb is that the more links you have to your site, the higher your site will rank in Google’s search engine.
This number varies depending on the subject. For instance, a popular topic that is relevant through a large population or that is currently trending might need anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 backlinks to rank. But a less common topic may get away with fewer backlinks and still rank on the first page for Google.
If you’re not comfortable with backlinking and targeting SEO factors in your area, you may find it valuable to invest in a digital marketing company. Make sure you find one that understands your audience, though. Search for “best digital marketing agencies Mumbai,” for example, if that’s the where your target market is.
Follow links are another source of ranking criteria. These are “follow” links, which are high domain authority sites that link to you and you can link back to that increase your ranking. There are “No Follow” links, though, so be careful to understand the difference.
“No Follow” backlinks don’t give you the SEO benefits, so if you are counting on them for your ranking, you’ll be disappointed. Search engine bots will see the link but not follow it back to you. However, “Do Follow” links are obviously the opposite. They give you SEO benefits, come from high Domain Authority sources, and up your ranking on search engines.
📖 More similar articles
Backlinks in Your SEO Strategy Still Matter
For those who were debating on adding backlinks as part of their digital marketing strategy, the answer is yes, you still need them. As a source of relevance, it just makes sense that experts in an area will be linked to by others in that same field.
If the first page of search engines is your target, the best areas you can focus on remain your high-quality, relevant content and your backlinks.
