What Are Backlinks & Why You Need Them for SEO?

“My SEO content is better than the already ranking content pieces, it is covering more ground and yet it is stuck at number 7 on the Google SERP. What is it the other brands are doing that my content lacks?”

-  They are getting SEO backlinks which probably you are not. 

If this problem sounds familiar, then the solution is probably more website backlinks. While of course other aspects could also result in lower rankings, lack of web backlinks is mostly the problem. 

Now how to resolve this problem is something we will be discussing today. 

SEO Backlinks - What exactly are they? 

What are backlinks is one of the most common questions that I receive every time I am discussing the course of action to implement an SEO strategy with my clients. 

In the simplest terms backlinks are like testimonials for your website. The more the merrier. They vouch for your business and website’s credibility in the eyes of Google thus, giving you other SEO benefits like improved rankings. 

Backlinks in SEO are the links that other websites are pointing towards your website. Basically, another website which has good authority on Google is vouching for your website. 

(Don’t worry, we will discuss what authority means as well.)

Here is an example of a SEO backlink that ZeroAdo received from Oflox. 

Why are backlinks in SEO important? 

Among different types of SEO, off-page SEO is all about backlinks. 

“But why an entire stream of SEO just for links?”

That’s because SEO backlinks provide multiple benefits to your website that can make or break your business because Google is a fan of them and promotes quality link building for your website. 

Other than that, there are many community discussions around them too, that prove that they are important since they are often a topic of discussion. 👇

So here are all the reasons why everyone is so hell bent on knowing what is a backlink in SEO, how to build one, or is it still relevant on not - (It clearly is, don’t worry, everyday Google releases a new update that showcased how important a backlink is so you are safe, keep reading!) 

To build domain authority 

So we are back to discussing our puzzle that we left off in our last heading i.e domain authority. 

Domain authority is a score out of hundred (given by most SEO tools), that states how credible your website is. The more it is the better. Here is an example of what this score might look like. 👇

Along with that score you can check the number of backlinks also the website has. 

So more backlinks = higher domain authority. 

But why? And how? 

As we discussed earlier, backlinks are like the testimonial for your website, the more backlinks you have the more trustworthy your website will and thus, your domain authority will be high. 

Improved rankings

When your website authority and trust is high, then naturally your chances of ranking will improve making content marketing and SEO work together. 

Why? Because Google trusts that most of your content is helpful for the readers, your business is not a fraud, and you are adding value to your user. 

So higher authority = better chances of rankings. 

Funny thing is, Google never really directly mentions about the authority anywhere, but it has been observed by multiple experiments in the industry, that authority afterall is a factor that Google considers when it comes to ranking your website. Sneaky little Google 😉. 

Increased traffic 

When you build backlinks, Google’s trust increases on your website. When that happens, your chances of ranking higher improve as well, and with higher rankings comes increased traffic. This is a loop that keeps on going. 

Let’s be real, no one really goes beyond the first 3-5 results on Google page, and thus, most of the traffic is taken by them too. 

More leads 

As we discussed the loop backlinks create, the last step of that loop is increased volume of leads. It is only natural, when you are getting 100 clicks then only 10 might be your number of leads. But when you are getting 1000 clicks then the lead number will multiply as well. 

To benefit from AI overviews 

AI overviews is one of the recent developments both in Google’s algorithm as well as their user experience. With AI overviews coming in, backlinks have become even more important because Google would want to show its users results in AI overviews only from credible websites with unique types of SEO content and perspective. 

Just think, who would it trust more to pick up content from - a website with domain rating 3 or 30? 

Checkout this example of AI over views, the content it has picked up from is by referring to the websites you see next to it. 

I went one step ahead and found out the domain authority and number of backlinks each one of these had, and the results below 👇 will prove my point. 

This is enough evidence now, I know you have got the point so let’s move on. 

Types of website backlinks to know about 

Backlinks are of multiple kinds and you need to know about all of them so you can build the right ones for your business and also so you do not get fooled by anyone else building a link for you. 

All the backlinks hold different types of value or information for Google to convey. Here are all the links you should know about. 

No follow 

No Follow attribute in the links means that the website does not endorse your link or is not passing any credibility or authority to your website. 

Thus, they add no value to your backlink profile and they look something like this in the backend 👇. 

Do follow 

Do follow are the opposite of no follow links. These are the links that you want for your website and it also conveys to Google that the website is supportive of your website and it is vouching for it. 

They are the links without no follow attribute and look like this in the backend 👇.

Sponsored 

The sponsored attribute in the backlinks tells Google that this is a link you paid for. 

UGC

UGC attribute is for the links used in user generated content. 

What are the best kind of SEO backlinks 

Now that you know various types of backlinks, let’s get into the features of the links that you should get for your website. These are also the quality checks that you should show before building backlinks or check the backlinks built by the SEO agencies in India or elsewhere, you are working with. 

Do follow from high authority website 

We just discussed the significance of do follow/follow links so it is a non-negotiable. Also, while getting a link, also try to make sure that it is from a high authority website. 

Why? Because when a website with higher authority is endorsing you, that of course holds more value than a lower authority website. The norm in the market is to usually get links from DA 50+ websites, but when you are at 0 even a DA 10 website is good enough to start with. 

Not paid 

Ah, Google is not a fan of paid links and they have clearly mentioned that in their spam policies, which hold the power to get you banned. 

“Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevancy of web pages. Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.” - Google Search Central

So links, that you get by paying to a website for adding your links, are a big no-no. However, paying a link building agency to build you organic SEO links is absolutely ethical and keeps you away from Google’s radar. 

From a website relevant to your business

Imagine owning an ice cream store, and then getting a backlink from a jewelry store website. Does that make sense? No right! If it doesn’t make sense to you as a Google user then it doesn’t make sense to Google either. 

The website you are getting links from, should be highly relevant to what your link is about. For instance, if you own a perfume store, then getting a link from a cosmetic blog is relevant. If you own a cybersecurity solution, then getting a link from another one of the SaaS companies would be more relevant. 

From a high quality website 

Before you indulge in link exchange, make sure you are getting links from a high quality website. Domain authority is of course one of the first things you should check but that alone is not enough. You need to vet the website properly as DA can be easily manipulated. Here are the checks you should consider. 

• Domain authority of the website. 
• Traffic of the website, sometimes websites with high DA are getting almost 0 traffic and you get defrauded such websites are also called PBNs. 
• There is no link spamming in the content. 
• There are no unrelated and multiple ads running. 
• Make sure it is a business based website. 

Keeping all the above checks in mind, here is an example of the website you should not get a link from. 

While the website might look amazing and like a media outlet from front, the reality is something different. 

It’s DR is 52 but the traffic is just 6! Avoid such misleading websites, rather run. 

Contextually placed links 

Apparently, a big leak of Google’s algorithm happened earlier in 2024, and a lot of SEO experts and companies tried to figure out what it means and they gave their input on the same. 

While most of the speculations have no grounds, a few about SEO backlinks made a lot of sense and felt believable. One of them was, contextual placement of backlinks in content as shared by Search Engine Land. 

What that means is that Google not just looks at the link but also the content around it to ensure if the link is relevant there. 

Checkout this image for example. 

In the above image, you can see the linked text which is “SEO friendly content.” That is the link to one of ZeroAdo's blog posts, now also analyzing the highlighted texts within the content. They are making the link contextual, since the entire paragraph is about optimizing the e-commerce website for SEO. 

Then creating SEO content has been given as a strategy to optimize the website for SEO as well as to generate customer interest too. 

That is what a contextual link looks like and that is what you want for your website as well. 

With appropriate anchor text 

Just like the relevance of a website and content around is crucial, the relevance of the anchor text is crucial as well. If out of 100, I had to give points of importance to all the 3 aspects, then 33% would go to the relevance of the website and content around each and 40% to the anchor text. 

However, they are all crucial, in their own way. 

“But Srishti, what is an anchor text?” 

Ah, that’s a million dollar question! Anchor text is the text, which is ‘anchoring’ ⚓ the link to your website. It is the text you add your link to, and it has to be related to the link. 

A good anchor text ✅
Link - https://propertycloud.in/blog/money-plant-benefits-at-home/ 
Anchor text - benefits of money plant 

That link is appropriate, because it is catering to what the link is about and is not misleading. 

A not so good/relevant anchor text 👎🏻
Link - https://zeroado.com/blog/seo-copywriting-examples 
Anchor text - what is SEO copywriting 

This link would get ignored by Google, or might be considered as spam since the anchor text is misleading. While the link is about SEO copywriting examples, the anchor text is addressing something different altogether. 

You might think that it is common sense and who would even make this mistake. Let me enlighten you, most of the folks out there do not even know that it can have an impact on their rankings, and are just in the race to hoard links however they get. 

So the problem of irrelevant anchor texts is more common than you think, and that is why you need SEO experts from ZeroAdo to guide you. 

How to get SEO backlinks for your website? 

What we are going to discuss next, is the hardest part of SEO backlinking. So let’s address the elephant in the room - “How to build backlinks?”

Here are some of the tried and tested ways to get links that often work. 

Create high quality content 

The number of links you might build in a year, can be earned within a month through top-quality content. 

Let’s find out how! 

When you create good quality content, which is ranking, then it might become a point of reference for some other articles and might be used by other content creators to back their content. 

For instance, if I am writing content on social media, then I might use any of the following ranking content pieces in my content as a reference point while talking about social media watchtime statistics. 

So when you are creating high quality content there are chances that you might build automatic backlinks as people will reference your content. 

Connect with community folks for a-b-c link exchange 

There are several communities and groups out there, on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Slack which you can join or be invited to. 

IN these places everyone is performing link exchange but in an organic and non spammy manner which is A-B-C link exchange. 

A-B-C link exchange refers to when you give a link to someone from website A to B and then get a link return from website C to website A. 

“But why can’t I just get a link from website B only?”

Because Google doesn’t want you to. Did you think Google was going to make it that easy on you? A-B link exchange is considered as link spamming according to Google. 

“Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking. These fall under the link spams.” - Google Search Central 

Remove and replace broken links

Broken links are the links built to the pages that do not exist anymore, or for some reason those links are not working. In that case, you need to get to work, and recover or replace your links. 

Reach out to the website editors, and request them to replace the broken link with a new link or replace that link with a more relevant one. 

Now your job is to convince the editor that’s it! 

Through guest post writing 

Ah, no one said building backlinks in SEO was going to be easy. Well, it is incredibly difficult, because at times for one single backlink, you might have to write an entire article. 

Guest posts are the articles that you do on other websites on a topic relevant to their business blog as a guest writer. Checkout the snapshot below from one of my guest posts. 

I did this one whole article of 2300+ words, just to get a backlink for one of our clients, that too in my author bio! 😪

So, you need to do whatever it takes to get a backlink, and doing guest posts is one of the ways. 

Offer content updates in return for a link 

Let’s be real, it is not always possible to write huge pieces of content to get a link in return keeping the resources and bandwidth in mind. But don’t worry I have another solution for you. 

You can offer content updates, in return of a backlink for your website. You can find the site you want to link to and find their top ranking blogs which might be in line for updates. Or find the content pieces with opportunities to rank better. There are several content writing tools available that will help you update the article in no time! 

Reach out to the concerned person, and offer them to update that content piece to improve its ranking and traffic as well and in-return get a link for your website. 

While this process seems time consuming it is still more feasible than writing a whole new piece of content. Give it a try, I assure it’ll work at least 6–70% (my experience says so) of the time. 

Find your competitor’s backlinks 

If you want to outrank your competitors then make sure along with other aspects of SEO, you are outnumbering them in terms of link and their quality as well. 

Another way of building links is fishing through your competitor’s link profile and reaching out to those websites to give a link to your business too. You can find your competitor’s link profile easily through SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEmrush, and Moz. 

If you are lucky, then you might as well find some of their broken links and then reach out to the concerned editor, to fix those links and replace them with a relevant link from your website. That way, you will be able to get one extra link for yourself while reducing one link from your competitor. 

Win-win!

Make SEO backlink building agencies do it all for you 

I know by now, you have figured that building backlinks in SEO is not an easy task. Even if you follow all the above practices, the result from the efforts you put in will not be enough. 

5 backlinks, from 100 hours of work, is not the kind of output any business would want to go for. Not gonna lie, sometimes it even takes more than that. If you have a bandwidth and headspace to do it all then go for it. 

If not then hire the best link building services from the market, just like many other businesses and many of your competitors and get both quality and quantity of backlinks.

SEO backlinks - The ultimate weapon against your competitors

Now that you know that Google loves a website with good backlinks, you also know what your content needs to rank better than the already ranking sites.

So, don’t wait up and get to building quality backlinks and if you are struggling to get them yourself, then reach out to ZeroAdo, because we can do it all for you that too at smart pricing!