How Do Backlinks Work Exactly? A Detailed Guide

If you’re working on improving your website’s SEO, you’ve likely heard mutterings about the benefits of backlinks. 

Backlinks are simply when one website links to other websites. Often, you’ll find backlinks in a website’s written content such as blog posts. You can also find them in e-newsletters, YouTube descriptions, Tweets, etc.

But how do you get another website to start using backlinks for your website? How do you make your website more visible within your niche?

This guide will show you how do backlinks work and why you should start using them:

Building Backlinks:

There was a time when as long as there were backlinks to your website from one other website, you could rank highly on search engines.

With the fierce competition on the internet today, you’ve got to have backlinks to your website on a plethora of other websites. Today, you have to present your website as an authority within its niche.

Here Are a Few Ways to Build Your Website’s Authority:

• Create relevant content for your niche
• Write guest posts on other blogs
• Get other authoritative creators to write blog posts on your website
• Have a relationship with influencers

It’ll take time to build authority in your niche. As such, focus on creating content first before worrying about getting backlinks to your website.

As your authority grows, you should use this free backlink checker to view backlinks to your website.

Linking to Others:

Of course, building backlinks isn’t only about getting others to link to your website.

You’ve also got to be charitable and link to other websites within your website. These are known as outbound backlinks.

This benefits both the other website and your own. You can potentially build a relationship with another website. It also brings more authority to your website.

Let’s suppose you’re writing a blog post that starts with the following information:

“Studies have shown that lower taxes attract more investment and entrepreneurs…”

The statement by itself doesn’t have much authority. You’ll have some skeptical readers who will want proof of your statement.

So what do you do? You can consider citing the studies and linking to them. This gives your content a lot more credibility.

It’s also important to link to authoritative and high-quality websites and content.

For example, with the previous statement, you might want to link to a study by an economic think tank. Or you might want to link to a YouTube video by a notable economist such as Arthur Laffer or Thomas Sowell.

By linking to authority, you are showing that you’re also an authority in your niche.

Inbound Backlinks:

Some of the best backlinks that you can use are inbound backlinks. These are backlinks that link to content and pages within your website.

This lends further authority and credibility to your website. Let’s return to the example mentioned in the previous section.

Within your blog post discussing economics and taxation, you might want to have an inbound backlink that’s relevant to your content. For example, let’s suppose within the same blog post you have the following sentence:

“The minimum wage is also a barrier to creating jobs and providing opportunities to unskilled candidates…”

Do you have a previous blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video that further discusses this point? If so, you might want to add this inbound link within the text.

Inbound backlinks also include a Call To Action (CTA). These are a request for your website’s visitors to further engage with your website. In most cases, you’ll include your CTA at the end of your content.

In your CTA you can link to your website’s main page. You can also include links to social media profiles. You can also include links to inbound backlinks that contain relevant content to what your visitor is reading.

Benefits of Backlinks:

You might be wondering why you should bother about using backlinks at all?

Many amateur webmasters are especially skeptical of using backlinks for other websites. After all, why do you want your viewers to navigate away from your website?

Let’s start with backlinks that direct to your website. Every backlink to your website is looked at as an endorsement of your website. 

Take a moment to think about the endorsements you receive in real-life — or the “physical world” if you prefer!

How many of your friends have egged you on to watch Game of Thrones? How many foodies do you know who recommend a particular restaurant? How many travel junkies do you know who recommend you visit their favorite city?

Game of Thrones, The Test Kitchen, and Paris have their reputation because of the regular endorsements they receive.

Imagine if, on the internet, there were regular endorsements of your website! The more recommendations for visiting your website, the greater its online reputation will be!

Now, what about linking to others? We’ve already discussed how outbound backlinks help you build authority with your content. But it also shows that you care about quality and building relationships.

The internet is full of websites that are desperate to make a quick buck from their visitors. But today’s internet user (and search engines) is far more discerning.

If they see that you’re always promoting your website but don’t endorse others, they’ll have a negative perception of it. Without endorsing others, you’re giving the impression that you just want to sell without offering a quality experience to others.

After all, what if your friends keep giving you recommendations but you don’t return the favor? They’ll likely stop giving recommendations to you!

Now You Know How Do Backlinks Work:

Now that you know how do backlinks work, you can start using them for your website.

Start by making your website an authority in your niche. Your first focus has to be on creating great content. This will increase the chances of your website getting used as a backlink on other sites.

Afterward, you’ve got to return the favor. Make sure to use high-quality backlinks in your website’s content.

Please share this guide with other webmasters or internet marketers. You can find even more tips on SEO and digital marketing on our website!