How Important Are Backlinks for SEO and How Can You Earn Them?

Backlinks, inbound links, incoming links or inlinks are links from a page on one site to another. These inlinks are created when another website owner attaches your page links to their content. Inbound links endorse your site and tell search engines that your website or blog content is valuable and creditable.

Inlinks from authoritative websites give your site content credit over others. The same way we all trust references from authoritarian personalities, search engines trust inbound links from top-ranked and best-performing websites.

What are backlinks?

Inbound links can enhance page authority and boost site rank on search engines. Linking inbound links to your target keywords makes them more authoritative. 

A competitor posts content on their website but backlinks to your web pages. If the visitors to the competitor’s website are impressed by what the competitor says about your content, they end up clicking those links, which directs them to your website. That’s what we call referral traffic and can boost a site’s reputation and ranking. 

Why are backlinks important for SEO?

Proper backlinking can popularize your site from a low-traffic site to an authoritative website with quality referral traffic and thousands of visitors. Inbound links are the one endorsement your website needs to climb up the search engine rankings. These links are directly connected to SEO because they help popularize your website domain and page authorities to boost your search engine rankings.

For any result-driven SEO campaign to be complete, it must feature backlinking as a marketing strategy. Search engine bots will see the links as they crawl through your web pages. If your site pages feature in multiple authoritative blogs or websites, you’ll have more inbound links. As you know, the more backlinks your site has, the higher the chances the search engine bots will recommend your site for a better ranking. Authoritative Incoming links boost search engine page rankings, strengthen your domain and direct more referral links to your site.

If multiple sites link to your pages, search engine bots will see your business as an authority in a particular niche or topic. As these bots recognize your business and its authority in the industry, your organic traffic will increase, and site ranking will rise.

As a powerful SEO strategy, inbound links also raise your brand recognition. Inlinks to your business site from other sites act as indirect testimonials from your competitors. Site owners’ backlinking to your site usually gives their readers a notion of satisfaction with what you do. When an authoritative website backlinks to your website, they are indirectly selling your brand and website. This will indirectly lead to more sales and ultimately increased profits.

Which backlinks should you avoid?

The same way search engine bots recognize authoritative backlinks; they will discover ill-gotten ones. While some backlinks can drive traffic to your site, others will negatively affect the traffic flow. Good incoming links speak life to your link profile, optimize your website, and drive more visitors to your site. As you build your brand and nurture your website through SEO, these are bad backlinks to avoid.

Spammy Website Links 

Spammy backlinks are those links to your site from websites, businesses, or brands you consider inappropriate. These aren’t the ordinary one or two links you would find time to review their source. They keep coming in dozens. The sad reality, they are from sources that can soil your brand’s name over time. 

A few moderately added inbound links from poker, pornography or pharmaceutical sites may not cause suspicion. However, if you receive dozens of spammy backlinks from these sites, search engines may end up penalizing your website. 

Link-Mill Backlinks

If you own a site, you’ve likely heard or even read about link-mill websites. These are paid-link schemes that offer multiple inlinks in a continuous modality. Web site owners may see these links as a shortcut to SEO breakthrough or better search engine ranking. 

However, search engines are now smarter than ever before. They can easily detect links from questionable sources. In other words, it’s impossible to manipulate search engine algorithms with paid backlinks. Even if you don’t get caught the first days, these dubious inbound links will ultimately backfire on you.

Links from Websites That Don’t Specialize in the Same Niche

 Bad links don’t necessarily need to be spammy. If the links add no value to your readers or business, they are simply awful links. If you’re getting backlinks from sources totally unrelated to your business, you better stop it now.

The effects of inbound links from irrelevant industries may not instantly or directly affect your brand, but the impact will be massive in the long run. Figure this out; you’re running an HVAC repair and maintenance business. You keep on getting dozens of backlinks from a website that specializes in pet care or gardening. 

Most of the key terms the pet care or gardening website owner uses will be irrelevant to your business. Search engines will start ranking you for these irrelevant keywords. The long-term effect? Search engines will begin to ignore keywords that are relevant to your brand.

How can you Earn Backlinks?

Incoming links are a pretty effective way to boost SEO traffic and rankings. However, you don’t want to be on the receiving end if search engines start penalizing wrongly acquired backlinks. The following are safe ways to acquire inlinks and give your website rankings and traffic a boost:

Outreach to websites relevant to your brand

Always reach out to key industry influencers to have them advocate or evangelize your business to the target audience.

Use social media

Post guest posts on social media sites such as Twitter with links to your website or social media profiles.

Build internal links

Create blog posts with anchor texts and keywords linked to different sections of your website. These links will help visitors navigate your site and increase overall website traffic.

Use infographics to drive backlinks to your site

Infographics are popular methods to sell a business to a target audience. With infographics, you can drive relevant backlinks and traffic to your website. Infographics are always in high demand simply because they are some of the most influential visual pieces of content used in SEO marketing. 


Building backlinks for your website is not going to be an easy task as a lot is involved. Whether you’re an established business or startup, you don’t have to struggle to drive traffic to your site. Contact the best SEO experts with years of experience to help you sell your business and drive in more traffic.

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