In order to become more visible in search engines, and therefore attract for custom to your business or organisation, search engine optimisation (SEO) is a good idea. It’s the process of undertaking certain tasks to help search engines such as Google and Bing to favour your website and return it higher up their results pages. Obtaining links from other websites to your website – or backlinks as they are known – is an important factor in this SEO process for several reasons. According to James McInally, from XLWEB SEO Company in Glasgow, here are the main benefits of link building to obtain backlinks:
- Search engine ranking: Backlinks play a significant role in determining the ranking of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines consider backlinks as votes of confidence from other websites. The more high-quality backlinks a website has, the more authoritative it appears to search engines, leading to higher rankings.
- Authority, credibility and trust: Backlinks act as endorsements for your website’s content. When reputable websites link to your content, it signals to search engines that your website is trustworthy and valuable. This enhances your website’s authority and credibility, making it more likely to rank higher in search results.
- Increase in website traffic: Backlinks can drive organic traffic to your website. When a relevant and reputable website links to your content, it provides an opportunity for users to discover and visit your website through that link. This referral traffic can contribute to increased visibility and exposure for your website.
- Indexing and crawling: Search engine spiders discover new web pages primarily through links. When other websites link to your site, search engine crawlers can follow those links and index your web pages, making them visible in search results. Backlinks help ensure that search engines can find and understand your website’s content more easily.
- Anchor text optimisation: Backlinks often include anchor text, which is the clickable text that appears as a hyperlink. Optimising anchor text with relevant keywords helps search engines understand the context and relevance of the linked page. This can positively impact your website’s ranking for those keywords in search results.
- Competitive advantage: Building high quality backlinks gives you a competitive advantage in your industry. If your competitors have fewer or lower quality backlinks, then you should outrank them and attract more organic traffic to your website.
It’s important to note that not all backlinks are equal. Quality is more important than quantity. Search engines prioritise backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites. Therefore, it’s wise to focus on building natural, high-quality backlinks from reputable sources to maximise their impact on SEO.
