Transcript
In an earlier lesson, we looked at internal links and how they work as a vote of confidence from one page on your website to another.
And in this lesson, we’re going to be taking a look at backlinks.
Now, put simply, a backlink is just a link from another website to your website. And just like internal links, backlinks act as a vote of confidence.
But instead of that vote coming from within your own website, it’s coming from an external website instead.
Now, from Google’s point of view, that external vote carries a lot more weight because they know that it’s not usually something that you can fully control.
So, in this lesson, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the most important things that you need to know when it comes to backlinks for your website.
Backlinks are one of the most powerful ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. They help Google decide which sites to trust and which ones deserve to rank higher.
When you have two websites with similar content quality and similar on-page SEO, backlinks are often the differentiator that determines which one is going to rank higher.
This is because Google needs that external validation. Anybody on the internet can publish a page and say that they’re the best at something, but when other websites link to your site, they can interpret that as them agreeing with you.
Backlinks can also get clicked on and result in real visitors coming through to your website as well, which is a fantastic side benefit.
As we spoke about earlier, traffic is a real ranking factor. Though, it’s worth noting that almost all backlinks don’t send much real traffic, if any at all. Their main value is going to be the ranking signal that they send to Google.
Another important aspect of backlinks is what’s known as the anchor text. Now, the anchor text is just the clickable text inside of a link.
So, for example, if someone links to your website with the text best plumber in London, that text right there is the anchor text.
And Google uses the anchor text to understand what it is that your page is about. So, if lots of websites linked to your page with anchor text related to plumbing, Google starts to understand that your site is relevant for those plumbing related searches.
However, you do need to be careful with anchor text. If all of your backlinks use the exact same keyword-rich anchor text, it can look unnatural and raise red flags with Google.
Natural backlinks tend to have a variety of text, including your brand name, generic terms like click here, this site, and sometimes they’ll even use the full URL, which is known as the naked URL.
According to Google’s spam policies, link manipulation is a direct violation of their guidelines. This includes buying links for the purposes of ranking or even exchanging products or services for links.
Google say that backlinks should be earned naturally because your content is genuinely valuable and worth referencing.
The problem with that is that when you start looking at tools like Ahrefs to see which sites are ranking for almost any competitive keyword, you’ll notice that almost every single one of them are in fact buying links.
Backlinks are such a powerful ranking factor that Google has to scare people off of building them by punishing those that they catch.
The issue is that so many companies are buying backlinks. And there’s also the problem of people potentially buying spammy links to a competitor’s site to try to get them banned.
So the whole thing is a bit of a gray area. Now there is no doubt that Google do penalise websites and so you do have to be really really careful.
But when you look at your competition and they’re being rewarded for doing the exact thing that you’re being told not to do, many people will naturally go ahead and start to do it themselves.
The challenge is that you need to know how to buy good quality backlinks. And the whole industry is full of scammers.
Now, it’s a bit outside the scope of this course, but I will give you three important tips that you can take away if you do decide to go down this route.
The first is, does the site have relevant traffic? And you can check that using a tool like Ahrefs, because if a website claims to be high authority but it has no organic traffic, that is a major red flag.
The second thing is, does the site have a low amount of outbound links? Because if a website is linking out to hundreds or thousands of other websites your link becomes less valuable and it’s a sign that they’re probably selling links to anybody that’s willing to pay.
And the third one is, does the site have clean anchor text in their own backlink profile? So have a look at the links that are pointing to the site you’re considering buying a link from. And if their backlink profile was full of adult or gambling related anchor text, that’s another red flag. And you can also use Ahrefs to find that out.
It’s also worth me pointing out that you shouldn’t be swayed by metrics like domain rating or the number of backlinks a website has as these can be easily manipulated and don’t mean what most people think they do.
One of the most effective link building methods if you have a decent enough budget is still actually guest posting, which is where you pay somebody to let you post an article on their website that includes a link back to your website.
However, this can cost quite a lot of money because most website owners now realise the value that a backlink from their website actually has.
If you want to build backlinks without the risk of penalties, there are actually several legitimate approaches that you can take.
The first is by creating what are known as linkable assets. And these are pieces of content that naturally attract links because they genuinely are very useful.
This includes things like tools, calculators, infographics, studies, research, tutorials, courses, templates, case studies, and link roundups.
These assets are usually quite easy to rank for in Google, and they usually get a good amount of traffic providing there is actually demand in your industry.
So, make sure that you do your research into what your audience is actually looking for before you start investing your time and money into linkable assets.
You can also advertise these assets on your social media and other platforms to get traffic to them to get the word out. Some people have even run paid ads to ensure their assets get in front of people and they’ve reported some impressive results.
Another good way to build backlinks is through digital PR like we spoke about in the last lesson. When you get featured in online publications and news websites, you often get a good amount of backlinks as part of that coverage.
There’s also getting featured on podcasts, speaking at events, and sponsorships. All of these can result in natural backlinks from authorative sources from within your industry.
Something that’s worth understanding is how backlinks fit into the broader picture of AI and modern search.
Backlinks are still very important, but AI systems are also looking at mentions, consistency, and the overall reputation of your website across the internet. That’s why unlinked mentions of your brand name can still contribute to trust signals even if they don’t include a backlink back to your website.
It’s worth thinking of links as an important part of a wider trust ecosystem and not the only signal that matters.
This ties back into what we covered in the previous lesson about controlling your brand’s presence across the internet.
So in summary, backlinks remain one of the most important ranking factors in SEO.
They act as an external vote of confidence to help Google determine which sites deserve to rank higher. While Google officially discourages buying links, the reality is that most competitive niches involve some level of link buying. If you choose to go down that route, you need to be careful and know what you’re doing.
The safest approach is to focus on creating genuinely valuable content and linkable assets that naturally attract links over time and then internally link from those assets to the pages that you want to rank.