An Introduction to Backlinks Part I: What Backlinks Are

On June 28th, 2020 / By Hamzah Khadim

Most people have a general understanding of what hyperlinks, or links as they are more commonly called are, and how they work. To refresh, or in case you are not sure what they are, links are normally clickable text on a web page you can click on and will be taken to a different page either on that site or to an external site.

For instance, you open Google and do a search and on the search results page are numerous results that are relevant to your search. The blue text above each result is considered a link. As you might guess, links are an important part of search engine results pages (SERPs) and search engine optimization (SEO). Links help build credibility for web pages on websites. A good way to think about links, as they are a form of networking.

• For example, you attend a business conference and network with others that are related to your industry or profession. You might hand out business cards, arrange potential sales meetings, or even develop new friendships that can lead to forming business partnerships. The same is true when it comes to links and how they are used in conjunction with your website.

Websites tend to use three different types of links:

1. Internal – Internal links are those that take site visitors to other pages on your website.

2. Outbound – Outbound links are those that are linked to another website, such as your Facebook page, or another business’ webpage with useful and relevant information related to the content on your web page.

3. Inbound (Backlinks) – Inbound links, or as they are commonly called, backlinks, are links to your website and web pages from other external websites and web pages. They are the opposite of outbound links.

Examples of Backlinks

To help you get a better idea and understanding of what backlinks are, let’s take a look at a few different examples.

Going back to our analogy about networking above, let’s say you sell handmade figurines and develop an online business partnership with a business that sells cases for storing figurines. Part of the arrangement you have made is you will incorporate an outbound link to that business’ website, and they will also incorporate a backlink to your website. As a result, you and your business partner benefit from the relationship in regards to SERPs and potential traffic to increase sales.

Another example of a backlink would be one posted by an individual on a social media platform. They might find a cute figurine you sell and want to share that page link with their friends on Facebook. Then, their friends may share the original post on their own Facebook pages, further creating additional backlinks to your web page.

Now that you understand what backlinks are, we invite you to check out our next blog post in this series: “Why Backlinks Matter.” For a free website audit and assistance in determining what backlinks your site currently has, contact the SEO and SERPs experts at Logik Digital by phoning 1-866-307-0086 today!