What Are Backlinks, and How Do You Get Them?

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as inbound links or incoming links, are links from one website to a page on another website. They’re like votes of confidence in the eyes of search engines—when one website links to another, it’s essentially saying, “This content is valuable, credible, or useful.”

Search engines like Google use backlinks as signals of trust and authority. Generally speaking, the more high-quality backlinks a page has, the more likely it is to rank higher in search results.

Why Are Backlinks Important for SEO?

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. In fact, Google’s PageRank algorithm—one of the original foundations of how search results were ranked—was built entirely around links.

Here’s what backlinks can do:

• Increase organic ranking: Pages with strong backlink profiles tend to outrank those with weak ones.
• Drive referral traffic: A link on a popular website can bring in relevant visitors directly.
• Boost content discoverability: Search engine crawlers use links to find and index new pages.

But not all backlinks are created equal. Some are much more powerful than others—and some can even do more harm than good.

What Makes a High-Quality Backlink?

Quality matters more than quantity when it comes to backlinks. Here are the key attributes of a high-quality backlink:

• Authority: A link from a reputable, well-established website carries more value than one from a small, obscure site. Domain Rating (DR) is a good proxy for authority.
• Relevance: Links from sites in the same niche or industry are more beneficial. For example, a link from a marketing blog to a sales automation tool is highly relevant.
• Anchor text: The clickable part of a link should ideally include contextually relevant keywords, but not be overly optimized or spammy.
• Placement: A backlink embedded within the main content usually has more weight than one in the footer or sidebar.
• Followed vs. nofollow: Followed links (those that don’t have a rel=”nofollow” tag) pass PageRank. Nofollow links can still add value, especially if they drive traffic or come from a trusted source—but they don’t directly improve rankings.

How to Get Backlinks

There are many ways to earn or build backlinks, but they all boil down to one principle: provide value worth linking to. Here are some proven, scalable tactics.

1. Create Link-Worthy Content

Content that naturally attracts backlinks is known as “link bait.” Here’s what tends to work best:

• Statistics pages: People love to cite stats in their articles. Compile authoritative data and original research.
• Definitive guides: In-depth tutorials or guides on a niche topic often get referenced frequently.
• Case studies: Share unique results or findings in your niche—especially if they support or challenge common knowledge.
• Free tools or templates: Practical resources are widely shared and referenced.

2. Guest Blogging

Guest posting involves writing content for other sites in your industry. You get exposure to a wider audience, and usually, a backlink or two in return.

Tips for successful guest posting:

• Target authoritative, relevant websites.
• Pitch unique content ideas that provide value to their audience.
• Avoid spammy networks—these can hurt your backlink profile.

3. Broken Link Building

This strategy involves finding broken links on other websites and suggesting your content as a replacement.

Here’s how it works:

1. Use a backlink analysis tool to find broken outgoing links on reputable industry blogs.
2. Create (or identify) a suitable piece of content you own that can replace the broken link.
3. Reach out to the site owner and politely suggest your resource as a fix.

Broken link building is scalable and adds value—site owners don’t want dead links on their pages, and you’re helping them solve that.

4. Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique is simple:

1. Find a piece of content that has earned a lot of backlinks.
2. Create something better—more comprehensive, up-to-date, or visually appealing.
3. Reach out to websites linking to the original content and ask them to consider linking to yours instead.

This works best when your content clearly offers more value than the original. Otherwise, the switching cost for webmasters is too high.

5. Digital PR

Digital PR focuses on building relationships with journalists and getting coverage in reputable media outlets.

Ways to earn backlinks using digital PR:

• Pitch exclusive stories, studies, or data visualizations.
• Monitor journalist source requests using services like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) or #journorequest on Twitter.
• Time your pitches around relevant news cycles to maximize interest.

Backlinks from high-authority domains (news sites, government bodies, research institutions) are immensely valuable for SEO credibility.

6. Resource Page Link Building

Many websites maintain resource pages that curate useful links around a specific topic.

Find these valuable opportunities with search operators like:

"keyword" + inurl:resources
"keyword" + intitle:links
"keyword" + "useful resources"

If your content is genuinely valuable and closely matches the theme of the resource page, there’s a good chance the site owner will link to it after outreach.

7. Unlinked Brand Mentions

Sometimes, websites mention your brand—without linking to it. These are low-hanging backlink opportunities.

Track unlinked mentions using tools that monitor brand references across the web. Reach out to the author or editor and politely ask if they can turn the mention into a clickable link.

What to Avoid

Not all backlinks are good. Poor-quality or manipulative link building can backfire, resulting in ranking drops or even manual penalties.

Avoid these risky tactics:

• Paid link schemes: Buying links is against Google’s guidelines and can quickly lead to penalties.
• Link exchanges: Excessive “you link to me, I’ll link to you” arrangements are easy for algorithms to detect and devalue.
• Private Blog Networks (PBNs): Building backlinks from a network of owned or rented sites is risky and hard to sustain.
• Spammy blog comments and forums: Links from non-moderated, low-quality sites usually pass no value—and may even be flagged as spam.

Focus on earning backlinks through valuable content and trusted relationships—not shortcuts.

Final Thoughts

Backlinks remain one of the strongest indicators of content authority and trustworthiness. Earning them takes effort, but the long-term impact on search visibility, brand awareness, and referral traffic is worth it.

To succeed, prioritize quality over quantity, stay away from manipulative tactics, and invest in creating useful, linkable content. Build relationships, not just links.