Why Are Backlinks Important for SEO?
Backlinks can:
- Improve rankings
- Boost your credibility
- Help Google find new pages
- Send referral traffic to your site
Let’s get into the details.
They Can Improve Rankings
Google considers backlinks one of the most important signals for ranking content.
Because Google views external links as votes of popularity for a website or webpage, there is a strong correlation between sites with lots of quality backlinks and higher rankings.
You can have tons of backlinks from spammy, low-quality websites. But they probably won’t be as impactful as a few backlinks from authoritative sites that are relevant to your business.
Think about it this way: If your website is about food, would you trust a link from your co-worker’s recreational pizza blog more than a link from the Culinary Institute of America?
Probably not.
Let’s take Semrush for example.
Adobe, the multinational software company, links to Semrush from their website.
Adobe has a high Authority Score (AS). That’s Semrush’s metric for measuring a domain or webpage’s overall quality.
And getting links from authoritative sites boosts the trustworthiness and credibility of your own site.
Using the Backlink Analytics tool, you can check the Authority Score of any website that links to you.
The referring domain, adobe.com, has an Authority Score of 91:
Pro tip: Also pay attention to your referring domains—the number of domains that link to you. Having varied backlinks from many different sites shows that you’re trustworthy.
So backlinks are great for SEO. And backlinks are also beneficial when key publications in your industry link to you and acknowledge you.
Think of it as word of mouth. You’re probably more likely to trust a business that several of your trusted friends have recommended to you.
In short, getting backlinks for SEO purposes is great. But they also build your credibility within your niche.
