Ever wonder if you site is indexed by a search engine? Or, how many backlinks do I have on my website? Well, you’re not alone. I see a lot of questions on various SEO forums ask that very same question. Did you know that you can find the answer to this questions by simply typing up the following in the search engine box – (see image below)
So, what are backlinks and why are they important? There are 2 types of links – Internal and external links. Both these links are valuable as they add great SEO value to promote a blog article or a site page.
Internal Links
Hyperlinks that points to another page to the same website. These type of links are useful for three reasons:
- Allow users to navigate a website
- Establish information hierarchy for the given website
- Spread link juice (ranking power)
External Links
Hyperlinks that point to another website. These hyperlinks provide additional information to readers, or they may be links from your website to an offer. These type of links are useful for the following reasons:
- Build visibility
- Helps readership
- Drives traffic back to your site when you provide quality hyperlinks
What are considered good backlinks? A link from a retail site or from a highly trafficked blog site. As a rule, you should try to build links with authoritative, relavent and high quality sites. High quality, relevant links are much stronger than links from low quality, unrelated sites.
Blog directory listings are an easy opportunity for high-quality backlinks, available for anyone running a blog. A handful of large authority blog directories accept site submissions and syndicate content—an opportunity to build referral traffic. Simply ensure that you have a base level content to start with and then submit your site.
Here are a handful of high-quality blog directories accepting submissions:
Backlinks boost your authority. The more Google’s automated processes “respect” your authority, the higher your website’s ranking in relevant in search results. A high-quality backlink tells search engine crawlers that your presence online is the real deal.
A good rule of thumb is to include internal and external links in your blog content. Internal link influences user engagement metrics, including time spent on website, page views per session, and conversion rate. Valuable external links help improve authority of your website, by providing a viewer with references. Both internal and external can boost your positions in SERPs and bring additional organic traffic for free.
