What Are Backlinks and How Do They Work?

There are over 200 factors that Google uses to rank a website. But the number one factor that Google uses is backlinks.
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Backlinks are when someone links to your website from their site. The more sites that link to you, the higher you will rank in Google.

Now all backlinks aren’t equal. Here are some of the things Google looks at when analyzing backlinks:

1. How authoritative is the site linking to you? If Huffington Post links to you it is more effective than if I, NeilPatel.com links to you. Why? Because Huffington Post is considered a well known authoritative site.

2. Authority is measured by a metric called "domain authority". It’s from a scale of 0 to 100. The higher the number the better. You ideally want to get backlinks from sites with a domain authority that is higher than yours. You can use the tool ahrefs.com to learn what your domain authority is.

3. The more related a site is the better the link. If you are in the plumbing space, a link from Huffington Post isn’t as good as Home Depot (which is an authority site in the home repair space). Try to get links from high domain authority sites within your space.

If you want to build links the quickest way to generate them is through round up posts. Email people within your space and interview them. Include their thoughts within your blog and let them know when you publish the post that includes them. Ask them to share the post on their favorite social network and even ask if they can link back to you.

By doing this your rankings will climb in Google.