What Are Backlinks? (Plus How to Get High-Quality Links)
Backlinks (aka inbound links) act like online endorsements — when reputable sites link to you, Google often trusts your content more. This guide explains what backlinks are, why they matter for SEO, how to check yours, and how to earn high-quality links without penalties.
Of course, if you’re researching SEO backlinks, you’re probably curious about backlinks and SEO. In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started with backlinks, from how they work to how to earn them.
See how our SEO services can establish an authoritative, high-quality backlink profile for your business, and connect with our team to get your custom SEO strategy and start driving revenue from SEO.
Backlinks definition: What they mean in SEO
A backlink is a link from one website to another. Backlinks are also known as “inbound links” or “incoming links.” They are considered a key factor in search engine optimization (SEO), as they act similarly to votes of confidence for a website’s content.
When a reputable website links to another, it signals to search engines, like Google, that the linked content is valuable and credible. However, the quality and relevance of the backlinks for SEO are also important, not just the sheer quantity.
For example, if website A links to website B, then website B has received a backlink. If website A is a trusted, authoritative site, then that will give website B a big boost. If website A, however, is of low quality, then the link won’t be of as much value.
What are the three types of links?
The three main types of links are internal, external, and backlink. All three are important in a linking strategy. Internal links go from one page or post on your website to another. An external link is when your blog or page has a link to another website on the Internet.
The backlink is when the external website links to yours, and that is the kind we will be focusing on in this guide.
What makes a backlink high-quality?
A high-quality backlink comes from a trustworthy, relevant website and points to a page that genuinely helps the reader. Strong backlinks usually share these signals:
Relevance: The linking page topic closely matches your page topic.
Authority: The site earns trust in its niche (real audience, real editorial standards).
Placement: The link appears inside the main content (not a footer, sidebar, or template).
Anchor text: The clickable text describes the destination naturally (avoid keyword stuffing).
Attributes: Editorial links pass more value than nofollow, sponsored, or UGC links — but those links still help with discovery and referral traffic.
Rule of thumb: Chase relevant + editorial links over “high DA” links that don’t fit your topic.
How to check if you have backlinks
How do you know how many SEO backlinks your site has and which sites link to you? There are plenty of tools you can use to check your backlinks. You can even use some of these tools to check the backlinks on other sites, too.
Expert insights on how to check if you have backlinks from...
Sarah Berry Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX
There are plenty of options for digging into your backlinks. You can use a free tool, like Google Search Console, or paid platforms like Ahrefs or Semrush. While Google Search Console provides an overview, Ahrefs or Semrush deliver in-depth data for understanding the power, placement, and value of these external links.
One of the easiest ways to check your backlinks is with Google Search Console. Here’s how it works.
Sign in to Google Search Console and click on “Links” in the left-hand sidebar.
On the “Links” page, you’ll see a few different reports, including your top linked pages, the top sites linking to your site, and the top linking anchor text.
Here’s what each page shows:
Top linked pages show you the pages on your site with the most links
Top linking sites show which sites give you the most backlinks
Top linking text shows the text sites most frequently use when linking to your site
As you click these reports, you can get more details, such as exactly which sites are linked to which specific pages on your site.
You can also check SEO backlinks for any site, including your own, using third-party tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz’s Link Explorer. Simply enter a domain or URL into the tool to get a detailed backlink report.
Helping search engines find and index your content for search results
Helping users explore the web and discover content related to their interests
Helping search engines interpret the quality and authoritativeness of sites and content
The “World Wide Web” was named as such for a reason: With its series of pages and websites connected by links, it really does resemble a web. Links add context and tell the “spiders” that crawl the Internet that there are more pages to be found through the SEO backlinks that exist there.
Expert insights on why backlinks are important from...
Sarah Berry Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX
Backlinks are like citations in academic papers — they endorse your site and its content — and search engines use them to gauge a site’s value and trustworthiness. As one of the most important ranking factors, businesses can’t ignore backlinks when evaluating their SEO and planning their strategy.
Let’s say you have a brand-new website.
No one links to it, and you don’t submit it to Google, either. How do you expect it to be found?
You can’t!
However, if someone links to your site, a search engine spider can crawl through that link, discover your site, and index (or make findable) your newly created content. This is one reason that SEO backlinks are so important: Without them, search engines won’t know that your content is there, nor will users.
How do backlinks improve SEO?
So, how do backlinks work? In the context of search engine optimization, a backlink is an important factor in determining how well your pages rank. In fact, in 2016, a Google team member confirmed that backlinks serve as one of Google’s top three ranking factors.
Here is how they contribute to better rankings:
Increase your domain authority: Backlinks from authoritative websites enhance your credibility, as they act as endorsements.
Improve search engine rankings: Backlinks help search engines understand which pages are the most valuable and, therefore, the most relevant to users. The higher the quality of a page’s backlink, the more likely it is to rank higher.
Drive referral traffic: They also allow users to discover your content directly from another site. This is considered ‘referral traffic’ and can improve engagement metrics.
Enhance crawl efficiency: Search engine crawlers use backlinks to navigate the web. More links to your site make it easier for crawlers to discover and index your content.
Context and relevance: When backlinks come from websites in a similar niche or with relevant content, search engines view your site as more authoritative in that specific field.
Anchor text signals: The text used in the hyperlink, known as anchor text, helps search engines understand what your page is about. Use descriptive anchor text that fits the sentence naturally (avoid keyword stuffing).
Generally speaking, the more relevant, high-quality backlinks you have pointing at your website, the better you will rank in searches for your targeted keywords. So, having these kinds of backlinks is desirable because ranking highly can increase your traffic, purchases, conversion rate, and so on.
This doesn’t mean you should go out and try to acquire links from every powerful-looking website on the Internet.
Google’s algorithms are so complex that a link’s relevance will be just as important as its source. So, while it may feel good for your pet supplies store to get a link from your friend’s popular marketing blog, it may not help you rank any better.
Where to find backlinks for your industry
Now that you know what backlinks are, here are some methods to get them! Technically, there are two ways to get website backlinks. Either a user found your content and organically linked to you, or you approached a website and requested it.
How to get backlinks (9 ethical tactics)
Here are 9 ways to generate backlinks for your website.
Get a Google Alert for your company name. If you spot a mention of your company on a website that doesn’t include a website backlink, send a friendly email asking for one.
2. Pitch a story
Write to the local newspaper about something you’ve done. Chances are good that they’re probably looking for an interesting piece of news, and local success stories are always a big hit.
3. Do a guest contribution
If you can write authoritatively about the topic in question, send a blog pitch. You can include a link to your website in your author bio or in the body of your contribution, as long as it’s relevant.
4. Make an infographic
Let others know and pitch it to multiple websites. They’ll attribute your site, which can be a powerful website backlink if you get the graphic reposted somewhere popular!
5. Link someone else first
This might sound backward, but if you include a link to someone’s content or mention them in one of your own pages or blog posts, they may notice, become aware of you, and later return the favor.
6. Target competitor links
Using a tool like Ahrefs, you can assess the website backlink profile of your competitors. See which high-quality and relevant sites link to your competitors, and then pitch your content to those sites (if it makes sense) to earn them.
7. Be a solution to 404s
Broken links or 404s can serve as a quick win for building backlinks for SEO. Run potential sites for backlinking in a tool like Screaming Frog to discover 404s. If you have comparable content, pitch it to the site owner or writer.
8. Be a guest speaker or part of a webinar
Being part of a conference or webinar will make you an authority on the subject. The event pages can link to a page of your choice and get those high-quality stamps of approval from the event website. This is also a good way to generate organic traffic, as the attendees will want to know more about you from your website.
9. Create authoritative source content
Another way to create website backlinks for SEO is to develop authoritative content that encourages others to use it as citations. For example, you could create whitepapers or showcase case studies. These links back will have high credibility to search engines that you are a though-leader in your industry.
Expert insights on how to generate backlinks from...
Sarah Berry Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX
The bar is high for generating backlinks because it requires giving people a reason to link to your site. Most businesses are practicing SEO, too, which creates additional competition for backlinks. Investing in unique content that’s valuable to your target market and industry, though, is an effective strategy. Certain content formats, like research studies and tools, are also more likely to get traction, so consider focusing your efforts there.
3 tactics you shouldn’t use to get backlinks
It’s very important to stay up to date with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines when building backlinks. For example, Google previously handed out manual penalties to websites with “unnatural outbound link” profiles. This was a direct follow-up to the warning they had sent out weeks earlier, telling bloggers to disclose free product reviews and nofollow any outbound links regarding the product in question.
Since link building sounds like a lot of work—and it is—and you know that backlinks are important for SEO, you may want to buy them or use some kind of backlink service to generate and populate these links with software. Is this a good idea?
No. Three tactics that you shouldn’t use for backlinking for SEO include:
Buying backlinks
Using a backlink software
Trying a backlink generator
While we’re all about working smarter, buying those is not what we mean when we talk about marketing automation.
There are two important reasons you should do your link-building by hand:
Buying links is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and may result in your site being penalized and removed from search engine results.
When you buy links, you never know what kind of quality you’re going to get, which may lead to your website being penalized anyway.
Instead of buying your links, set aside the time to create a link-building program with a dedicated employee or hire an experienced SEO firm to build links for you through the use of high-quality content assets and outreach.
How to link from your website to another site
If you want to backlink someone else, the easiest way to do so is through your website’s CMS or content management system. Chances are good that you use a CMS to manage all the content on your website, including your pages, images, text, and products (if you run an e-commerce store).
Adding a link with your CMS
To add a link to another site using a CMS, edit the page where you want to include the link. Type out the text you want to be linked, then use your cursor to highlight it. Look for a tool button that resembles a metal link, like this:
Click the button and you should see a window similar to this one:
Add the URL of the site or specific page you want to link, then click “OK.” The link will be added to your page. You can then add any additional links you want, and save the page when you are finished. Any links you add through your CMS will be visible and clickable to website visitors.
Adding a link with HTML
If you aren’t using a CMS, you can link to other websites using HTML. Creating a link in HTML is very easy. For example, let’s say you wanted to replicate this link, which points to our homepage. This is the HTML you would use to do so:
<a href=”http://www.webfx.com”>this link</a>
There are a few ways you can modify HTML links that a CMS might do automatically. For example, clicking the “open link in new window” (or, more recently, “new tab”) option in a CMS would change our link above to look like this:
… where the blank target attribute forces the clicked link to open in a new window or tab.
You can also add titles and descriptions to links with HTML. If you would like to learn more about how to create links with HTML, this W3 Schools article is a great resource.
Do backlinks really work?
Yes! There are plenty of case studies from WebFX where you can see an increase in SEO traffic due to backlink strategies. Here are two examples from our case studies:
Healthcare Administrative Partners (HAP)
One great example is our client, Healthcare Administrative Partner (HAP). They saw a positive 63% increase in organic sessions, which increased their visibility and revenue growth. Our team managed to boost their rankings by increasing their industry-related keywords, integrating schema markups, and, of course, building up authoritative links to help increase trust and traffic.
They reached out to their audience on LinkedIn with links to their landing page and provided shareable and useable content. The 63% increase in traffic resulted in a 7% increase in email subscribers.
Property Management, Inc (PMI)
Another case study where you can see the power of backlinks and link building is with our client Property Management, Inc (PMI). There were a number of SEO services that PMI signed up with us, including increasing their keyword reach, content management, and building up their backlinks.
“WebFX has our back, and they’re constantly monitoring metrics, backlinks, and our online listings. Plus, if there’s something we don’t completely understand, WebFX answers our questions quickly with expert advice or links to resources that could help us out.”
Backlinking in SEO: Earn High-Quality Links with Professional Services
Finding out what are backlinks and understanding the methods to get them is only the first step in your journey. Do you need help building quality backlinks to your site? As an experienced SEO firm, WebFX can create a custom link-building plan for your company that boosts your presence in search, improves your SEO, and increases your site traffic.
