What’s a backlink, and why should you care?

I used to go fishing in this little pond by my place. It was full of trout and bass, and with every cast I was pretty much guaranteed a trophy.  No matter what lure I used, I’d catch something. There might have been others who fished the pond, but we rarely saw each other.

Fast forward a few years, and the pond is now packed with people trying to catch the same fish. The fish have gotten smarter, too. They aren’t tempted by just any old lure – they need the right smell, the right colour, and the right timing to be tempted to check out my line, and that still isn’t enough to reliably hook one. Now, you need to have multiple lines in various parts of the pond to have a realistic and reliable chance at bringing enough home to feed the family.

Backlinks are essentially your fishing lines in the internet pond. 

When a website creates a link to your website, it’s a signal to Google and the other search engines that your content is valuable. And the more sites that link back to you, the more valuable the content. If a high-ranking authoritative site links back to your content, that brings even more value. But getting backlinks is difficult – you have to create quality content and then push it out to an audience who will help push it further through their networks.

You can have the best article in the world, but if nobody sees it, nobody will share it. In the early days of your content strategy, much of your content isn’t going to get the link-love it deserves, but it’s important to keep creating as the work you do today will help grow your business tomorrow, next month, and next year. And when you’ve expanded your audience and built your site’s reputation, you’ll find it’s far easier to get backlinks because you are the authority in your space. So how do you get backlinks when you’re getting started? Create, promote, and share what you’re posting today, and follow some of these tips from SEO-expert Julian Goldie to learn how to improve your ranking without backlinks.

Adding this to your content strategy today will help you build a boatload of backlinks, which will help your business next week, next month, and next year. You don’t have to do it yourself – give us a call, we can help.