What are back-links and why are they important
One of the most important ranking factors for Google is back-links. Back-links are links from other websites to yours. Based on the number of back-links and the importance/relevance of the websites they come from, your website could rank better or worse on Google. The more back-links from websites related to your business activity, the better your website will do in Google.
Three ways to get your first back-links:
1. The first handful of back-links could be from your own online profile, your brand, your employees, friends and happy customers! When you search your name on Google make sure it’s linked to your company, your business, your website! Click on each result, and check if you can add a link to the website, or can ask the owner of that page to add a link for you. For example, could you find your LinkedIn profile? Is there a link to your website from that profile? Same with Facebook, add a link to your website from your Facebook profile.
If you find your profile or your name mentioned in a website of a person you know, give them a call, or send them an email and ask them to mention your website as well.
2. Search for your competition. Don’t just search for one of them, because you might find results with mentions from their partners, friends. Search instead for 2-3 competitors at the same time. Are they all mentioned on one website? Then you should be there too.
3. Be social in the right place! Find blogs, groups that have similar interests as you. Comment and share interesting and valuable content and make yourself known as someone worthy to be shared. Start a blog and make sure you add fresh content as often as you can. Content marketing is a great way to generate relevant backlinks and to keep everyone interested in your content
In most of the cases, well … in all the cases after you finish developing your website, this will not come up in the first pages on Google. It could be frustrating, but that’s how it works. You need to let Google know that you exist by trying to engage your awesome content in conversations that create a buzz in the online world. It’s called SEO and building good quality links to your website is as important as seeing your website sitting proudly on the first page on Google. A better ranking means more traffic to your website, more customers and eventually drive more sales.
What Google notes in its site:
”In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”