A backlink is a link from a website to your website. Think of it as someone recommending on your site.

For example, if I point a link like this to law firm, Kim Tzin (who's a Daily CMO client), that's a backlink from Daily CMO to Kim Tzin.

The more backlinks you have pointing to your site, the higher it'll rank on search engines.

That's it.

Google's algorithm – PageRank, determines the quality of content by seeing if other websites refer to the content or site.

Here are two ways you can check. Yes, they're free.

Limited use, but enough for a start.

Ubersuggest

Analyze your site, then head down to backlinks. Limited use on the free plan.

Great that you asked!

Not all backlinks are equal. For example, if an adult or casino site linked to you, what does that tell Google? Not very good, I suppose.

SEO professionals analyze backlinks for some reasons, including:

  • So they can disavow backlinks from thrash, low-authority sites.
  • Find opportunities by partnering up with sites already linking to them.
  • Analyze their competitor's backlinks.
  • Study ranking difficulty by analyzing their competition's backlink.

Remember I said that backlinks aren't equal?

Links from social media, forums, and blog comments back to your site are considered no-follow links – which means that while it's a backlink, it adds no weight in terms of ranking. Google sees it but doesn't consider that as a ranking signal.

Sorry, my friend. Spamming your website URL in Facebook groups isn't going to help your ranking. All that's going to do is to get some people angry.

When you hear SEO professionals (they call themselves "SEOs") or SEO companies use the word "link-building", they are referring to building backlinks for your site.

Well, here's the real answer.

You don't. You don't build backlinks.

Instead of searching for "how to build backlinks" on Google, focus on building something amazing. Make it so amazing that people on the internet love it so much, that want to link back to you naturally without you even asking for it.

Here are some ideas:

Build a free tool

Did you notice? I actually "back-linked" to two tools in this post. Scroll back up.

Yes, that's right. I recommended Ahrefs and Ubersuggest in this post, and have "backlinked" to them.

How did this happen? That's because they've built useful tools and I naturally shared a link back to them.

Here's another example of a free tool that I like: Car loan calculator by Perodua

Write guest posts

Honestly, this strategy feels a little dated.

But I still receive guest post requests for my blog every day, so it must be working for these people, right?

No Tayyab, your approach sucks - and I'll never post your content.

Turns out – they are mostly SEO agencies in the process of "building links" for their clients.

I turn down 95% of them, but once in a while, I come across a guest post submission that's so good & personalized to ignore and end up posting the guest post and linking back to the creator.

Collaborate on content

This is by far my favorite way to build backlinks, although I don't do it for backlinks – and more to connect with others through content.

With this strategy, you reach out to other content creators or business owners – and request to interview, feature, or create content focused around them.

This is what we do a lot at Daily CMO. We interview marketers and founders.

Once you publish the content, the person you created the content about will likely repost and share it on their site and social media – earning you a backlink.

Everybody wins.

At the end of the day, it's best to get backlinks naturally.

That's what makes the internet a better place. Can you imagine if the internet was filled with garbage that ranked, thanks to the work of selfish SEOs.

Focus on building great stuff, share them in public and you should get your backlinks.

Lastly, don't hire any SEO agency that says they'll "build you backlinks". What they'll probably do is send guest posts emails to random content sites, just like the example I showed you above.

This is your last call to save – on a smart digital business card.

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