What is a backlink?

A link to your website from another website
Yes it’s that simple!
So why are good backlinks so important?

#1 They help your site rank well
‍The bedrock of Google’s algorithm is links. Good links signal to search engines that your site has valuable content.‍

#2 They help your site get found
‍The search engine bots that crawl sites, visit popular pages more often than unpopular ones. So…they might find your site faster if it has a link from one of these popular sites.‍

#3 They help you get relevant traffic to your site
‍Links from one site to another points visitors in the direction of relevant or related content which helps in their online journey and help Google connect the dots.

How to know what a good link looks like

They have to be from a site that:

✔️  has relevant content - i.e. something that’s related to your product

✔️  is considered to have ‘authority’ - i.e. it has good quality content

✔️  has a high volume of traffic - i.e. lots of people are interested in the content

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How to check your backlinks

Go to ‘Links’ in Google’s Search Console and look for ‘External links’.

From here, look at the Top linking sites. This will tell you the sites with the most backlinks to your website.

Remember though, it’s about quality as well as quantity. So to check the quality of those links go to moz.com and use the Link Explorer. Follow the steps there. What you want to see are backlinks where the domain authority is the same or higher than your own website.

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Best backlink strategy for eComm brands

So we now know that backlinking is when other site owners, editors, or webmasters link to your website. For this to work, you need to have great content, a clear value proposition and know where your customers are hanging out online. Here’s a guide to one of the top link building tactics for eCommerce businesses…

1. Find relevant sites
   ‍Seek out blogs that are on topic for what you sell or targeted at the same audience as your buyers. This can be as simple as Googling “top blogs for…” and then using variations of your target audience such as “new mums”.
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2. Check their domain authority is 20 or more on moz.com
   ‍This is important as the aim is to drive quality traffic to your business. It’s about quality here not quantity
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3. Find their contact details.
   ‍Do some online stalking and contact the site owner. Their contact details are usually on the site or their social profiles like LinkedIn or Twitter
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4. Reach out and offer to send your product for them to try out and review
   ‍Make their job as easy as possible by providing content and even suggest a specific webpage it could be added to on their site
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5. In return they write nice things about your product, maybe adding a few product images or videos (hint: you should provide them!) and post it on their website, at the same time, linking to your site so the readers can find out more.
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And Voila! A backlink is born!