What Are Backlinks? What are backlinks and why they are so important for an online business is one of the main questions that we get asked. Followed on by "How do i get backlinks to my business?" i suppose. So in this podcast episode we will focus on the key elements that make a great backlink, and why for most online businesses they should form part of your monthly strategy. Lets start with explaining in the simplest terms what a backlink is as the success of your business could depend on them. The Simplest Concept For Understanding Backlinks Imagine that you have been given a balloon by a friend to blow up for a birthday party. You take the balloon with all the enthusiasm you can muster and start to blow with all your might. No matter what you do the balloon won't inflate more than a fraction. It stays lifeless and limp in your hand, whilst you are red faced and defeated by the effort. Well when we start building an online business our fledgling enterprise is just like that balloon. It wont be getting much traffic, sales, customers, eyes whatever, as it will be bouncing along the Google ranks two inches off the floor. Now imagine you got a hundred other businesses to blow into your balloon. Suddenly you have momentum and your business will gain from the SEO boost that they have given you. You take off because those other sites have linked to you, and through that link Google says "Ok. these other sites think this business is worth talking about...lets push it up the rankings" Its the backlinks or inlinks that have made all the difference. Or said in another way, every time someone links your URL to theirs, your balloon will start to rise and reap the rewards. What Types of Backlinks are Valuable? Now back in the day this question would never have been worth answering as it was a numbers game. Get as many people linking to your business and it's game on. So business owners would ignore building quality backlinks into their strategies, and instead went to as many spammy sites as they can. Whenever you could leave a comment or review where there was a chance to add their URL, people would bash out as many as they could and do very well. However, Google started thinking about their definition of "what are backlinks" and decided that it should be all about relevance and authority. Now we are getting into the nuts and bolts building a backlink strategy and there is no getting away from the fact that Google are right. By looking at how established a website is, by scoring it from 1 - 100 you are well on your way to only having to get a few top quality backlinks to make a big difference to your success. Lets give you an example to make things easier. Trait #1: Authority Sites Are The One To Go For At the time of writing this article Join Up Dots has a domain authority of around 49 from a possible 100, which for a podcast is pretty good. The BBC has a domain authority of 95, almost a perfect score. So it would make sense that we should try to get a programme, article or radio show to do a piece on podcasting whilst mentioning us as a reputable source of information. They are saying to the world "Join Up Dots are highly recommended" and Google takes notice of the powerful backlink they have given us. So when you are sitting thinking What are backlinks, then you have to think reputable, high ranking businesses, that add to my authority. Don't go spammy and aim for quantity, instead be strategic and work on approaching other top sites for potential linking opportunities Why Are Backlinks Important? Now by this time you should have understood why understanding in links or incoming links as they are also called is very important for your success. They are a big tick in the box from other peoples businesses that they want to tell the world about your own through their businesses. But we can go deeper than this and tell you why some backlinks can actually harm your business, whilst others are amazingly important. So we already mentioned the