Backlinks are any links from other websites thatgo to your website.
This is important as search spiders have more opportunities to find the information on your site, as other sites are pointing at it, linking to it. Essentially saying, “this site is a good source of information”. Or, at least, that’s the idea.
When you have several sites linking to your website for similar reasons, or for different topics, that’s even better. However, what you don’t want are backlinks coming from a source that is strictly designed for linking, or link farming. Often these sites are a type of directory website, where you can submit your domain, select a category, and voila a backlink is created. This is an example of a “black-hat” backlink, although bad links can come in other forms too.
What you really want is a backlink coming from a highly authoritative website. Such as a well-known newspaper or a creditable blog site, like Reddit, or a local business that you are associated with. Backlinks need to come from a reputable source that is relevant to your industry. These types of backlinks take real work. Authoritative websites are well aware of their ability to influence their reader and the web. A high-quality, authoritative backlink begins with developing a rapport with the business or information source you would like to have an incoming link from.
Developing quality content on a reputable source is another way of creating quality backlinks. Although you, the owner of your website may be the author of the content, that's just fine. If your content is coming from another authoritative source, that's a quality backlink. Even better is if your content ranks on that referring source. As page rank is passed along.