Backlinks are one of the strongest signals to search engines that your website is worth visiting, but only when they come from relevant and trustworthy sources. The article explains why quality, relevance, and natural referrals matter more than quantity, and how backlinks should work in conjunction with your overall SEO efforts, user experience, and any international presence to truly enhance your organic visibility.
Backlinks in SEO
Backlinks are still one of those things in SEO that some people over-romanticize while others completely ignore them. Both can be costly. A backlink is simply a link from another website to yours, and when relevant sites choose to link to you, search engines interpret it as a signal of credibility and relevance. It’s not a guarantee for top rankings, but it can make a noticeable difference, especially in e-commerce where many are competing for the same customers.
What are backlinks?
A backlink can be seen as a recommendation, but only if it comes from a source that makes sense. A random blog with thin content is rarely a recommendation. It's noise that, at best, provides nothing, and at worst, can harm your efforts.
When you work with backlinks, you are essentially dealing with two fundamental elements:
- Relevance: How closely the sender's content aligns with your topic and your products.
- Authority: How trustworthy the sender domain appears over time, typically because others also link to it.
If you want to read Google's own guidelines, you can start in Google Search Central's documentation on links.
Link building strategy that aligns with the business
Link building without a strategy often ends up as a pile of links to the homepage and a feeling of progress in a spreadsheet. A good link building strategy starts with identifying which pages should actually succeed and why they are important for the business.
In most webshops, it often makes sense to prioritize the following page types before chasing volume:
- Category pages that can rank for commercial searches and lead to purchases
- Guides and content that deserve links because they help the target audience make a decision.
- Landing pages for campaigns and collections when they have lasting relevance and can be reused strategically.
When link building is meant to create growth, it must align with the rest of your digital efforts. It's the same logic as in digital transformation, where channels, data, and experience are interconnected so that the impact can be felt on the bottom line. You can read more about our approach to digital transformation at Mercive.
Quality backlinks and natural backlinks
Quality backlinks are rarely the ones you can acquire the fastest. The best links arise because your content, expertise, or business is genuinely worth referring to. Natural backlinks typically come from mentions, collaborations, PR, and environments where you already have a legitimate role.
Here are examples of sources that can often create natural and relevant links:
- Industry media and news sites where you are quoted or mentioned
- Podcasts and interviews where your brand or case is mentioned in the show notes.
- Supplier networks and partner pages where it makes sense to be listed.
- Resource lists and guides where your content addresses a specific need.
A practical rule of thumb is that the link should fit into the text without feeling like an advertisement. If you would roll your eyes as a reader, it’s likely that search engines won’t consider the link valuable either.
If you want a clear overview of what Google considers manipulative link practices, you can read their guidelines on link schemes.
Shopify SEO and backlinks for e-commerce
Backlinks work best when your Shopify webshop can handle the extra traffic. If the shop is slow, cluttered, or difficult to navigate, you end up paying for attention that you can't convert. Therefore, link building and Shopify SEO should be viewed as a holistic game, where authority creates visibility, while UX, performance, and clear messaging drive sales.
It is often beneficial to get a handle on the foundation before scaling your link-building efforts. Speed optimization is one of the most direct improvements, as it can both impact user experience and make organic traffic more valuable. Read more about speed optimization at Mercive.
At the same time, internal link building is important because it helps search engines understand which pages are the most important and how the content is connected. If you build external links to a guide, but the guide does not pass authority to the right categories or products, you lose some of the effect.
Backlinks and international SEO
When you operate in multiple markets, link building changes character. You can rarely copy a Danish link profile and expect the same effect in other countries. Local links from local media and communities are often more relevant than generic, international directories.
At the same time, the structure, language versioning, and internal linking must be clean, so that the links you receive actually elevate the right pages in the right market. If you are working with multiple countries, it makes sense to consider backlinks as part of your international expansion. You can read more about international expansion at Mercive.
If you want advice on how backlinks fit into your Shopify SEO, please contact us at contact@mercive.com or call at+45 61 60 29 83.
