A backlink is simply a link that points back to your site from another site. My site is CourtneyTuttle.com, so when another site on the internet links to CourtneyTuttle.com, they are giving me a backlink.

Backlinks are significant in a few ways. If a webpage links back to your site, it becomes possible for a person to click on that link, giving your site a new visitor. Many sites are able to get thousand of extra hits everyday because they have a very high backlink count.

The Effects Of Backlinks On Search Engines

All of the major search engines use backlinks as part of the criteria they use to determine which sites come up the highest in their search results. It is very possible for webmasters and bloggers to increase their search engine traffic by simply increasing the amount of backlinks they have from other websites. For a more thorough lesson on this concept visit: Offsite Search Engine Optimization - The Effective SEO

Building Backlinks

In order to build backlinks, webmasters and bloggers can use a variety of techniques. If you increase the amount of quality content your site provides to the world, it will get linked to naturally. There are many other methods that can be used to acquire backlinks - visit this page to get some ideas: Link Building Tips.