back links

For any web page to be ‘ranked’ in the search engines and attract searchers it’s essential it has backlinks. Backlinks have three key properties, the web page from which the backlinks are derived, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.

The quantity of backlinks

The number of backlinks to a page is one of the key properties the search engines consider when deciding how to position the page in the results displayed to the searcher.

The source of the backlinks

The source of a backlink can pass authority and indeed visitors to the page to which it points. So it follows that pages with backlinks from authoritative pages will receive a much higher value consideration from the search engines. Pages from sources such as educational (.edu) or government (.gov) sites naturally are attributed with more trust and authority.

Google Page Rank

Google has the concept of ‘page rank’, this is the value indicator it attributes to a page it considers to have accumulated authority over time from backlinks pointing towards it.

The ‘anchor text’

When you see a backlink on a web page it often has a label a word or text associated with the subject at the page to which this backlink is pointing, what this ‘anchor text’ says has influence upon the value the search engines give to the link. If the content of the page is about ‘parenting’ and the backlink on the page is labeled or given the ‘anchor’ text ‘parenting’ then the search engines consider this to be of more value to the searcher looking for sites related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.

Common mistakes

The majority people undermine their backlinks strategies because they fixate on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. Having a substantial number of backlinks to your page doesn’t automatically mean the search engines will see your page as relevant.

How to build backlinks

So here is my risk free guidance for getting backlinks to your pages, good visibility in the search engine results pages and quality traffic to your web pages.

  1. Selecting the right keywords from the outset is essential.
  2. Your objective should be to manufacture a keyword cloud.
  3. You should always begin by identifying a key word or phrase which has a good traffic.
  4. The fastest and cheapest method to find out how much traffic a keyword or key phrase is getting is to use the Google keywords discovery tool.
  5. I look at words and search phrases related to my ‘top’ level phrase and create my ‘cloud’.
  6. Using this cloud I put together a library of content containing articles, videos and blog posts each with backlinks labeled with the appropriate anchor text and then use a portfolio of content distribution systems to disperse my materials to a group of directories.
  7. When I author content I do so with the reader in mind so as each piece of content attracts backlinks to itself as well as sends backlinks to my target pages.

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Filed under: Marketing and Advertising

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