Thursday, August 27, 2009

Backlinks and Their Important Role on the Internet

I hear this question constantly on the internet recently. Since backlinks play a huge, huge part of how you rank in Google, MSN, etc, then people naturally want to find a fast, easy, and effective way to build backlinks. It has to be a legit way so you don't find yourself banned one way, so you need to trade like a normal exchange, but in an automated way so you're continually hunting down trading partners and changing html code all the time.

Despite what you may hear on the internet, backlinks are still very much alive and highly valued by search engines. The internet is sometimes called the Web because, like in a spider web, one point ( a website) connects to many others. Web sites linking to each other is not only usual, but essential.

The deal with Google and backlinks is that they too agree that backlinks are natural. On-topic backlinks that is. Sites naturally, if there were no incentive due to search engines, link to other websites their visitors would also like. This is an on-topic backlink, and is valued by search engines much more than random backlinks for the sake of having a link.

So, what does this teach us as webmasters?

What it means to us is that while we should keep search engines in our mind when working on websites and designing them, the focus should be users. Provide good material and a good website, and you'll naturally get backlinks and build a relationship with your users. Word of mouth is a very powerful friend indeed.

So, what CAN you can do to build your backlinks?

There are many options you can use to build natural-type backlinks.
1. Write articles. Writing articles(like I am doing now) and having them get out to article directories and other websites means you get free backlinks from good sources. This really helps out, and the more you write, the more gain and traffic you'll see. Write an article a day and you're in great shape.

2. Join an on-the-level link exchange site. This means join one in which every exchange is manually approved, and not one where 10,000 links show up to your site overnight. You can see where that is not a natural curve, so stick with link exchange sites that you choose who you link to/from and stay safe. Another positive note is that the other websites are there looking to exchange also, so it's much faster than searching down websites and waiting weeks for a response.

3. Link directories. This is where you submit your site link, and in return give the directory site a backlink(usually mandatory). Though these aren't too valueable to Google, they still may get you some visitors here and there which is always a good thing.

So, in conclusion, let's come back to the initial question. Do link exchanges work? Absolutely. There are many ways to get legit backlinks (much safer) and that's what you need to concentrate on. The trick is to keep your link partners as close to your topic as you can. The more relevant, the more it weighs.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Backlinks and Traffic - Just Why is it Such a Big Deal?

Nowadays if we want a website to be successful, we have to deal with niche markets, great content, search engine optimization and tremendous competition. And this list is simply the starting point. We will quite possibly need to acquaint ourselves with marketing and copywriting and converting our visitors into buyers. However, for just about every webmaster, the big difficulty is bringing in traffic.

That leads us to the topic of this article. How can I attract Internet surfers to my site? One answer to this question is backlinks! So, exactly what are backlinks and just what do backlinks have to do with attracting visitors to my site?

The first thing to understand is that there are two basic forms of traffic, paid traffic and organic traffic. Examples of paid traffic are such things as advertising through pay per click networks, placing banners on other sites and any other way in which you are able to pay to attract a surfer's attention and tempt him to visit your site. If you're only focusing on paid traffic then you don't need to pay much attention to backlinks.

Organic traffic is traffic that comes from someone searching on one of the search engines for a topic which they are interested in. Then when all the free listings come up the surfer clicks on a link to visit a webpage. In the case of organic traffic the webmaster does not have to pay directly for the link which the visitor clicks on.

In general, organic traffic is simply called free traffic. Despite the fact that it can be, it usually is not really free. To get a website page included on the first couple of pages of results the webmaster will have to put in quite a lot of work. This brings us back to the topic of backlinks.

Generally, the quality and number of backlinks attached to a site are what determines sites which appear when we do a search. A backlink is nothing more than a hyperlink from one site to another. So it is very helpful if you have a whole lot of websites linking to your site if you want to be ranked highly in the organic search engine results.

But remember that quality matters too. A backlink will be seen as offering high quality if:

* The words used to create the hyperlink (called the 'anchor' text) are highly relevant to the topic of the page which the link is leading to. (You should not use "click here"!)

* The topic on the site where the backlink originates is relevant to the topic on your site.

* The site linking to you has plenty of good quality backlinks pointing to it.

* The page rank of the site linking to you is relatively high (ideally a PR3 or more) and the higher the better.

Of course there are other criteria, but the criteria given here are a very good starting point.

So, just how does a webmaster go about building up the necessary quantity of high quality backlinks pointing to his site? There are many ways of doing this and an even greater number of software programs which are designed to assist in providing the answer. Purchasing the software increases the cost of your backlinks.

The truly free way is to simply wait for other webmasters to discover your site and think enugh of it to link to it. That is super, but can take quite a long time. Of course you can contact other webmasters and ask if they will trade links with you. You simply give them a link from your site and they give you one from their site in return. These are however called reciprocal links and are generally thought to be of uncertain value these days.

Another way is to make use of Article Marketing which initially means writing articles about subjects that are relevant to your site. You then submit your articles to several article directory sites and include links of your choice in the resources box following your content. Submitting your website to a number of site directories is another method that fits into the category of free links.

You might also opt to pay for backlinks. One of the simplest methods is to buy a link directly. Internet marketing discussion boards are a very good place to find links on offer. You could pay $50 a month or more to get a link from a PR5 site. You'll get a lot of traffic from it, but you will pay for it. Naturally the lower the PR is then the lower the cost.

Whatever technique you choose, building backlinks is critical to your search engine ranking success. You'll want to acquire hundreds or if possible thousands of them. The important thing is that you get started and build up your links steadily over the months ahead so that you can begin to enjoy a steady and growing flow of traffic to your site.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

How to Get Backlinks That are Quality!

Once you realize just how important backlinks are to your rank in search engines like Google and yahoo you will start wondering about how to get backlinks and more of them! With an estimated 80% of page rank being determined by backlinks it is no wonder this is of prime importance to anyone who needs people to find their website amongst the clutter of the net.

The issue many people ignore in their quest for backlinks is that not all of them are alike. Smart search engines have long ago learned that people will do unscrupulous things on the net to manipulate their methods of determining good websites and have ways of detecting and qualifying good backlinks. A backlink itself is a way to determine if a site is popular as reciprocal links are not as good as webmasters can just "swap links" to gain more links; backlinks go just one way so there is less chance of anything being manipulated for gain.

The other issue with backlinks is quality. For a backlink to be counted by a search engine as good an that will help rank up your site it must fulfill a set of criteria to prove its quality. While search engines do not give out their code on this matter it essentially comes down to three things:


  • Relevance - The site the backlink comes from must have some relevance to your site. Links from sites that are similar to your own will be counted more highly than those from sites that have no relevance to your site.

  • Page Rank - The popularity of the site that the backlink comes from it very important. If a very large popular site links to you it is seen as a bigger endorsement than a bunch of very low page rank sites backlinking you.

  • Originality - The content of the site that backlinks you must also be original content. Google punishes copied material and links from sites that are punished are punished accordingly also.



So now you know what a quality backlink is how do you get more of them? One way is to write articles and link your site from the article that you post on article sites that litter the net. Another tactic is to post in forums with your site in your signature so every time you post you create a backlink. As always if you site is good, well put together and relevant then you will create backlinks from people simply willing to link you and some smart networking can also help. How to get backlinks quickly though is another matter entirely as it is a slow process.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

How to Use Backlinks to Boost Lead Generation

The best way to boost traffic to your site, even better than pay-per-click, is backlinks. Backlinks are links to your site from other web sites all over the internet.

How do you build thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of backlinks? You do it by writing articles, and distributing them to web sites related to your industry.

Backlinks are the Fuel that Drives Traffic

Backlinks drive traffic to your site in two ways. First, you'll always have a link back to your site in the resource box of your articles. A reader interested in visiting your site can click this link to go right to your site, or any page within your site you want to drive them to.

Second, one of the major factors Google looks at when ranking pages is the relevancy of the site. If you have thousands of links to your site Google will deem your site highly relevant. That will rank your site higher, and mean more people will find your site when searching your keywords.

Backlinks are FREE

The beauty of backlinks is that they don't cost you a thing. How much would pay-per-click cost you for highly relevant keywords? They'd cost you a fortune.

To build thousands of backlinks all you have to do is write articles, and distribute them to web sites related to your industry.

Backlinks are Organic

Companies pay millions of dollars for pay-per-click advertising that show their ads at the top of search pages for their keywords. At first, this was brilliant because the average web surfer thought that top ad was really just the most relevant return on their search.

These days the secret is pretty much out. Most people now know those top results are really ads. Most people now look directly to the true, or organic search results.

Backlinks build your relevancy, which in turn raises your page rank. The higher your site ranks, the higher your site appears in actual search results. A top 10 ranking, or PR10, puts your site on the first results page. You're easy to find.

Backlinks from articles are the right kind of backlinks.

You could build lots of backlinks by doing a link exchange, but that's a bad idea. A link exchange is you putting a link to another site on your site in exchange for the other site linking back to you. That's no good because you want thousands of link coming in to your site. If your outgoing links equal or exceed the number of links coming in your relevancy is lost.

Link exchange sites are often not considered credible, and Google and other search engines do not consider them as relevant as an industry web site or blog. Link exchanges will do far more damage to your backlink program than good.

So, you can see just how powerful backlinks really are. Don't be fooled by pay-per-click, SEO, etc. If you want qualified sales leads, write articles, distribute them, and build as many backlinks as possible.

Your buyers will come to you in droves.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Edu Backlinks: the Secrets the Guru's are Keeping From You

Without a doubt getting high quality backlinks to your site is the backbone to search engine optimization. If you want to rank well in Google or any search engine you need quality websites linking to your website.

It tells the search engines that your site must be good if so many other websites are pointing to your site. Many internet marketers are beginning to understand that there is one type of link that is far better than any other type of backlink.

What type of backlinks you ask? Education backlinks better known as .edu backlinks.

Why do the search engines regard edu backlinks as the best on the internet? Great question. .edu backlinks are the most trusted links on the internet because they are from colleges and universities. In the mind of the search engine spiders an education website does not link to just any website, they only link to websites that really have something to offer.

There is a big problem with most education backlinks though. Most education websites now use the nofollow tag with any external link that goes away from their site. They know that there are people out there that will try and exploit their websites because they know that the links they provide to websites are the most powerful for the obvious reasons discussed above.

The nofollow tag basically tells the search engines not to count the backlink on the education website because they might be trying to exploit the education website. Now because of the nofollow tag that is used for most .edu backlinks most marketers don't even bother with trying to get them anymore.

Believe it or not there are many edu websites that can give .edu backlinks to a website that do not use the nofollow tag, these are the websites that internet marketers can still use to gain some very big love the Google and the other search engines.

There are actually people on the internet that work with education websites that will help you get dofollow edu backlinks but it typically costs money for these backlinks. However it should be realized that the cost is normally worth it if used with a solid backliking strategy.

If you ever get the chance to get a dofollow edu backlink from an education website jump on it if you can afford it. It could make all the difference to your search engine optimization efforts.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Inbound Link Building Strategy

Your success on the internet is directly related to how many other sites are linking back to yours. The goal of every webmaster is to get more inbound links. I have listed three simple steps below to automate and multiply the process. Once the process is started you will be getting inbound links while you sleep.

Number One:

Write Articles. It is hard work to write a quality article but you will find it to be a long term strategy for building inbound links that will pay off for years to come in both link popularity and traffic to your website. You may not consider yourself an expert on a particular subject, but if you have a website I'll bet you are an expert on the subject you have chosen for that website. Write an article on the theme of your website and submit it to the various article directories on the internet. Believe it or not, you are an expert. You just haven't realize it yet.

You may experience a feeding frenzy on your article. Why? Simply because webmasters are constantly looking for content. Webmasters are busy designing sites and are able to save time by using expert content from other people. They often create websites with thousands of pages and are in need of content for those sites. And they know where the directories are that will contain your article. Every time your article is picked up by a webmaster, it will result in a link back to your site. In the first few days after I submitted my first article it got pick up and posted 400 times! I was shocked. You will be too!

Number Two:

Signup at a link exchange coop. A link exchange coop can give you more backlinks in a few minutes work than you could ever generate by yourself. You are utilizing a network of thousands of other websites. And thats what the internet is, a huge network. Take advantage of the power of networking. There are many link exchanges. One well known link exchange coop is: . Depending on the size and pagerank of your site, you could earn 1000 inbound links or more my adding a few lines of code to your website. Do some research and find the one that will bring the greatest benefit to your site.

Number Three:

Automate the reciprocal linking process by utilizing reciprocal linking software. Do not spend hours upon hours emailing webmasters and posting reciprocal links to your site. Simple buy a reciprocal link script, set it up at your website and it will process the links, add them to your website and then it will monitor to make sure each webmaster has posted your link to his/her website. This will free up your time to do something more important like writing articles. To find inexpensive software to automate the reciprocal linking process, simply go to eBay and type in the search phrase "reciprocal linking popularity software".

Rather than doing things the same old way, try these three steps. They will save you countless hours. By using these time savers you will be much more efficient in getting backlinks and you will also get hundreds, maybe even thousands more than you ever thought possible.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

How to Get 100 Free PR Backlinks

The importance of generating backlinks to increase Page rank can not be emphasized any more, it is absolutely mandatory. Once you start your backlink building campaign, you will find that it can be a difficult task if you don't know which direction to take.

The traditional way to acquire backlinks is to search the internet for websites with a high PR that share the same or similar interest with your own and ask them for a reciprocal link. A reciprocal link is an link exchange between two website owners where each party agree to place each others links on their websites. The problem that occurs when searching for reciprocal links is, if you are just starting out, then your page rank will probably be zero. Most sites that are already established do not gain any incentive to exchange links with you.

The other alternatives to finding established sites to link is to get a little creative in order to build some backlinks. We all know that Web 2.0 social networking sites have bombarded the internet, but what most people do not realize is that they are a great source of high Pr backlinks. You can set up an account with several networks, submit a blog with a link to your website and voila!; you have created a quality backlink to your website.

Another source for acquiring backlinks that usually goes unnoticed are RSS feeds. You can use RSS feed for a variety of reasons. One reason is to receive great exposure for your website or blog. Once you submit your website to an RSS Feed Directory your feed can be subscribe to by numerous readers, thus creating great exposure for your website. RSS feeds are also a great backlinks tool, you can not only generate backlinksevery time your RSS feed is subscribe to, but you will also get free backlinks from each RSS feed directory you use to submit your website.

For best results submit to about 15 directories at a time to spread the amount of traffic you will receive. Spreading your traffic will also help with you Google ranking. The search engines rank websites with consistent traffic higher. You also do not want to generate too many backlinks too fast, as to not raise any eyebrows with Google.