The layman’s guide to back links
Sometimes referred to as inbound links, backlinks are the oxygen of search engine positioning and traffic generation. Backlinks have three key properties, the source from which the backlinks are derived, the anchor text of the backlinks and the content of the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.
The number of backlinks
The majority of search engines take into account the number of backlinks to a page when deciding where this page should be presented in the search results.
The origin of the backlinks
Backlinks are like votes with different ‘rights’ that are derived from where they originate from But ‘votes’ cast through backlinks from trusted or authoritative pages to a page have greater influence over the search engines perception of this page than backlinks coming from pages with less ‘trust’ or authority. 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 notion of ‘page rank’, this is the property 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 normally has a label a word or text associated with the information 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 issues
It’s not unusual for novices to confuse the quantity with the quality of backlinks and become quickly frustrated by their lack of progress For instance if most of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page come from sites not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost always bring you the wrong visitors.
How to create backlinks
So let me tell you my no nonsense method for acquiring backlinks that will make the search engines love you and bring quality and appropriate traffic to your web pages.
- Initially you should focus on selecting the correct keywords.
- I like to create a keyword ‘cloud’.
- I always start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has significant visitor traffic.
- 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.
- The Google tool generates a list of keywords connected to my main keyword and from this list I flesh out my cloud.
- I then create content in the form of articles and videos in which I have embedded backlinks with the right ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and disperse these to the various directories.
- My guiding principle is to author content that will attract visitors and persuade them to follow the backlinks to my target pages as well as send backlinks.
Tagged with: backlinks • internet marketing • link building • search engine marketing • seo • traffic building
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