ebizadvice - Internet Marketing

Backlinks sometimes called ‘page links’ are key to the visibility of your web pages in the search engines and attracting visitor traffic. Backlinks have three key properties, the source from which the backlinks come from, the anchor text of the backlinks and the content of the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.

The number of backlinks

Most search engines look at the volume of backlinks to a page when deciding where this page should be presented in the search results.

The origin of the backlinks

The pages from which backlinks originate pass ‘authority’ and visitors to the page to which the backlinks point. But ‘votes’ cast through backlinks from trusted or authoritative pages to a page have greater influence over the search engines consideration 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

Backlinks from web pages with high page rank (a ‘reward’ given by Google to any page that it considers over a period to have attracted, sustained and continued to accumulate relevant backlinks) pass some of their page rank via the backlink to the target page.

The ‘anchor text’

Just like a label, the backlink anchor text influences the search engines valuation of the backlink. 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

It’s not unusual for novices to confuse the quantity with the quality of backlinks and easily be perplexed by their lack of progress Having a substantial amount of backlinks to your page doesn’t necessarily mean the search engines will see your page as relevant.

How to create backlinks

So let me share with you my fail safe method for acquiring backlinks that will make the search engines take notice of you and bring quality and relevant traffic to your web pages.

1. It is critical you select the right keywords before you expend any effort whatsoever.
2. Your objective should be to end up with a keyword cloud.
3. You should always start by identifying a key word or phrase which has a good traffic.
4. To work out how much visitor traffic is being generated by searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
5. The Google tool puts together a list of keywords associated with my main keyword and from this list I grow my cloud.
6. From this cloud I create a selection of content containing articles, videos and blog posts each with backlinks embedded with the related anchor text and then use a portfolio of content distribution tools to push my materials to a group of directories.
7. When I author content I do so with the visitor in mind so as each piece of content attracts backlinks to itself as well as sends backlinks to my target pages.