Backlinks: The Key to Search Engine Traffic

Introduction

Statistics show that 90% of new online business fail. SEO (search engine optimization) experts will tell you backlinks are one the most important factors in a website’s success. Having quality backlinks pointing back to your site is critical to how much search engine traffic Google will send your way.

Considering this, what is a backlink? All of us have read internet articles that have clickable words highlighted in blue or some other color.  By double-clicking on the highlighted word, you are connected to a different webpage. This is called a hyperlink. Like a hyperlink, a backlink connects one website to another. Backlinks are also called incoming links, in links, inward links, and inbound links.

Google and other search engines consider each backlink as a popularity vote for your website. The more popularity votes, the higher your page rank. The higher the page rank, the higher the search engine ranking. The higher the search engine ranking, the more traffic. Consequently, more traffic means more money for your website if it is monetized.

Types of Backlinks

Although backlinks are important, some backlinks are more important than others. Three types of backlinks are:

• One-way links. One site links to another without a reciprocal link in return. Google values these links the most.
• Reciprocal links. Two websites link to each other.
• Three-way links. Three or more websites link to each other. This is also called a webring.

One-way links are considered the most valuable. In these cases, a webmaster is linking to your site because he/she finds the site valuable. Reciprocal and three-way links are not as valuable since they are associated more with fraud. Therefore, if you use a reciprocal or three-way link, all links need to be relevant.

How to Get Backlinks

Now that we understand backlinks, how do we get them? Remember in high school Economics when they taught “there are no free lunches?” The same is true for backlinks. Regardless of the methods you employ to acquire backlinks, all of them are hard work.

To increase your search engine rank and page rank, you need to have more quality links than your competitors. Quality back links have relevancy and page rank. The backlinks should be relevant to the site’s content. For instance, if your website is about is about diabetes, a backlink from a site on car parts is not relevant. Furthermore, when a site has a higher page rank, it is deemed to have more authority. Thus, it is a more valuable vote for your website. Some ways of acquiring quality backlinks are:

• Quality content. Over and over again, SEO experts will tell you if you write quality content, other websites will naturally want to link to your site. Although this is true, it is harder to attract backlinks if your site is new and has minimal traffic. Therefore, if you want to increase your search engine rank and traffic, you need to employ other methods too.
• Social bookmarks. Social bookmarks are a website that stores and organizes your favorite webpages for your own purposes and to share with others. Through the use of the site’s search engine, tagged or keyword content, and user rankings, your webpages not only receive a backlink but they gain exposure to other social bookmark members. Some examples of social bookmarks are Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Propellor. Just remember, when you are submitting your own webpages, be sure to submit other webpages too. Otherwise, the sites will view you as spamming.
• Other relevant websites. Contact other theme-related websites and ask if they would like to link to your website. This may be difficult since webmasters may not be as likely to give backlinks since it has no benefit to them.
• Article directories. An article directory is a website that contains a wide vareity of articles submitted by authors and businesses. When submitting an article, you can link back to your website. However, when you submit an article, do not submit the exact article on your website. The article will need to be rewritten. Otherwise, Google will consider it duplicate content. Some of the more popular article directories are: Ezine and Goarticles.
• Forum posts and blog comment posts. When you post on a forum, be sure your website’s url is attached to your signature. Furthermore, post relevant and helpful comments. Otherwise, you comment will be considered spamming. In this case, spamming is where you comment only to promote your website.
• Yahoo Answers. When answering a request for YahooAnswers, you can leave a link pointing back to your website or webpage if your comment is relative to your site.
• Social Networking. A social network is community of online users where you can make connections with other members and/or share interests. Through listing your website on your profile page, your website is exposed to new people, and they may link to you. Some examples of these are Facebook, Classmates, and Myspace,
• Linkbaiting - Linkbaiting is a style of writing where your article is so useful to readers that they will want to link to the article.

Backlinks to Avoid

Although backlinks are important, it pays to be selective when acquiring them. Just as there are good backlinks, there are also bad links. Google does not penalize a website for inbound links since you have not control, however, they can penalize you for your outbound links. Some examples of backlinks to avoid are:

• Bad neighborhoods. Bad neighborhoods are websites that try use unethical practices to increase their rank or harm your website. If you have too many links to these type of sites, you are penalized. Just like the cliche, Google assumes birds of a feather flock together. Some examples of bad neighborhoods are: sites with a large amount of spyware or malware, or sites with illegal material.
• Scraper sites. Websites that use an automated means to take content off other websites without permission or giving credit for the work.
• Link farms. A link farm is a website that has many irrelevant links for the purpose of building page rank.
• Sites with all back links having high PRs. Your site should have a few lower page rank sites too.Otherwise, the search engines think all the links are being bought or intentionally sought to increase your page rank. Google wants to backlinks given because the other site thinks your content is helpful to their own site.
• Too many reciprocal links - Reciprocal links don't look as natural as one-way links.
• Too many back links when the website or webpage is new. - It takes time for a new site to build up traffic. Consequently, if your site is new, how would you get so many backlinks in the beginning if they were natural. Search engines may be suspicious of the linking activity. The site may be connected with a link farm.
• Websites that host their links on a separate link page. Separate link pages are viewed less valuable than contextual links within the body of a content page with key word anchor text.
• Links with the same description. The descriptions should be varied. If the descriptions are varied, the search engines will think it is the webmasters themselves who chose to display your links.

Conclusion

If you want your website to succeed, backlinks are crucial. Quality backlinks mean a higher page rank and more money. Since natural backlinks are given because the linking website finds the information on your site helpful to their readers and relevant to their information, it is very imporatant that the backlinks are relevant and look natural. Although it is understandable that a website will seek as many backlinks as possible, anything that doesn't look relelvant or natural will appear to be manipulated.

Because of all the unspoken rules, acquiring backlinks can be hardwork, but, it is well worth the effort. However, while you're trying to build backlinks, keep in mind, the quality of the backlinks are even more important than the quantity. Therefore, if you want to succeed, be selective in your link-building compaign. Two of the most important factors in SEO are writing quality content and acquiring quality backlinks.