Backlinks: A concise overview
For any web page to be ‘ranked’ in the search engines and attract searchers it’s critical it has backlinks. Backlinks have three key elements, the web page from which the backlinks come from, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to.
The amount of backlinks
The majority of search engines consider the amount of backlinks to a web page when deciding where this page should appear in the search results.
The origin of the backlinks
Backlinks are like votes with different ‘rights’ that relate to where they originate from But ‘votes’ cast through backlinks from trusted or authoritative pages to a page have greater influence over the search engines view of this page than backlinks originating from pages with less ‘trust’ or authority. Government (.gov) and educational (.edu) sites are real examples of sites that are authoritative and trustworthy.
Google Page Rank
Google has the concept of ‘page rank’, this is the property it attaches to a page it considers to have a history of accumulating authority from backlinks..
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 web pages related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.
Common problems
Many people mess up their backlinks strategies because they focus on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. For instance if all of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page originate from pages not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost always bring you the wrong traffic.
How to build backlinks
So let me tell you my fail safe method for getting backlinks that will make the search engines love you and bring the right type and appropriate traffic to your web site.
- Discovering the right keywords from the start is critical.
- Your objective should be to manufacture a keyword cloud.
- I most often start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has significant visitor traffic.
- To work out how much visitor traffic is being coming from searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
- The Google tool builds a list of keywords connected to my main keyword and from this list I grow my cloud.
- I then create content in the form of articles and videos containing backlinks with the correct ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and disperse these to the various directories.
- My golden rule is to author content that will attract visitors and persuade them to follow the backlinks to my money pages as well as send backlinks.