What are Backlinks?
Backlinks are links on other websites pointing at your website. Without adequate links pointing at your website it will likely never achieve higher keyword ranking.How to Find Good Backlinks
Website ranking involves more than just putting your website online. The old addage, "Build it and they will come" is no longer true. In order to find good backlinks you need to not only have quality content on your website but also focus on getting good backlinks but also relevant backlinks. The kind of links you gather and where the link is placed on the other site will also determine the amount of traffic you get and your ranking in the search engines.Google and Yahoo rank websites according to how many quality backlinks they find pointing at your website. Quality is determined by how relevant the other site is to your site and where the link is placed on their page (within the content is best) and how many other links are on the page (less is better). A large number of links pointing at your site does not guarantee success. You need quality backlinks in order to rise to the first page of results and the more you can find the better. The best way to encourage people to link to your content is to provide information that is useful to your visitors, like "how to find backlinks".
Also see SEO TIPS for more linking ideas.
What are Quality Backlinks?
- Your link on a site with high PR (page rank)
- Your link on a page with few other links
- Your link within the content of the page (not the footer or sidebars)
- A link from a relevant site
An occasional, relevant link trade is ok and having to buy a link in Yahoo directory or another directory that is human reviewed where you have to pay for the review (and not the submission) is OK, but anything in exess can cause you problems with your ranking in Google because they can tell when link gathering is not normal as it keeps a record of your link profile.
Google is having to do this due to too many finding some new trick that helps their keyword rank (like hidden text) and then everyone else follows suit and then Google has to clamp down on that practice — until next time someone comes up with a "bright idea" to boost their ranking.
So anything you do to try and manipulate your rank in Google can draw a red flag and your site could be banned, penalized or have your keyword rank filtered out, i.e., you won't be able to rank for anything no matter what you do.
Best Linking Practice
The best, and easiest, method to gather links is to provide something on your website that people will want to link to, i.e., if you build bridges offer free bridge building plans, if you sell dessert products offer free recipies of products you don't offer, if you provide a service write up a FAQ about your service, etc. You can also provide a service or product for free if they will provide a backlink to your site . On LWD, I provide a lot of HTML tips, Css Tips, graphics tutorials and articles onkeyword ranking and other topics which bring in a lot of my traffic and backlinks without my even asking.Finding Backlinks For Your Website
Find friends, businesses, individuals, or organizations who are willing to link to your website as soon as it's online, then you won't need to submit to search engines because the search engines can find your link on a site they have indexed already. Some of them may require a link trade but try to get mostly one-way links.How to Find Good Backlinks
Google uses age of the site, backlinks as well as PR to rank sites (along with many other factors) so, unless you want to PayPerClick for the life of the site, you need to gather a lot of links and write a lot of content to get rank as high as possible as it's doubtful that your competitors will be sitting still and doing nothing.Look for websites relevant to what your site offers but have a different focus, i.e., submit to a gardening site if you sell garden tools.
Another way to find good backlinks is to search for your major keyword in your favorite search engine and take note of which of your competitors is ranking highest. Then search for their domain name and look for sites that have accepted their link then try and submit your website there also.
Other Methods of Getting Good Backlinks
- Find Directories in Your Own Niche Submit to directories in your own niche, i.e., if you sell or offer information about vitamins then look for directories focused on health products.
- Free Submission Directories If you aim for free submissions from directories you may need to request about 10 times as many backlinks as you actually need as very few free links are accepted by directories claiming to accept free submissions. They do this so they won't be penalized for only offering paid links. When submitting, change your anchor text (title of your site) frequently so there is a wide variety of keywords to rank for, however you will probably have to pay for anything other than your official site name.
Also see:
Directories that Pass PR
and
Directories to Avoid - Write Articles Write quality articles related to the focus of your website and submit to other sites that accept guest writers. Provide a link within the article to your site related to the focus in the article -- not necessarily your home page. Do NOT post the same article on your own website or you may be penalized for duplicate content.
- Submit Press Releases Only submit press releases when you have a valid reason for one--any new development on your site or an original focus with your products that the customers on the press release will be interested in.
- Blogging Post messages in blogs related to the topic of your site with a link to your website within the post where appropriate. Be sure the links are not "no followed".
- Participate in Forums Find forums related to your website's focus and post often so you will get noticed and build up trust so people will click on the link in your profile or signature and possibly link to your site from their own site or in other forums showing where they found valuable information. Most forums now put a rel="nofollow" on all outgoing links so this may not benefit you with ranking but may bring some traffic.
