Backlinks: The dummies guide
Often called off page links, backlinks are the sledgehammer of search engine positioning and traffic generation. Backlinks have three key elements, the web page from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to.
The number of backlinks
Just about all of the search engines consider the quantity 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 originating 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 awards to a page it considers to have a history of accumulating authority from backlinks..
The ‘anchor text’
When you see a backlink on a web page it often 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 award 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 results related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.
Common issues
It’s not unusual for newbies to confuse the quantity with the quality of backlinks and easily be frustrated by their lack of progress For example if a significant number of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page come from pages not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost always bring you the wrong visitors.
How to manufacture backlinks
So here is my tried and tested guidance for getting backlinks to your pages, good visibility in the search engine results pages and quality traffic to your site.
- It is critical you select the right keywords before you expend any effort whatsoever.
- I always set out to put together a keyword cloud.
- I always start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has substantial visitor traffic.
- To uncover the volume of visitor traffic is being generated by searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
- The Google tool presents a list of keywords connected to my main keyword and from this list I flesh out my cloud.
- I then put together 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.
- When I write my content I do so with the searcher in mind so as each piece of content attracts backlinks to itself as well as sends backlinks to my target pages.
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