Backlink Mysteries Uncovered

What are backlinks? They are the links on other people's websites that link back to your website. They are important because search engines access how important your website is by the number and quality of back links that your website has from other sources.

Low rankings in the search engines means one of two things. The first is that your site is not very SEO friendly (Search Engine Optimized). But if you have taken care to build your site properly and have added plenty of unique and valuable content, then you need to look at your off page SEO. Backlinks are an important way of telling the search engines that your website has great content and is a valuable resource. When the search engines see that everyone else likes your content they will want to promote it within their own listings - after all, they don't want their customers not finding the best content!

There are as many ways of getting backlinks for your website as there are ways of creating content on the Internet. Every where you go on the Internet you leave a virtual footprint. You just want to make sure that the footprint you leave always points back to your website. Signatures on forums, articles, blogs, and social media should all be pointing back to your website.

Not all backlinks are created equal in the eyes of the search engines. One way that they distinguish between links is to look at the site that is linking to your website. If that site has only been online a few day and has no other content, the search engines could be forgiven for thinking this link isn't worth very much. However if NASA or Harvard Business School thinks your website is worth linking to, then it could be fair to assume that your information is pretty good (and this is how the search engines think too). Not to say that if 1000 people suddenly start talking about your website that it might be worth mentioning too, so do not over-look the value of many ordinary links.

Two-way, or reciprocal linking as it is also called, is another way to get links to your website. This way is generally not regarded by the search engines to be as valuable when it comes to ranking. Don't worry that these links will hurt you, they won't. They just won't help as much as if the outside links to your website are not reciprocated - one way links. This is a measure to help prevent people clouding the search results by linking to every site in every niche in return for a link back.

How other websites link back to you is also important. If the hyper text (the clickable text) is just the name of your website then that gives the search engine spider no clue as to why the website is linking to you - seach engine spiders/bots are not very smart. But if the website was to use the hyper text "Best Dog Biscuits" than that could be much better: if you were selling Dog biscuits. The search engine would now know that any one search for the best dog biscuits would probably be interested in your website. So when you create links back to your website it best to learn how to link using the best keywords that you want your site to rank for in the search engines.

One myth that a lot of people concern themselves with when building backlinks is "No Follow" verses "Do Follow." These are coding instructions written specifically for the search engine spiders. It tells the spiders how to treat links with regard to PR (page rank). A do follow link allows the search engines to give some of the original page's value to the page it is linking to. It all sounds complicated, and it is. But for the purposes of building search engine credibility it is not something that you need to worry about. A no follow link will help you as much as a do follow link - and any difference is certainly not worth spending the time to differentiate between them. In the time it takes to find a do follow link, your competition has posted 10 links and they will out rank you.

To recap some of the points about backlink building. It is the most important part of your off page SEO campaign. The quality of the site that is linking to your website, and the quality of the anchor text that they use are the two biggest keys in backlink building for SEO. Once you have that established it comes down to who has the most backlinks. You can check out the number of backlinks that your competition has by using free tools that you will find with a search on your favorite search engine. Although they do not return an exactly accurate figure, they will give you some idea of the numbers involved (it may surprise you).

Because backlink building is so time consuming and, lets face it, a painfully boring part of website promotions a lot of people outsource this work to others. This leaves them free to be doing the important part of website creation, coming up with great ideas and adding unique and valuable content. This after all is what people want, and they are the ones who spend money, not search engines. If you want generate thousands of backlinks while you sleep I recommend using outsource professionals like the team at badassbacklinks.com