Backlinks and You: The Basics

You can write all the content you want and get your blog all ready for search engines but backlinks are another often overlooked ingredient in good page rank.

What are backlinks you ask? Basically they are links on one website that lead back to another website. The value of each link is based on the site the link is posted on, Google takes into account the page rank, how established it is and the quality of the content among other things. One way I like to explain it is to think of each link as a piece of string and each site as an object. A brand new site with no links is just floating alone but add back links and it starts to get woven and embedded into the internet. Your goal is to tangle up your site as much as possible in the web. One thing that metaphor leaves out, however, is whether or not it matters what kind of site you put your backlinks on. The short answer is yes, Google will give a backlink more value if the content is relevant on the other side.

Now how do you go about getting these all important backlinks?

1. Blog/Site Directories

Blog directories are a good first place for you to start getting your backlinks. You essentially submit your site for approval and once the moderators ensure your blog isn’t spam or mislabelled it will be listed on their site in the relevant section. As a side note, if there is no moderation in place then the link will likely be of little value. Once you get your blog in a lot of these directories you will be associated with their content and your value in the eyes of Google will increase. Don’t forget you’ll also be advertising your website to potential visitors.

Here are a few directories to start you off:

2. Article Submission

The talent that is writing and submitting good articles to attract traffic is a whole other subject from backlinks so I’ll leave that for a future post. What I’ll focus on here is how to optimize the backlink potential of your articles. To do this you write articles that don’t try to refer any products or sell anything to the reader, just provide a nice, informative and keyword rich article. This is what Google loves and exactly what you are trying to imitate when you write a sales post. One nice little bonus of doing this is you shouldn’t have any need to skirt the rules to get your article submitted. One more thing to remember is that SEO does not apply here, feel free to submit the same articles to as many directories as possible providing you don’t put duplicates in the same directory.

Now the important part, the link itself, which you will place in the author box of your articles. Choose a good picture, include some information about yourself and then drop the link to your homepage. Not only does the link in the directory give you a linkback but when these articles are (hopefully) republished they will give you another link on the publishing site.

Finally don’t rush this, write as much as you want but spread out your submission. Remember that you are trying to look as non-spammer as possible so you don’t want ot go from no backlinks to tons of backlinks overnight. Like I said, write articles till the cows come home but submit them on a schedule.

There’s a ton of article directories out there but here’s a few I use just for example. This short list will not be enough and you should go out and find as many as possible.

Comments and Signatures

This method is a little less work than the others but it yields important results. Like the title says you should comment on blogs that are relevant to the niche of your site. If your running a site it should be safe to assume you have a passing interest in the subject so it shouldn’t be hard to find related blogs and post honest non-spam comments on their articles. This will give you the opportunity to put a link in the link field and get a backlink right on the post. While it is true that these links are often no-follow it is debatable what effect this will have on your page rank, what isn’t debatable is that it can’t hurt.

Another method is to put the link in your signature on a forum you are active on. This will put the link below every post and pepper backlinks all throughout the site. Make sure you actually participate in the forum and don’t just make sock puppet accounts to spam. We want these backlinks to stick around not get deleted.

Anything Else

Not much, you’re already well on your way to building up a good stable of backlinks without having had to pay for a professional backlink service (A good option at the point where your time becomes more valuable than the links). One thing I want to stress before I wrap up is that the expression “no press is bad press” applies to backlinks. A high ranking site is good for your backlink but a low ranking site with a backlink will not hurt you. Don’t worry about a backlink bringing you down, simply weigh the time it takes to get the link with what it will give you.

Finally, remember there are many more ways to get backlinks as you move forward, what methods do you use and what are the results? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!