Search Engine Optimization: Building Quality Backlinks
Search Engine Optimization: Building Quality Backlinks
Any website can stuff a page full of keywords. But only legitimate sites—or so the reasoning goes—will actually have lots of other sites linking to them. Backlinks, then, become essential in Search Engine Optimization and website development.
But how do you go about getting them? Who are the best sites to get them from?
One of the best ways to get backlinks is just to ask for them. You might offer to exchange links, placing a link to their site on your website in exchange for a link to your site on theirs. Having strong content is another good way of increasing backlinks. People will naturally link to you if you have content that they want to recommend. Strong content is the only way to get links in SMO (Social Media Optimization, using sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and other popular 'social sites' to increase your traffic).
The best sites to get backlinks from are, of course, those who have high page ranks themselves. Some webmasters use the Google toolbar to see just how high any given site ranks, but most Search Engine Optimization experts advise against this. The toolbar is not necessarily up-to-date or even accurate.
The best way of finding sites that you want backlinks from is simply to go to a search engine (and different search engines will have different results, so do this with as many as you can) and input the search term you want. For example, if you want people searching for "Orange County Website Design" to find your website, input "Orange County Website Design" into a search engine. Look at the top 20 pages (the top 50, if you have the time). Do any of them look like sites that might be willing to backlink to your site?
Go to each site in turn and find the webmaster's email address. Send them a quick email, briefly describing your website (one or two short paragraphs, please!) and asking if he would be willing to backlink to it. If he doesn't have that authority, he should know who does, and he should be willing to put you in touch with them. Be willing to exchange links if the website requests it, unless they're a site you wouldn't want to link to. If the site looks suspicious, don't try to get a link from them to begin with.
Requesting backlinks this way ensures that the sites that link to you will have high page rank for that keyword. And it gives you almost unlimited resources. The top 50 search results in 10 search engines will give you 500 pages to query, and that's just for that one keyword! Inputting a different keyword will no doubt change the order of sites a bit. Lower sites may rank higher, and higher sites may rank lower. Plus, it may bring up completely new sites. Some sites that rank high for "Orange County Website Design" will also rank high for "Orange County Web Design ". But some sites that rank high for "Orange County Web Design" may not have shown up at all in your quest for "Orange County Website Design". Yet both sites would provide valuable backlinks to your site, which promotes all aspects of web design services in Orange County.
Getting backlinks is a huge and time-consuming process. It is, however, one of the most valuable things you will ever do for your website's Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Optimization Building Quality Backlinks - To learn more about this author, visit Omaro Ailoch's Website.
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If you're serious about Search Engine Optimization, then one of the most important aspects is going to be building backlinks. More than any other aspect of your website except perhaps for keyword-rich content, who links to you and how popular they are affects your own page rank.
Any website can stuff a page full of keywords. But only legitimate sites—or so the reasoning goes—will actually have lots of other sites linking to them. Backlinks, then, become essential in Search Engine Optimization and website development.
But how do you go about getting them? Who are the best sites to get them from?
One of the best ways to get backlinks is just to ask for them. You might offer to exchange links, placing a link to their site on your website in exchange for a link to your site on theirs. Having strong content is another good way of increasing backlinks. People will naturally link to you if you have content that they want to recommend. Strong content is the only way to get links in SMO (Social Media Optimization, using sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and other popular 'social sites' to increase your traffic).
The best sites to get backlinks from are, of course, those who have high page ranks themselves. Some webmasters use the Google toolbar to see just how high any given site ranks, but most Search Engine Optimization experts advise against this. The toolbar is not necessarily up-to-date or even accurate.
The best way of finding sites that you want backlinks from is simply to go to a search engine (and different search engines will have different results, so do this with as many as you can) and input the search term you want. For example, if you want people searching for "Orange County Website Design" to find your website, input "Orange County Website Design" into a search engine. Look at the top 20 pages (the top 50, if you have the time). Do any of them look like sites that might be willing to backlink to your site?
Go to each site in turn and find the webmaster's email address. Send them a quick email, briefly describing your website (one or two short paragraphs, please!) and asking if he would be willing to backlink to it. If he doesn't have that authority, he should know who does, and he should be willing to put you in touch with them. Be willing to exchange links if the website requests it, unless they're a site you wouldn't want to link to. If the site looks suspicious, don't try to get a link from them to begin with.
Requesting backlinks this way ensures that the sites that link to you will have high page rank for that keyword. And it gives you almost unlimited resources. The top 50 search results in 10 search engines will give you 500 pages to query, and that's just for that one keyword! Inputting a different keyword will no doubt change the order of sites a bit. Lower sites may rank higher, and higher sites may rank lower. Plus, it may bring up completely new sites. Some sites that rank high for "Orange County Website Design" will also rank high for "Orange County Web Design ". But some sites that rank high for "Orange County Web Design" may not have shown up at all in your quest for "Orange County Website Design". Yet both sites would provide valuable backlinks to your site, which promotes all aspects of web design services in Orange County.
Getting backlinks is a huge and time-consuming process. It is, however, one of the most valuable things you will ever do for your website's Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Optimization Building Quality Backlinks - To learn more about this author, visit Omaro Ailoch's Website.
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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