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Linkbuilding and backlinks have become exceptionally important to those involved in website promotion and gaining good rankings in various search engines. Basically, the more inbound links that a site has from on-topic authoritative sources the higher that site is likely to rank in the SERPs.

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks are hyperlinks to your site, or the deeper pages within your site, hosted on other domains. A backlink may exist from a directory, a blogroll list, a mention in a blog or web page or possibly from an article writer’s resources. Backlinks enable web users to click on the link to be presented with your web site or deeper pages within your site.

Why are Backlinks Important?

Well firstly they are of importance to web users who may find your site interesting or useful. Without these guiding signposts how else will prospective customers, clients or interested parties actually locate your site? Secondly they are important to search engines. The text used in the link (anchor text) provides an indication of what is at the end of the link and the context in which the hyperlink is presented is also useful to the search engines.

Sources of Backlinks

Anywhere that links can be placed on the internet can be a source of backlinks. Typical sources include:

• Directories: e.g. DMOZ, Yahoo, Gimpsy
• Forums:
• Blogrolls:
• Blog Posts:
• Articles:
• Web Pages:
• Business Resource Pages:

On-topic, contextual links are generally regarded as more useful to search engines. This means that the backlink occurs within the body of some text that relates to the linked resource. So if your link to a Heathrow Airport Hotels comparison page comes from an article or a page that is about Heathrow Airport Hotels, that would be most useful to search engines. It is also likely to pull in some genuine visitors from the readers of the article who click on the link.

These days businesses build backlinks via all of the sources listed above. Over time a popular online resource will naturally gain an increasing number of links as that resource is discovered and links are established. For a new site the challenge is to build a bank of backlinks that, at the very least, match those enjoyed by the competition who are currently ranking well for chosen search terms.

Establishing good quality, contextual links from high page rank, authoritative sources is a daily challenge faced by many involved in online marketing and site promotion. One of the key factors influencing this process is site content. If a website is strong in its content, style and delivery then others will want to link to it. If, however, a site provides nothing new, is technically flawed or clearly unpleasant then, not surprisingly, nobody will want to link to it.

Backlinking Mistakes

Some may think that, to get high rankings in the SERPs, all you need to do is establish lots and lots of backlinks. This is not entirely true. Here are just a few common pitfalls in linkbuilding:

• Using incorrect anchor text. Remember that the anchor text provides an indication to search engines and surfers regarding what is at the end of the link
• Using the same anchor text for all links. This is unnatural. Using my Heathrow Airport Hotels example, other relevant anchor text might be: Hotels at Heathrow Airport or Hotels Serving Heathrow
• Linking from link farms
• Reciprocal linking with porn and gambling sites
• All backlinks leading to a sites home page
• All backlinks established using only one mechanism, e.g. directory submissions.

Recommended Techniques

You can learn a lot by taking a close look at the backlinks that sites which currently rank well for your target search terms currently have. These can be ascertained using various tools. Many of these backlink analysis tools don’t give you a complete list but one of the most consistent is Yahoo Site Explorer: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Here are some well tested techniques:

1. Use all of the main directories that list only good quality sites. Make certain that your site complies with the various web standards, is accessible and meets the requirements of the directories.
2. Become a guest blogger and article author and compose relevant pieces that complement the site that you are promoting. If you can build a reputation as an authoritative voice on a subject you will naturally gain some links. And also start your own blog in order to post relevant blog posts.
3. Comment on other ‘on topic’ blogs. There are many blogs these days that allow you to implement a link either in your comment or with your signature. Ensure that you are adding value to the blog conversation.
4. If you have some expertise in a particular topic, share your knowledge via relevant forums. For example the Adobe and MySQL forums are a great place to learn about various software products and share expertise.

Good luck with your linkbuilding efforts

By Tony Gee