Backlinks commonly referred to as ‘inbound links’ are essential to the visibility of your web pages in the search engines and attracting visitor traffic. When thinking about backlinks there are three elements you need to consider, the web page from which the backlinks come from, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to.
The volume of backlinks
Just about all of the search engines take into account the quantity of backlinks to a page when deciding where this page should appear in the search results.
The origin of the backlinks
The source of a backlink can pass authority and indeed searchers to the page to which it points. So it follows that pages with backlinks from authoritative pages will receive fairer consideration from the search engines. Obvious examples of trusted sources of backlinks carrying higher authority are pages in education (.edu) and government (.gov) web sites..
Google Page Rank
Google has the notion of ‘page rank’, this is the property it awards to a page it considers to have accumulated authority over time from backlinks pointing towards it.
The ‘anchor text’
Similar to a label, the backlink anchor text has influence over the search engines valuation of the backlink. 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 web pages related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.
Common mistakes
A significant number of people undermine their backlinks building activities because they fixate on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. Having a substantial number of backlinks to your page doesn’t automatically mean the search engines will view your page as relevant.
How to manufacture backlinks
So here is my tried and tested guidance for getting backlinks to your pages, great positions in the search engine results pages and quality traffic to your web pages.
- It is essential you select the right keywords before you expend any effort whatsoever.
- I always set out to put together a keyword cloud.
- You should always begin by identifying a key word or phrase which has a high volume of traffic.
- To uncover the volume of visitor traffic is being coming from searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
- The Google tool puts together a list of keywords associated with my main keyword and from this list I flesh out my cloud.
- I then create content in the form of articles and videos containing backlinks with the right ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and send these to a wide range of content 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.
Comments on this entry are closed.