These days, any reputable SEO expert will tell you that getting a large number of high quality backlinks from relevant websites is the key to getting good search engine rankings.
You must still do a reasonably good job of on-page optimization to put your web pages into the best possible light, but getting good backlinks is what will really move your website to the top of the search engine rankings.
A backlinking strategy for your website will be most effective when the backlinks have the following properties:
Getting Backlinks The Traditional (Hard) Way So how does a webmaster go about getting backlinks for his website? There are two answers to this question.
The way webmasters currently do this does indeed work, although it can be quite time consuming, boring, repetitive, and costly.
I call this the Traditional Way or (even better) the Hard Way.
The Traditional Way consists of using a number of techniques for creating new content on someone else's website.
For traditional websites (not blogs or forums), this means contacting the other webmaster and convincing him to place your link on his site.
For blogs and forums, this involves commenting in open discussions, and hoping your comments get approved.
Some specific techniques for getting backlinks the traditional way are: 1.
Connect With Top Related Websites.
A technique that works well but is really difficult to do is to connect with the webmasters of related websites and find a way to get good content (with a link to your website) onto their website.
Most webmasters don't ever try this because it requires some salesmanship and quite a bit of persistence to connect with other webmasters.
2.
Exchanging Links.
To get a link exchange, you send an email to the webmaster of another website and offer to put a link to his website on your website if he puts a link to your website on his website.
3.
Directory Submissions.
Another way to get links is to submit your website to online directories.
A few directories (like Yahoo and DMOZ) are worth submitting to.
However, Yahoo is expensive (about $300 per year) and DMOZ can take a year or more to review your site with no guarantee of inclusion.
There are also thousands of other directories scattered across the web.
4.
Article Marketing.
The basic idea behind article marketing is to write a large number of informational articles of approximately 500-600 words each and submit these articles to online article directories.
The article will have a link back to your website.
Automated Approaches to Getting Backlinks Since the traditional approach to getting backlinks is so time consuming and expensive, webmasters are eagerly looking for new and easier ways to get quality backlinks.
Recently, some more automated backlink building approaches have emerged.
These systems show significant promise in greatly reducing the difficulties that webmasters face in getting backlinks.
When evaluating an automated system, make sure that it gives you links from relevant websites and that it leaves you in control over whether or not to accept any of the links it gives you.
You must still do a reasonably good job of on-page optimization to put your web pages into the best possible light, but getting good backlinks is what will really move your website to the top of the search engine rankings.
A backlinking strategy for your website will be most effective when the backlinks have the following properties:
- They come from a large number of websites
- Back links are from websites and pages with content that is relevant to the content of your website
- All such links are one way, not reciprocal links
- They use some of your site's most relevant keywords as their anchor text
- They come from websites with good pagerank
- They come from websites on a variety of IP addresses
- Backlinks come from pages with a small number of outbound links.
Getting Backlinks The Traditional (Hard) Way So how does a webmaster go about getting backlinks for his website? There are two answers to this question.
The way webmasters currently do this does indeed work, although it can be quite time consuming, boring, repetitive, and costly.
I call this the Traditional Way or (even better) the Hard Way.
The Traditional Way consists of using a number of techniques for creating new content on someone else's website.
For traditional websites (not blogs or forums), this means contacting the other webmaster and convincing him to place your link on his site.
For blogs and forums, this involves commenting in open discussions, and hoping your comments get approved.
Some specific techniques for getting backlinks the traditional way are: 1.
Connect With Top Related Websites.
A technique that works well but is really difficult to do is to connect with the webmasters of related websites and find a way to get good content (with a link to your website) onto their website.
Most webmasters don't ever try this because it requires some salesmanship and quite a bit of persistence to connect with other webmasters.
2.
Exchanging Links.
To get a link exchange, you send an email to the webmaster of another website and offer to put a link to his website on your website if he puts a link to your website on his website.
3.
Directory Submissions.
Another way to get links is to submit your website to online directories.
A few directories (like Yahoo and DMOZ) are worth submitting to.
However, Yahoo is expensive (about $300 per year) and DMOZ can take a year or more to review your site with no guarantee of inclusion.
There are also thousands of other directories scattered across the web.
4.
Article Marketing.
The basic idea behind article marketing is to write a large number of informational articles of approximately 500-600 words each and submit these articles to online article directories.
The article will have a link back to your website.
Automated Approaches to Getting Backlinks Since the traditional approach to getting backlinks is so time consuming and expensive, webmasters are eagerly looking for new and easier ways to get quality backlinks.
Recently, some more automated backlink building approaches have emerged.
These systems show significant promise in greatly reducing the difficulties that webmasters face in getting backlinks.
When evaluating an automated system, make sure that it gives you links from relevant websites and that it leaves you in control over whether or not to accept any of the links it gives you.