BACK/INBOUND LINKING
You've probably spent a considerable amount
of time and effort setting up your web site. Perhaps you went
as far as hiring a design consultant to ensure that the site
not only offers great information, but also a unique look. Now
that you have the final version of your web site up and
running, it's time to draw a crowd of interested
customers.
Fortunately, there is a simple,
affordable and effective way to gain exposure for your web
site. And it's all about the
backlinks.
Back in the "old" days of a couple of years
ago, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was all about keywords.
Repeat the same phrase fifty times on your homepage and your
site would pop up when that phrase was searched in Google.
Thankfully for consumers and entrepreneurs alike, the search
engines have wised up to such practices. With the creation of
more detailed and precise algorithms, Google has come up with
better ways to highlight the most relevant and trusted web
sites.
Just Because You Build It...
Creating a beautiful web site
with groundbreaking information does not guarantee high site
traffic. Once the web site is ready to be unveiled to the
public, it is time to begin a serious marketing campaign to
attract the eyes and ears of interested consumers. The best way
to get this kind of exposure is to rank high in the search
engine results pages (SERPS), and the best way to climb in the
SERPS is to build backlinks.
Backlinking or Inbound Links to Your
Site
A "backlink" is a link from a web
site that leads readers back to your web site. Sometimes it is
a highlighted link in the middle of an article. (Check out
Article Marketing.com) In other cases, it may be the
link in your Resource Box, at the end of an article you have
written. When that article is distributed and published on
other sites, the link leads readers back to your
site.
The importance of backlinking can't be
over-emphasized. When a backlink to your web site from a
popular and relevant site is created, Google tags a date to it,
and records the actual phrase used in the link. Google then
saves this information in order to establish
rankings.
Getting the Most Out of
Backlinks
It's important to understand that
backlinking is more about quality than quantity. The search
engines operate under the assumption that not all links hold
equal weight, and a backlink (also known as an "inbound link")
from a highly popular or well known site has more clout than a
link from your Uncle Ted's garden photos.
Here's what Google has to say about how it
uses backlinks to determine PageRank:
"PageRank relies on the uniquely
democratic nature of the web by using its vast link
structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In
essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as
a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more
than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives;
it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast
by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily
and help to make other pages
'important'."
So while having every member of your extended
family create a link to your web site from their own sites
might be a great way to keep Aunt Alice up to speed, it won't
get you much love from the search gods.
How to Get Other Sites to Link to
Yours
So you know how Google uses
backlinks to come up with its search engine rankings. You also
know that backlinks on popular, respected sites will boost your
SERPS. Now the question is: how do I get those sites to link to
my site?
Article marketing is an
incredibly effective way to do this. When you create
informative, unique content in the form of reprintable
articles, web sites pay attention. Plenty of well-established
web sites publish content from article marketing databanks, to
constantly offer their site visitors fresh information. When
one of these sites, or any of their visitors, publishes one of
your articles, an automatic link back to your web site is
included and voilà ! A backlink is born.
Distribute more and more articles around the
Web, and you gain a steady stream of fresh, highly relevant
backlinks over time. The search engines will notice, and you
PageRank will go up. It's that simple.
And higher search engine ranking means more
eyeballs on your web site. Link simple.
Another great resource is
Article
Submitter. This is great software that lets you
submit articles were you want and when you want. Every true
internet marketer has these
tools.
Get
these tools now and get
linked!
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