For any web page to be ‘ranked’ in the search engines and attract searchers it’s critical it has backlinks. When thinking about backlinks there are three elements you need to consider, the source from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.

The number of backlinks

The quantity of backlinks to a page is one of the factors the search engines consider when deciding how to position the page in the results displayed to the searcher.

The source of the backlinks

The pages from which backlinks originate pass ‘authority’ and traffic to the page to which the backlinks point. So it follows that pages with backlinks from authoritative pages will receive a much higher value consideration from the search engines. Government (.gov) and educational (.edu) sites are real examples of sites that are authoritative and trustworthy.

Google Page Rank

Google has the notion of ‘page rank’, this is the property it attaches to a page it considers to have a history of accumulating authority from backlinks..

The ‘anchor text’

When you see a backlink on a web page it normally has a label a word or text related to the information at the page to which this backlink is pointing, what this ‘anchor text’ says has influence upon the value the search engines attribute to the link. 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 content related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.

Common problems

It’s not rare for first timers to confuse the quantity with the quality of backlinks and easily be frustrated by their lack of progress For instance if a significant number of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page originate from sites not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost certainly bring you the wrong visitors.

How to build backlinks

So let me tell you my no nonsense process for acquiring backlinks that will make the search engines take notice of you and bring quality and relevant visitors to your web pages.

1. When you start you should focus on selecting the right keywords.
2. I always set out to put together a keyword cloud.
3. I always start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has significant visitor traffic.
4. To discover the volume of visitor traffic is being generated by searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
5. The Google tool creates a list of keywords connected to my main keyword and from this list I flesh out my cloud.
6. I then put together content in the form of articles and videos with backlinks with the right ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and disperse these to a wide range of content directories.
7. My golden rule is to author content that will attract visitors and compel them to follow the backlinks to my target pages as well as send backlinks.

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