Backlinks commonly described as ‘page links’ are essential to the visibility of your web pages in the search engines and attracting visitor traffic. Backlinks have three key elements, the web page from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and the content of the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.

The volume of backlinks

Just about all of the search engines count the volume of backlinks to a page when deciding where this page should be presented in the search results.

The origin of the backlinks

The source of a backlink can pass authority and indeed traffic to the page to which it points. So it follows that pages with backlinks from ‘trusted pages will receive fairer consideration from the search engines. Pages from sources such as educational (.edu) or government (.gov) sites naturally posess more trust and authority.

Google Page Rank

Google has the concept of ‘page rank’, this is the value indicator it awards to a page it considers to have accumulated authority over time from backlinks pointing towards it.

The ‘anchor text’

When you see a backlink on a web page it sometimes 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 give 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 web pages related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.

Common issues

It’s not unusual for novices to confuse the quantity with the quality of backlinks and become quickly 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 manufacture backlinks

So let me tell you my fail safe method for getting backlinks that will make the search engines take notice of you and bring quality and relevant traffic to your web site.

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 most often start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has substantial visitor traffic.
4. The fastest and cheapest method to find out how much traffic a keyword or key phrase is getting is to use the Google keywords discovery tool.
5. I look at words and search phrases related to my ‘top’ level phrase and create my ‘cloud’.
6. Using this cloud I generate a selection of content containing articles, videos and blog posts each with backlinks labeled with the appropriate anchor text and then use a portfolio of content distribution systems to send my content to a group of directories.
7. When I author 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.

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