Backlinking - Why Search Engines Think It's Important

We tell people all the time to use Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to build their list. Then you're pretty much on your own. Today we'd like to talk about a part of SEM called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I know, I know, another 3 letter acronym to wrap your head around. Great.

There are a ton of parts to a good SEO campaign, from adjustments you can make on your site like title tags, keyword optimization and XML site maps, to offsite efforts like link building.  Today, we'd like to focus on one: Backlinking – it's time good ole' VR broke it down for ya in plain English. So I asked Alf, who is our SEM guru (who will be giving up some great secrets at our Spring Marketing Conference in April) to tag team this one with me. So here goes...

What is Backlinking?

Plain and simple it is what it sounds like – getting other web sites to link back to your web site.

But the search engines don't just count the number of backlinks you have, they QUALIFY them.

Google and other popular search engines use a ranking algorithm (which is a closely guarded secret that Sergey & Larry probably don't even know) to evaluate the quality of incoming links, page rank of the linking site, the content on the site or blog linking in, the link text, and a whole host of additional criteria, to determine the value of that link to the search engine.

Bottom line? You don't just want anyone linking into your site, you want the right kind of site with the right type of link.

What's The Right Type of Link?

The best backlinks are links that use the keyword you are trying to rank for. For instance if your fictitious online store - eVino.com - sells wine, particularly a Cabernet varietal, you'd want a wine enthusiast to blog about your Cabernet and link to your site and include the word "Cabernet" in the link.

Example:

    For the best Cabernet deals online check out eVino

        or

    In my book, eVino & Cabernet are synonymous

What's The Right Kind of Site?

Since the wine enthusiast site more than likely has great content on wine, that link has more authority to a search engine therefore putting extra umph behind that link. The more of these you get, the higher you rank for your keywords. This same link on a website or blog that writes about Music or Fashion, may still drive traffic but would not be worth nearly as much in the eyes of the search engines.

Where do you find the right kind of site you ask? here are a couple of ways.

1. Search for your keyword on Google and look at the top 100 listings. You'll want to get as many of these to link to you as possible. Unless of course they're your competitor.
2. If you can't get links from your keyword's top 100 sites, examine each of those site's backlinks and try and get some links from those pages. Use a tool like Backlink Watch to see who is linking to them or linking to your competitors.

The Wrong Kind of sites

Now that you have a sense of the kind of sites you want backlinking to your site. Here are some situations you want to stay away from.

• Paid Links – The search engines are on to this and are actually penalizing people who do it. I'm not talking about AdWords or PPC (oh no... not another acronym) which are totally safe, but carry no link juice anyway.
• Link Farms – Links within ACTUAL content on the page look the most natural to search engines. So if it's just a page of links going to any which site, the search engines find no relevance and won't count them.
• Link Swaps – Trading or reciprocal linking are dead. These links cancel each other out. In the eyes of the search engines, doing this is a sign that your content must not be very good.  If you have good content, people will link to it.

Some Other Things You Can Do

• Press – If a blog picks up a new product you sell or service you have, but doesn't include a link, shoot them an email and ask them to link to your site from one of your keywords which they probably have in their article. You'll be surprised how much it actually happens.
• Your Blog – In your own blog, write content that your audience wants to read, then make sure to link back to your home page from your keyword.
• Reach Out – Introduce yourself to sites where you think your audience will go. Ask to contribute your content. If it's worth reading and interesting enough you might get published. Comment on forums and blogs, but not just to throw your link there – actually add something of value to the discussion, or you might just wind up getting banned.
• Link Bait – Also known as viral marketing, link bait could be anything (good content, videos, free tools, a fun web game, etc.) that makes people want to link to it. Just make sure it has some association with the keyword you are trying to rank for, so people linking will naturally use that keyword.

Final Note:

Backlinks are only ONE of the things the Search Engines use to gauge where you should be in their rankings for your particular keywords. So it's not that be all answer to good keyword ranking.

Any other ideas? Bring them on!

Comments

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[cebeindir]

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[Big Rat]

Excellent article and great comments. My clients like Flash intros but we always temper them with HTML navigation and real text so the Flash animation is just one component of the page.

[Missy]

Make sure you research your keywords, and USE them.

1.) Try to target the most relevant keywords 2.) Write good content 3.) Promote Promote Promote

[Sam]

Links are certainly an important part of search engine rankings... One technique I like to use to help build links to a site is article marketing, just remember to vary up those resource boxes with each article!

[Katie]

Great sum up of the types of links to target. This is what I tell my website clients when giving them general SEO guidelines after building their site...since I want their sites to be found! SEO is more work than people think. Glad to be on the same page as VR.

Re: Flash: Baaad. Very pretty, but hard to work with from an SEO standpoint. It's basically like a movie projection. It's hard for an engine to get inside of it.

[Carlo]

nice post. thanks for sharing your traffic tips

[Thomas Johnson]

Thank you for speaking English!

[SEOcontest2008 Consultant]

Hi Janine,

Thank you so much for your backlinking tips. It's a very good article. I just want to add that get backlinks from some Social Bookmarking Service sites are important and can make dramatically change for your blogs/sites ranking.

[Dave Lakins]

Great article! We have found creating articles a great source of backlinks - taking the concept you have here. Research you keywords, create an article around it and then link back to your site in the bio. If you can syndicate the article to likeminded / relevat site it works a treat.

[cayumi]

Linking is important but do your link activties with related websites is the most important or it will become a Link farm and search engine will not like this : )

[Denise St. John]

Search engines can't read Flash files, the text is converted to graphics. Flash is a good tool and having a Flash element to add interest is okay but never build your site in Flash if you want to rank high in the SE's. I think it is important to name your files and folders using the same keywords that are on your index page, if you have photos and you're using numbers, that doesn't help. I optimized my site and every link was requested. I don't exchange links with sites that have several pages of links, i.e. link farms.

[Ira Weiss]

When you say, "Your Blog – ...link back to your home page from your keyword."

Do you mean literally set up a link from a keyword in your post back to your Home page? That seems kind of black hat to me.

[Billly]

I have been out of the business (SEM)for 3 years now and wonder is there a summmary of changes/improvements in this marketing discipline anywhere?

[Warren Brown]

These are some great tips on the valuable art of backlinking.

[Art and Home]

Regarding the note... "Comment on forums and blogs, but not just to throw your link there – actually add something of value to the discussion, or you might just wind up getting banned."

It's also important to note that many forums now utilize the "no follow" structure so that links in forums do not count as "links". Although they can still be valuable for awareness, especially if you're providing quality, relevant content, many forums no longer provide any kind of link popularity.

[Cristina Spencer]

This is a really great source of information on backlinking! As a marketing consultant, SEO is something that I am constantly talking about with our clients and always thinking about for our own web site. I really like that you note that backlinking is just one form of SEO, as many people think that without strict compliance to one of the SEO methods, their site is not going to have a reasonably high search engine ranking.

Another SEO topic that I would love to read more about is the impact of flash intros on web sites. I have heard several schools of thought on the effects of a flash intro on SEO and am looking to find out the real impact on the optimization of a site. Is it really as detrimental as it's made out to be?