BackLinks - What They Mean to You

Do you have a new website? Are you new to the whole website scene? Perhaps you've heard talk about backlinks or inbound links. What are they, and just how important are they? Well, let me say this: they can be the one most important factor when it comes to your Google PageRank. If you don't know what that is, it is a way that Google has of "grading" your site, for lack of other words. When your web page gets ranked it is with a value of PR1 to PR10, with the 10 being the highest. If you aren't familiar with the Google PageRank, download the Google Toolbar from their website. Once that is done, if you look to the right of the Google search button, you will see a green bar with the word PageRank above it. You can gage a web site's page rank by where the green bar is within that space; half way would be a PR5, while all the way would be a PR10. You probably won't see too many of the latter, but that is exactly what you want to strive for. What you want, as a webmaster/webmistress, is to have a high quantity of high ranked websites linking back to yours. These are backlinks. Their linking to you is tantamount to their voting for you. And the higher their PR, the more weight their "vote" holds. So, what you want is to have a large number of high ranking websites link to yours. Once this is accomplished, your site will be seen as having votes from websites that have already proven their importance. Consequently, this will move you up in rank. It's sort of like osmosis. Or being guilty by association, but in a good way. Now you can go about the acquisition of these backlinks in a variety of ways. Some believe that the best way to accomplish this is to study your competition. Do a search for websites using your keywords. Take a good look at the top five results. This is your direct competition. There are numerous ways and tools to help you look at the sites that link to your competitors (these are the same sites that you want to link to you). One easy way is to use your Google Toolbar. Simply type in: link:(your competition's URL), i.e. link:www.theirsite.com. The results will determine who you will contact regarding linking back to your site. Once you have the results, what you will do in this scenario, is to find a contact for each website. If you find none, you can try to address your correspondence (which we'll get to in a moment) to webmaster@(URL), i.e. webmaster@ theirURL.com (I have put an unneeded space there for editorial purposes). Sometimes this works and, honestly, sometimes it doesn't. Once you have a list of contacts, you want to write a nice little email asking them if they would be so kind as to link to your website. The truth is that most will want you to return the favor. This isn't as good as a one way link, but better than no link at all! When you contact them it is best to be both complimentary and courteous. Let them know that you have visited their site, why you like it, and that you would like for them to link to your website. You will find that quite a few of the sites you visit will have a page or two already dedicated to link exchanges. That's fine, it saves you some time. Keep a record of who you have contacted. Many webmasters believe that it is looked upon more kindly if you place their link on your website first. You can always remove it if they are not interested. Your email might say something like this: Dear Webmaster/Webmistress: My name is (your name), and I am the webmaster/webmistress of (yoursite.com). I have noticed your website, because it is so similar to mine. My site is also about {whatever topic pertains). I was just wondering if you would be interested in exchanging links (I say this because it is easier to get them to respond if you are going to return the favor, but you don't have to). In the event that you are interested, I have already placed a link to your website on mine. You will find it at: (exact location of where you have put their link) i.e. http:// www. yoursite/links.htm, or whatever the location ends up being (note that again I have placed a couple of unnecessary spaces). At this point you can either ask them to get back to you or you can provide them with the information that they will need, in the event they take you up on your offer. You will need to supply them with the title of your website , a description, your URL and perhaps the html code you would like them to use. Make sure to ask them for a response. Again, you need to keep track of all of this, and the sooner you do it the more likely you will be to make it a habit. If you fall behind, you may be forever catching up Now, the next thing that you want to do is to take every site that accepts your invitation and submit said site to Google. By doing this, you get Google to crawl that site and see their link to you. Brilliant! Does this sound like a lot of work? You bet it is! But it doesn't cost you a thing (except, of course your time, which can be very valuable). I haven't mentioned yet that, depending on the subject matter, your competitor could have thousands of links, and so far you've only tackled the first site on your list. Whew! I'm getting tired just telling you about it . If this sounds too time consuming for you, there are tools that automate the process. True, they will cost you, but they sure will speed up the process. You can also purchase links. Sometimes this is the only way to get a link from a website with a high PageRank. This can be quite expensive. But regardless of your time or your budget, this whole backlink thing can, in fact, be accomplished. How long it will take is the question. Some believe that it is better to accrue these backlinks slowly; that achieving too many backlinks quickly will be frowned upon by the search engines. Others believe that the only that matters is getting the most links in the least amount of time. I think it is something that you must decide for yourself. Quickly or slowly, no cost or high cost; these are the questions you need to ask yourself. Once you've decided on a game plan, you simply have to implement it. Don't be afraid. The worst that can happen is that your invitation gets rejected. So, you move on to the next one. It can, in fact, be a never ending process, but what a learning experience!! Good Luck! For an ABSOLUTELY AWESOME and FREE SEO eBook, click here.