Backlinks often described as ‘page links’ are key to the visibility of your web pages in the search engines and attracting visitor traffic. To understand backlinks there are three elements you need to consider, the web page from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to.

The volume of backlinks

The majority of search engines appraise the number of backlinks to a page when deciding where this page should appear in the search results.

The origin of the backlinks

The pages from which backlinks originate pass ‘authority’ and visitors to the page to which the backlinks point. But ‘votes’ passed via backlinks from trusted or authoritative pages to a page have greater influence over the search engines perception of this page than backlinks coming from pages with less ‘trust’ or authority. Real examples of trusted sources of backlinks carrying higher authority are pages in education (.edu) and government (.gov) web sites..

Google Page Rank

Google has the concept of ‘page rank’, this is the property it awards 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 subject 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. Relevance is the guiding principle for every search engine software and therefore if the text on the page is about ‘drying chillis” then it is from a search engine’s point of view, more valuable for the backlink’s anchor text to this page to contain the word ‘chilli’ as opposed to a related term such as ‘drying spices’.

Common mistakes

A lot of people undermine their backlinks building activities because they fixate on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. Having a substantial amount of backlinks to your page doesn’t automatically mean the search engines will consider your page as relevant.

How to create backlinks

So let me share with you my fail safe process for acquiring backlinks that will make the search engines love you and bring quality and appropriate visitors to your web site.

1. Finding the right keywords from the outset is critical.
2. I always set out to put together a keyword cloud.
3. I always start with a single primary 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. The Google tool presents a list of keywords associated with my main keyword and from this list I build my cloud.
6. I then generate content in the form of articles and videos in which I have embedded backlinks with the right ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and distribute these to a wide range of content directories.
7. My guiding principle 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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