Backlinks are one way links that originate outside of your website and point directly to specific content on a webpage within your website. Backlinks are the most important factors in achieving competitively high rankings on the search engines for the keyword phrases you wish to target. They are best understood as “votes” for your website especially when they are not purchased, they are naturally occurring and they are highly relevant and targeted. Backlinks also affect your Google PageRank. Google PageRank is an important factor used by Google to further determine the strength of each and every webpage and is a key part of the algorithm Google uses to distinguish between web pages for their Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). So, therefore, this writing is to review and expand upon exactly how to get backlinks to successfully compete online.
All of the best backlinks result from one thing and one thing only: CONTENT! Textual content is still the best simply because the search engines read text the best and the fastest. However, audios, videos, multimedia content are also very valuable as well. So, let’s review content first:
Articles
Write them! Write great articles. Write meaningful, informative, non-duplicate articles. Matt Cutts of Google calls articles and other effective content as “link bait.” I prefer to explain articles as demonstrations of your expertise and rising authority in the subject matter. It is the quality of the content that ultimately will determine the maximum number of websites that link to your pages.
Press Releases
Your website and your business must not and cannot be a static system. There are developments, announcements … NEWS! Write Press Releases in journalistic style with quotes from key personnel with your business. Get them published through syndication services such as PRWeb for wide distribution. The indexing and the traffic generated all work together for Backlink generation.
Blogging
Create a blog and post daily. It doesn’t have to be great literature. Share a thought, a reaction, and an experience that is somehow relevant. I can, even should be a bit edgy. As with all content, it needs to contain interesting, current or trending topics. Invite and promote comments. All of this activity generates and promotes Backlinks as other sites will want to link to you and feed from you to enhance the content for their visitors.
Audio
Your articles, press release and blogs can be discussed or even read aloud as recorded podcasts. This is valid and valuable. Not everyone likes to read. Some people are better listeners than readers.
Video
Same idea here; many folks are visual so use this medium to provide the visual news and concepts that are relevant.
Indexing
Articles, Podcasts, Blogposts, Audio, Video, Multimedia; ALL content must be properly indexed on your site with an updated sitemap that is sent, preferably automated to all of the search engines so that the web pages get the appropriate credit. Also, you need to index so that the websites that eventually will link to you will have highly relevant material on your site to actually link to … remember, Google rankings are only about one thing … RELEVANCE.
Syndication
All the indexing of new content on your site really only builds the foundation for great backlinking. All of your content needs to be syndicated by offering them to relevant websites to really get your backlinking strategy into high gear. Just as Google indexes your site, so too other websites are indexed including those that will publish your content through your syndication efforts.
All content needs to be “optimized” by including anchor text that targets the one or two keywords that are featured in your content. You need to target just one or two keywords to give the article or other content type the focus needed for targeting important keywords. In other words, the more keywords in your anchor text the less effective it will be for all of those keywords because the content is, in effect, diluted.
Sources of syndication really are based on the type of content. Online publishers like ezinearticles.com are obviously good for articles. As mentioned earlier, PRWeb is excellent for Press Releases (Syndication Fees apply). Audio and Video can be syndicated through familiar sites like ITunes, YouTube, MySpace and many others.
The Social Media including Facebook and Twitter (many dozens more) are great places to syndicate your content through Tweets, posts, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. There are countless tools and instruction on how to do these things … just Google it!
Social Bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious serve as great human voting platforms for those online communities. Give your readers of your articles, blogposts etc the further option of adding your great content by adding them to their favorite social bookmarking site.
Social Media and Social Bookmarking sites are great human voting machines and Google is watching this activity very closely. All of these interactions involving your content generate backlinks and remember backlinks are votes for your website.
Get started by writing and recording content. Don’t stop. You will never have too much content. Make it relevant, make it interesting and unique. Syndication is meaningless unless you have a complete and never-ending commitment to content. Don’t have the time? Can’t write? Need help? We are here; just contact us.
August 10, 2009
