Sometimes called off page links, backlinks are the oxygen of search engine positioning and traffic generation. For any web page to be ‘ranked’ in the search engines and receive traffic it’s essential it has backlinks. Backlinks have three key properties, the source from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and the content of the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to. The number of Backlinks to a page is one of the factors the search engines consider when deciding how to position the page in the results displayed to the searcher.

The pages from which backlinks originate pass ‘authority’ and traffic to the page to which the backlinks point. Backlinks are like votes - the higher the number of votes (backlinks) the more relevant and popular the page is considered by the search engine. But ‘votes’ cast through backlinks from trusted or authoritative pages to a page have greater influence over the search engines consideration of this page than backlinks originating from pages with less ‘trust’ or authority. Good examples of trusted sources of backlinks carrying higher authority are pages belonging to education (.edu) and government (.gov) web sites. Backlinks from web pages with high page rank (a value given by Google to any page that it considers over a period of time to have sustained and continued to accumulate backlinks) pass some of their page rank via the backlink to the target page.

Similar to a label, the backlink anchor text has influence over the search engines classification of the backlink. 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 information related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’. Many people mess up their backlinks strategies because they focus on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. For example if all of your links to your ‘parenting’ page come from sites not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost certainly bring you the wrong traffic.

So here is my tried and tested advice for getting backlinks to your pages, high rankings in the search engine results pages and the right type of traffic to your site. Initially you should focus on choosing the correct keywords. I like to build a keyword ‘cloud’. I always start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has significant visitor traffic. To discover how much visitor traffic is being generated by searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.  I look at words and search phrases associated with my ‘top’ level phrase and create my ‘cloud’. I then generate content in the form of articles and videos containing backlinks with the correct ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and distribute these to the various directories. When I write my content I do so with the reader 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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