Back Links – Good and Bad

Backlinks are a method used by SEO Marketers and Webmasters to increase the opportunity for getting better and higher listings with search engines.  Essentially, backlinks are mostly clickable links on an external domain or website that links to your domain or website.

Many popular websites have hundreds if not thousands of backlinks.  However, care must be taken when creating links, not to violate some very important rules the search engines use to value and/or discredit your website in its ranking.

First off,  Backlinks are a signal of the popularity or relevance of a website. Backlinks play a valuable role in SEO because search engines including Google, Yahoo, and Bing award value to websites in terms of quantity of links and quality or relevance of the backlink.

Search engines use many methods to determine the quality of the backlink.  Here is a simple list of do’s when constructing backlinks:

1. The linking site should have high relevancy to your site.

2.  Make sure the links or page do not have a “no-follow” command.

3.  Make sure the linking site allows anchor text links.

4. Try to link from pages with a Google Page Rank of 3 or higher.

5.  Look for sites that have been around a while.

In addition to following the do’s listed above, make sure you adhere to the following don’ts or your do’s will be negatively affected.

1.  No “free-for-all” links.  Sites that allow anyone to post an un-reviewed backlink.

2.  No “link farming”.  Pages with little value that contain 100′s of links.

3.  No “triangular linking, reciprocal linking”.  getting together with your buddies and only linking to each other or sharing the same IP.

4.  No “no-follow, robot.txt” attributes and meta tags.  Sites or links that contain a link or robot meta tag that tells the robot to ignore your link or page.

5.  No “broken links”.  Website and links that contain broken links.

The opinions, art, and craft of backlinking is a wide and various matter.  Research into backlinking may in fact leave you confused and dismayed.  However, by instituting a methodical and planned approach you should see a quick return on your investment.

Don’t forget that backlinks will also help to create a sense of authority and trust in the eyes of your visitor.  Try to use visible and apparent links to or from websites that offer your visitor high relevance but low competitive value.  For instance, if you sell bicycles, try linking to or from a site that offers advice about riding or maintaining bicycles.  Try using Blogs, Articles, and Press Releases with content about bicycles in general to “kill two birds with one stone”.

From a conversion standpoint, when linking to an external site, try opening a new window when developing the external link.

Check out Brookstone Marketing Group for additional assistance.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your views on backlinking.

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