Building Backlinks 10 vs. 100

Building backlinks to your web site is not as cookie cutter as it sounds. There are certain rules that have to be followed in order for the link to qualify as a quality backlink. I've been asked several times, "Why does it matter where I put my link?" To me, it's a simple answer. But to those who are not SEO's or Online marketers, it's something that most of them would never think about. All they know is that backlinks are supposed to be a good thing for your web site and don't understand that there's a technique to the whole process. What is it you say? It's simple. Here it is.

Let Me Guess, 100 Backlinks and No Page Rank

The biggest mistake  that most make when link building is choosing web sites that have no page rank. If the web site or page has no page rank, it's more than likely that it also lacks a strong position in the search engines, and the links on that web page won't get any help and may even slide further down the pole.

Having ten links leading back to your web site from other web sites that have page rank will help to boost your web site better than 100 links with no page rank at all. If these links are on pages that have no page rank, then assume that the page doesn't get many visits and your link may not get seen at all.

Do Your Backlinks Make Sense?

Yes, backlinks are a good thing for your web site. Placing a link back to your web site from another web site with at least a page rank of two helps to boost your web sites presence in the search engines as well boost your sites page rank as well. The issue is that you can't just pick any web site to place a link on.

EX: If you have a web site that sales car mufflers, it is not a good idea to place a link back to your web site on a web site that sales cakes. You can however place it on a web site that sales car tires.

The more relevant the web site you're placing a backlink on is to your web site, the better chance the link has in assisting your web sites page rank and search engine presence.

What Does your Backlink Say About Your Web Site ?

Backlinks come in  three forms, text links, images, and graphics. Since your backlink should say a lot about your web site, you want to make sure that your link represents your web site correctly.

-Text link: Your text link should literally say something good about your web site. It's not only used to navigate surfers to your web site from where the link was found, it's also followed by search engine spiders. If search engine spiders continue to find your text link on different web sites with strong page rank and the two web sites are relevant to each other, the spiders will begin to favor your web site more and more thus boosting your page rank overtime and your site will begin gaining strong positions in the search engines. The most important thing to remember is the anchor text that your use (the words that make up the link). Using the proper name of the web site or using your web sites chosen keywords in the text link helps to place your web site in better search engine positions under the keywords you've chosen to represent your web site.

-Images and Graphics: Images and graphics with links in them have two advantages. Not only can you add an "ALT" and "TITLE" tag in your link, but you can also place them in the image as well. But it's recommended that you use a "TITLE" tag in your link and use the "ALT" in the in your image. The search engine spiders will read both tags.

EX:<a href="yourwebsite.com" title="black bears in Alaska"><img src="yourwebsite.com/black-bear.jpg" alt="black bear by the stream"></a>

NoFollow? What do you Mean NoFollow?

Just because a web site has strong search engine positions and its web pages have good page rank does not mean it's worth placing a link. Some web sites have excellent traffic and allows for great exposure to your text, image, or graphic link driving quality traffic to your web site. But they also don't allow the spiders to follow your link to your web site from theirs. This is done by placing a "NoFollow" tag in each link created on their web site.

EX: <a href="yourwebsite.com" rel="nofollow">Your Web Site</a>

Unless your link gets a lot of exposure and click throughs from the page it's paced on, your backlink will make no sense because the search engine spiders will ignore it. Web sites like Craigslist.org place "NoFollow" tags in the links placed on their web site, but your link has a great chance of being seen and clicked.

Make sure you recognize all that was mentioned in this post when building backlinks to your web site. This will save you from establishing hundreds of dead links and will help you create backlinks from web sites and web pages with strong page rank and strong search engine positions. If they have a great combination of both, that means that the site or page your link is on receives a lot of traffic and your link will be found by the many daily visitors and crawled successfully by the search engine spiders.