Backlinking 101

By Dan Logan

There are a lot of ingredients that go in to a good SEO recipe. In this post we'll focus on one of the most important; Backlinks.

Backlinking is simply the process of building your reputation across the web. It's done by publishing links on websites that link back to yours. The Search Engines take this to mean, in effect, that these websites are recommending you - thus building your online reputation. The more popular the site that is recommending you, the more credit the Search Engine gives that recommendation.

Building these links can be quite labor intensive and tedious, so make sure you're doing it right, because not all backlinks are created equally. A link published on a site that is relevant to your content and has a high page ranking will do infinitely more for you that one that doesn't.

Here are some basics to get you started:



Submissions to Web Directories - Submitting your links to web directories won't necessarily bring more traffic to your site, but it will increase your PageRank. Some directories will ask to exchange links, but you will want to limit these since having too many outbound links on your site can be detrimental.

Link Exchanges - You can approach websites and blogs relevant to your own and offer them a link on your site in exchange for your link on theirs. As stated above, you don't want too many outbound links on your site so keep these to a minimum. Also, don't waste your time approaching large, established sites for this.

Links Submitted in Comments - Another way would be to visit blog or article sites that are relevant to your content and leave comments on individual posts. Make sure each comment contains hyperlinks to your site. You also want to leave comments that are thoughtful and add to the discussion to make sure the moderator doesn't delete them.



Social Bookmarking - Social News and Bookmarking sites such as digg, reddit, and del.icio.us are also a great way to acquire more inbound links. They will not only provide you with more backlinks, but if done right, they can also increase traffic dramatically. When submitting content to a Bookmarking site, make sure it's quality content that users will find informative or interesting. You will also want to make the headlines eye catching to stand out among the rest of the content.

If you are looking to improve your organic search results ranking, backlinking is a must. There is always more to learn and continue to research the continually evolving best practices. Now get started and good luck!

About the Author:

After you master the universe with Backlinking, see Dan Logan's recommendations for some INSANE Web Analytics .