Backlinks: SEO Value

Sometimes called inbound links, backlinks are the oxygen of search engine positioning and traffic generation. Backlinks have three key elements, the web page from which the backlinks come from, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to.

The amount of backlinks

The volume of backlinks to a page is one of the key properties the search engines consider when deciding where to position the page in the SERPS (Search Engine Page Results).

The source of the backlinks

The pages from which backlinks originate pass ‘authority’ and traffic to the page to which the backlinks point. So it follows that pages with backlinks from ‘trusted pages will receive fairer consideration from the search engines. Pages from sources such as educational (.edu) or government (.gov) sites naturally posess more trust and authority.

Google Page Rank

Backlinks from web pages with high page rank (a ‘reward’ given by Google to any page that it considers over a period to have attracted, sustained and continued to accumulate relevant backlinks) pass some of their page rank via the backlink to the target page.

The ‘anchor text’

Just like a label, the backlink anchor text influences the search engines classification of the backlink. Relevance is the guiding principle for every search engine algorithms and it follows if the information on the page is about ‘drying chillis” then it is from a search engine’s point of view, more valuable for the backlink’s anchor text to this page to contain the word ‘chilli’ as opposed to a related term such as ‘drying spices’.

Common mistakes

The majority people screw up their backlinks building activities because they fixate on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. Having a substantial amount of backlinks to your page doesn’t automatically mean the search engines will view your page as relevant.

How to manufacture backlinks

So let me tell you my fail safe process for getting backlinks that will make the search engines take notice of you and bring the right type and relevant visitors to your web site.

1. When you start you should focus on choosing the correct keywords.
2. Your objective should be to manufacture a keyword cloud.
3. I most often start with a single primary keyword or key phrase which has substantial visitor traffic.
4. To find out the amount of visitor traffic is being generated by searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
5. I analyse words and search phrases associated with my ‘top’ level phrase and create my ‘cloud’.
6. I then create content in the form of articles and videos containing backlinks with the right ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and disperse these to the various directories.
7. My guiding principle is to author content that will attract traffic and compel them to follow the backlinks to my money pages as well as send backlinks.