Backlinks Can Make or Break Your Search Engine Results
Hello %%First Name%%
If you've read anything about Search Engine Optimisation, (including my recent newsletters), you have no doubt come across the term "backlinks". Many SEO companies say Backlinks are the most important strategy for Google page 1 results. So it is essential that you know what Backlinks are and take advantage of their power.
In this newsletter I will explain to you what a Backlink is, why they are important, and what you can do to help gain them and also avoiding getting into trouble with the Search Engines.
What is a ‘Backlink’ and why are they so important? Backlinks are links to your website. Also knows as Inbound links. Search engines use the number of backlinks as an indication of the popularity or importance of a website. Backlinks are important for SEO because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant than other web sites in their results pages for a search query.
When search engines are deciding the relevance of a site to a keyword search, they consider the number of QUALITY inbound links to that site. So be aware it is not the number of inbound links, but the quality of those links.
Backlinks Explained.
What determines the Quality of those links? This is determined by the content and the relevance of the site from which the link comes.
Content:
1. The content of the website is simply that it is a legitimate site and has good content on its own subject/business.
2. The actual word/s that are used to link. i.e.: is the link ‘click here’ or a keyword.
Relevance:
The website of the inbound link needs to have relevance to your website subject/business. If you have a grass mowing service with inbound links from a Lawn Mower sales company, then this is very relevant. To have a link from a computer company would have little or no relevance and be virtually dismissed by search engines. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.
You no doubt get emails (spam) from companies offering you hundreds or thousands of links to your site, with promises of Page 1 results in days. Stay away from any of these as even if they can achieve this, (which can only be done so quickly by unscrupulous means), Google would soon catch on and is likely to ban your website. With so many companies trying underhanded methods, Google has become very intelligent in discovering all sites related to such methods and has little tolerance.
You may also get emails from companies simply offering reciprocal linking. Again be careful. Make sure the site is legitimate and of course relevant.
How do you tell if a site is legitimate and if there is any value in gaining links? Firstly of course check out the site yourself and then a little bit of a research online will often give you information on a website, plus reviews etc.
Another helpful tool is checking the site’s Page Rank. Page Rank is how Google rates the site. Google likes age, quality and fresh content. There are lots of Page Rank testing sites/tools, such as www.checkpagerank.net. Simply type in the URL and it will tell you a site’s Page Rank.
Page Rank is on a scale of 0 – 10 of which anything from 4 and above is considered excellent. But do keep in mind there can be many reasons why this can be low, (such as a new site), yet it can be a great help to investigate other websites.
While you are at a Page Rank tester, why not check out your own site’s rank to see how you are doing?!
Another reason to achieve quality backlinks is to entice visitors to come to your website. You can't build a website, and then expect that people will find your website without pointing the way.
Building quality backlinks is extremely important to your Search Engine Optimisation, and because of their importance, it should be very high on your priority list in your SEO efforts.
I hope you have a better understanding of why you need good quality inbound links to your site, and that this has been helpful to determine and gain those links.
If you have any questions on SEO or wish to discuss your Optimisation needs with us, we would be very happy to discuss this with you. You can use our Contact Form to make any enquiries.
Warm regards
Laurence
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