What is a backlink?

One of the most powerful tools in our SEO arsenal is building lots of high quality backlinks to our client’s websites. But what exactly is a backlink?
A backlink is just a link on another website that leads to a page on your website. For instance, a link on this page to a page on another website would be a backlink for THAT webpage.

How do Backlinks Help us get better Google Rankings?

Google loves backlinks, because backlinks are a ‘human’ vote of confidence in a website, in which Google places a lot of value. In a sense, we decide what pages we, as internet users, want to show up in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) by linking to the content we like. A page with more links of a higher quality than others will rank higher.

The part about backlink quality is really important.

It’s not just about who has the most backlinks, it’s about where those links are from. 

If you were trying to lose weight, would you be more inclined to trust the opinion of Joe Average or of a professional health expert? This principle is applied to backlinks and the way they affect our rankings. Links from sites that are established as authorities carry much more weight than a link from someone commenting in a fitness forum somewhere.

Google weighs out these links and their value using their complex algorithm and uses this data to decide how they will rank your website/webpage. Your site does not have to be a monster authority site to rank highly. Rather, you can rank highly by getting high quality backlinks from other authority sites. 

Let’s pretend that the health expert from earlier told us that Joe Average actually made some good points and his opinions are quite valid. Wouldn’t we start to trust Joe Av. more and see more value in his opinion?

Similarly, if an authority health site linked to Joe Av’s small niche site, Google would realize that maybe Joe’s site is more authoritative then they realized, and they would rank it higher. The web is not controlled by computers. It is run by people, and this is reflected in the way we act and link online. Search Engines know this and respond accordingly to try to give us the results that we demand and construct ourselves. 

How do we get Backlinks?

Now that we know the importance of backlinks and why they affect our rankings the way they do, we need to figure out how we can get some.
Backlinking isn’t as simple or straight forward as our health expert example above. You’re not so likely to be granted a link from some powerful authority such as CNN or Apple just for creating great content. Our techniques are going to have to be a little more guerilla-esque. This isn’t to say that the quality of your content doesn’t matter, it’s quite the opposite. At the core of your marketing and backlinking strategy should be great, quality content. We’ll assume you already have great content and just get on with the backlinking.

There are many different ways to get backlinks and each of the methods takes time to master:

• Free blogs (blogger, wordpress, squidoo)
    • Profile backlinks 
    • Blog commenting 
    • Article Marketing 
    • Press releases 
    • Social Bookmarks 
    • Website directories 
    • Blog Carnivals 
    • Video marketing 
    • Forum Commenting 
    • Document Distributors 
    • Podcast Directories 
    • Software Distributors
.
It’s a long list, and beyond the means and time of most people to tackle even half of it. But that why we’re here. Page One Consultants use the full suite of link building methods to get our clients great Google rankings.
Contact us now, so we can get started on your website ASAP!

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