The question I get asked most often regarding website marketing is “How do I get listed high in Google?” That’s a really good question, after all, Google is the number one search engine, who wouldn’t want to be listed high in Google? My answer is simple, Google is like High School, it’s all about popularity and one of the best ways to become popular is backlinking and one of the newest ways to backlink is a blog.
So what is backlinking you ask? Simply put, it is when other websites link to your web site. Backlinking is important not just with Google, but with all the search engines. It means other people know who you are and think you are cool. But it’s not how many know you, it’s who you know and the search engines not only count the number of sites linking to you, but they also qualify these sites. You see, the search engines use an algorithm to evaluate the quality of incoming links. This includes the page rank of the linking site, the content, the site (or blog in this case) the linked text, and a whole host of additional criteria, to determine the value of that link to the search engine, which is kept under lock and key by the search engines. What does this mean? It means, you don’t just want anyone linking into your site, you want the right kind of site with quality content and the right type of link. You want an informed, highly read and regarded blogger!
The Right Blog for your Backlink
You want your backlinks to use the keyword you are optimizing for. For example if your online store, wineshoponline.com, sells wine, and you are campaigning to sell a particular wine such as “a 1990 Kenwood Artist Series Cabernet Sauvignon“, you’d want a wine enthusiast to blog about your Cabernet and link to your site including the keyword or keyphrase in their link. (Much like I’ve done above.)
Now, the wine enthusiast’s blog has great content on wine (we double checked, therefore we know) so that link will have more authority to a search engine then say, my little blog here, (which may still drive traffic, but won’t be held in as high esteem) therefore making that link more authoritative. The more quality sites you get linking to you, the higher you rank for your keywords.
So how do you find the right kind of site? Search for your keyword/keyphrase on the search engines and look at the top listing blogs. You’ll want to get as many of these to link to you as possible. Just send them an email and ask them to link one of your keywords (in their content on their blog) to your site featuring the same content. Bloggers tend to be accommodating so give it a try!
Backlinks to be Wary of
Stay away from the wrong kinds of sites. Many sites are actually penalized by the search engines and you don’t want your site associated with them. This includes:
- Paid Links – The search engines are on to this and are actually penalizing people who do it. I’m not talking about AdWords or PPC (oh no… not another acronym) which are totally safe, but carry no link juice anyway.
- Link Farms – Links within ACTUAL content on the page look the most natural to search engines. So if it’s just a page of links going to any which site, the search engines find no relevance and won’t count them.
- Link Swaps – Trading or reciprocal linking is dead. These links cancel each other out. In the eyes of the search engines, doing this is a sign that your content must not be very good. If you have good content, people will link to it.
In conclusion, Backlinking does take a little legwork on your part, but the payoff is worth it. So happy searching and here’s to quality backlinking, Cheers!
