• What are Backlinks?

Backlinks are incoming links to a website or URL. They are often used interchangeably with inbound links, incoming links, inward links, and inlinks. In the world of SEO, backlinks, like PageRank, are an indicator of link popularity or importance of a particular web page. The weight that search engines like Google ascribe to quality backlinks when calculating SERP have made backlinks a building block for excellent SEO. Search engines consider pages with a substantial number of quality backlinks more relevant or more important than others when coming up with SERP. Link building is a vital tool that gives Internet businesses direct traffic, better position in the search engine rankings, and more profits. For any link building campaign to prevail and reap these benefits, webmasters or site owners need not rely on merely the quantity of backlinks pointing to their site, but the quality of backlinks as well. The usage of proper search engine optimization techniques and link building methods should take these facts into consideration.

• Quality Matters.

In getting inbound links for link popularity, quality matters. Search engines like Google compute the relevancy of a site based on the importance or relevancy of the backlinks pointing to that site. It is not enough to get as many inbound links as possible; we need to look at the quality of these backlinks. Quality is usually determined by the content of a specific site. When backlinks to your site come from other sites that have related content to your site, these backlinks are judged as relevant by the search engines. However, if these backlinks are from sites with unrelated content, search engines consider them less relevant. The more relevant the backlinks are to your site, the greater their quality. Moreover, there are several factors that influence a backlink’s value. When backlinks come from “high authority” sites, they are highly valuable.

• Importance of Anchor Text

One thing you need to consider in back link building is the anchor text of your backlinks. An anchor text is a description of the inbound link and must contain useful information relevant to the content on the linked page. There are tools like search engine bots that evaluates the relevancy of an anchor text to the content of a given web site. The bottom line is for the anchor text and content to be highly congruent. This will ensure that your web page becomes highly weighted in the SERP rankings based on a given keyword query.

• PageRank and Backlinks

Backlinks are important when we deal with how to increase our performance in Google PageRank. SEOWatch conducted a study to determine exactly how important backlinks are when computing PageRank. They conclude that 67% of PageRank depends on backlinks. This tells us that serious link building efforts require a lot of investment in order to enhance the quantity as well as quality of backlinks to a website. There are several techniques in building backlinks – some are considered ethical, and some unethical.

• Get Them Naturally.

When we say ethical methods in link building, we mean that the link acquisitions are made naturally. Increasing awareness on how search engines operate has resulted to the increasing use of sneaky and manipulative designs by webmasters in order to influence their placements in the search engine rankings. Since search engine algorithms are designed to assign rankings in a democratic manner, tougher measures and quality requirements have been imposed to prevent other webmasters from using unethical methods to gain undue advantage over others. Using sneaky devices like link farms do not only get you penalized, they might get you banned entirely. Search engines look for natural inbound links, which are links that are built slowly over time. There are several techniques to build natural links. Link baiting and using high quality content in order to attract natural links your way are among the most effective ways to improve a site’s link popularity. Site owners can develop natural links by themselves or can hire a link building company to do it for them.

• Backlink Building Don’ts

There are several link building practices to avoid.

1. Link exchange. One of the don’ts in link building is link exchange. This operates as a barter exchange of links. If you put a link to their site, they put a backlink to your site. When involved in link exchanges, you must be wary of the ratio of your outbound and inbound links. If your outbound links outnumber your inbound links, this is a negative sign. Moreover, you must ensure that your link exchange partners are not link farms; if so, you may put your site at risk of being banned from search engines.
2. Suspicious links. Never link to suspicious sites. While search engines do not penalize you for having backlinks from such sites, engaging in a link exchange program with so-called “bad neighborhood” sites would destroy your link building efforts.
3. Acquiring quality backlinks are an important factor to consider in any link building campaign geared at improving search engine rankings and enhancing link popularity. However, it takes more than just backlinks to drive traffic to your site and influence your rankings. The most important thing is to develop a website with high quality content that is useful and relevant to the end user experience.

Here are a few things to look for:

1. Be sure to always check the fine print, especially in terms of ownership and distribution agreements. Payment may involve different methods – debit card, credit card, Paypal, digital check or any number of options made available online. Review their policy on refunds as well as those related to violations of the submission policy.
2. Before turning it over, it helps to double check any links in the article first to check if they work. Once the article is in the preferred document version, it is then submitted to the PR website either through the uploading section or through email.
3. For paid PR packages, the content often needs to be reviewed and evaluated according to the host site’s restrictions. This ensures that your article meets a standard of quality being used with other articles on that site as well – giving the site a credible reputation that you can also benefit from.
4. Select the category that is most appropriate and advantageous for your material – making sure that the people looking for an article on your subject matter will find it.

The process involved in submitting your article as part of a link building service tells the client a lot about the quality of the service itself. After all, what takes a longer time to work on is the relationship between the website and the link building company.

How does one go about optimizing their twitter accounts for link building?

1. Bit.ly links. Users – more importantly, experts in extremely specialized fields and professions- can easily relay to their followers a shortened link to an article of interest (why not yours?). Make sure these links are working and that they lead directly to the promised article, which expounds on the tweet’s point (it will be more harmful to lead readers on a good chase).
2. Followers. For every person who has done a re-tweet, consider their number of followers. These are authority figures who are active online and have the social skills to boot. That simple engine for link building popularity has a higher conversion potential in clicks to your URL because you’ve hit the target market at the bull’s eye. Moreover, it provides what RSS feeds cannot – easy interaction.
3. Hashtags. A link building company using hashtags also helps in creating a room for discussion while making it easier to spot in searches. Imagine the numbers drummed up by being a trending topic if only for a short period of time!
4. Username. Selecting the most frequently searched name for your brand or company as the Twitter account name would be a good way to start. Then spread the URL whenever an opportunity presents itself; the “Follow us on Twitter” button on most websites is not there by accident. Another such opportunity is using the frequently indexed “Bio” effectively – USPs, brand key words, marketing tags that point searches your way.
5. Microblog. View the 140-limit not as a restriction, but as liberation – you are free to let creativity get your point across within the average person’s attention span. The first 50 characters are particularly strategic as these “lead-ins” determine its search viability.
6. Retweet. To make use of one of its best features – re-tweeting – leave a few characters allowance for followers to comment on it. This makes the re-tweet less like a marketing campaign and more as a resource of genuine interest.

With Twitter as a link building tool – you are bound to generate a lot of interest.

SMO has another primary agenda; As the person who coined the term, Rohit Bhargava, explains, is to make the target article/website/blog “…easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines, and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.” It is, simply put, to make your material the talk of the town by enabling people to share it conveniently according to their preferences. Indeed, as a recent survey conducted, participants from 50 countries—a conclusive 90%—say that online endorsements of their friends/colleagues are something they consult with/trust (Nielsen Global Online Consumer). That figure singlehandedly points out the already obvious advantages of making linkability a marketing priority. Here are a few pointers to note:

1. Add clearly visible buttons; The easiest step would be to add clearly visible buttons to make sharing any material almost reflexive, whether on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon or any industry-specific site (i.e. Technorati). Enabling tagging and comments also make for a productive interaction with netizens.
2. Creating quality content; For those who are already applying optimal SEO practices to their own online presence, chances are they already understand the value of creating content that is not only a shout-out to search engines but is also compelling. In other words, content that is easy to read, relevant, accurately verifiable, and interesting. That makes for material people will actually want to share.
3. Community; The importance of grasping “community” can never be understated. This translates to being actively involved not just on a blatantly commercial, “I’m here to sell” approach. Participating means providing positive contributions to the group — case studies, constructive comments, guides to help make certain informed decisions, updates on matters that the community is passionate about (hobby, campaign, and if all goes well, your BRAND). Keep this in mind as community members protect their own; any spamming or obvious exploitation of their networks can lead to considerably backlash.

The success of an SMO strategy is very much like its nature — both quantitative and qualitative. Setting defined indicators of success, an individual/organization will find not only increased traffic or comments or links to their site. More importantly for some, it enables them to keep an ear quite close to the ground. A product/service’s pre-, current, and post-development can constantly be given another direct source of insight — the consumers themselves. This is but the start of something that will doubtless be a force to reckon with, no matter the industry.

1. Increase Your Linkability. The key performance indicator of any social media campaign revolves around link building. The simple commitment to maintaining a blog for one, can do wonders for increasing linkability.
2. Make Tagging and Bookmarking Easy. Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon are names to be recited by online marketers as sacred. The easier it is to share your content, the likelier it is to be spread.
3. Reward Inbound Links. Positive reinforcement works in most cases, but in building your credibility, also bear in mind that not all inbound links ought to be automatically reciprocated.
4. Help Your Content Travel. Through RSS feeds, newsletters, social media updates, and downloadable files, content that can conveniently be communicated expands your reach.
5. Encourage The Mashup. The fact is, your content will be available for most of the world to see. Encouraging your followers to add their own take on the matter will make for an entirely productive interaction.

Enumerating two important points, Jeremiah Owyang, emphasizes the need to:

1. Be a User Resource, Even if it Doesn’t Help You. Well, doesn’t help “directly” — it will return in the form of recognition as the go-to authority for information on your field of expertise.
2. Reward Helpful and Valuable Users. Following the Pareto Principle of 80-20, forming relationships with your influential VIPs are a valuable investment.

Four things that Cameron Olthuis shares never to underestimate are the value of:

1. Participation. Being involved, belonging to a community to which you significantly contribute to — that is what social media is all about.
2. Knowing How to Target Your Audience. To ignore this piece of advice would be folly.
3. Create Content. Real content is different from space-fillers in being relevant, informative, and reliable.
4. Being Real. Sooner or later the truth will prevail. Fakers, scammers, hypocritical identities will backfire no matter the short-term advantages.

Creating a difference is simplified by keeping in mind the two things contributed by Loren Baker:

1. Don’t Forget Your Roots, Be Humble. Do not forget the people who have one way or another brought you where you are today.
2. Don’t Be Afraid to Try New Things, Stay Fresh. Be critical, yet open-minded about opportunities to constantly improve.

Lee Odden completes the list by focusing on Social Media Optimization with the easy to understand advice to:

1. Develop an SMO Strategy
2. Choose your SMO Tactics Wisely
3. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

1. Credibility on Domain Age With Microsoft as Bing’s backer, everyone involved in the SEO industry is keen on investing time on this tool as well. One of the most immediate things that becomes evident is how this new site pays a lot of credibility on domain age. Therefore acquiring key domains that have been registered for a long time are valuable purchases.
2. Titles could very well make or break the page rank on Bing.com. Pages with titles and main headings that contain key words are more likely to get picked up for search queries. Everyone knows text-heavy sites are more favored in searching, this is all the more true with this new alternative to Google. Might as well throw in meta keywords as well for good measure.
3. DEO (Decision Engine Optimization) One thing to also consider in what is being touted as DEO (decision engine optimization) is the linking out. As opposed to the main search engine competitor’s perception of linking out, Bing takes this as a plus point for any site.
4. “linkfromdomain” Feature How else does Bing empower linkbuilding? What anyone involved in SEO will be especially gleeful about is the site’s ability to help in pinpointing excellent linkbuilding targets. Or, if there is already a reputable website one is eyeing, Bing helps one find possible avenues to get links from them. This is made possible by the new player’s unique “linkfromdomain” feature. Simply put, it enumerates the pages that are linked-to from the specified domain by entering “linkfromdomain:”. Think of it as finding just the perfect crowd to run around with.

Although its measurable impact has yet to be seen, the changes it brings to the game of link-building and web search optimization are something to keep an eye out for. As a press release on Microsoft explains, Bing’s initial priorities are on helping making choices related to trip planning, local business searches, health information, and e-commerce’s foundation of purchase decisions. This is a red flag for online marketers in these industries and a virtual neon sign for those from other fields to get a head start as early as they can.

Why is correct category finding important in a link building campaign? Before you can expect to fare well in link popularity or search engine rankings when using web directories for link building, it is crucial to understand how web directories actually work and how they operate. In simple terms, web directories serve as catalogs of web sites sorted by categories and subcategories. Unlike search engines that allow you to locate pages with relevant information, web directories allow you to locate websites according to category.

Directory submissions are one of the easiest ways to acquiring links to boost your website’s link popularity, but among the most confusing steps in suggesting a site for inclusion is the first step: selecting the right category to suggest your site to. Finding the right category is important for possible inclusion to a web directory because it increases your chances of getting your suggestions acted upon by editors more promptly. Sites that are suggested under incorrect categories delays the submission process. Hence, choosing the correct category is important if you are serious about improving your site’s link popularity.

How do I find correct categories for submission? Emphasis on link building using web directories is on the most popular directories, namely Google Web Directory and Yahoo! Web Directory. Here is a preview of how each of them organizes categories so you can find the most suitable category to submit your URL to.

Google Web Directory

Google stands out among other web directories for some enhanced features such as importance ranking, which is a plus factor for link building campaigners. Google Web Directory has a corps of Open Directory volunteer editors that selects websites and categorizes them. Using Google’s patented PageRank mechanism, the web directory is able to display a ranking of sites based on importance. This notable feature makes the highest quality pages appear at the uppermost in any directory category.

Other web directories list sites within each category alphabetically, but Google uses PageRank to sort sites according to their importance. The highest-rated sites receive a green ratings bar to indicate their popularity in terms of PageRank. This helps users effectively launch a link building campaign by enabling them to determine which sites under any category are worth browsing.

When choosing the correct category for directory submission, submit your URL only under the most related categories to your site. Keep in mind that search engine rankings and link popularity emphasize on relevancy. Google directory narrows your search from a broad range of topics or category. It displays topics in a given category and can recommend terms that will help you conduct a narrowed search. Further, it lets you search subcategories once you narrow your topic of interest within a specific subsection.

To help you locate the most popular subcategories within a broad category, the largest subcategories are displayed in boldface. Google’s World Category features directory content using descriptions in non-English languages. To illustrate, in World/Francais, content and descriptions are written, not merely translated, entirely in French so that a whole section of the Web is displayed completely in that language.

Yahoo! Directory

The Yahoo! Directory features 14 main categories to browse on. Each main category is composed of several sub-categories that organize general information to specific information. The Yahoo! directory can list sites either in alphabetical order or by popularity. The popularity listing allows pages to be sorted by relevance based on Yahoo! Search Technology, helping your link building efforts focus on sites that are worth checking out.

When submitting for a URL to Yahoo! Directory with improving your site’s link popularity in mind, to choose the most suitable category for your website. Here are a few tips:

1. Be specific. If you want to suggest your site for inclusion to Yahoo! Directory to help you improve link popularity, be meticulously specific. You can search Yahoo! Directory for words related to your site, and from there, view “Related Categories” that are displayed in the results.
2. Indicate whether your site is commercial or non-commercial. If your website is entrepreneurial in nature, it belongs to the Business and Economy section. Commercial sites require paid-for listings which cost $299/year.
3. Specify the region when applicable. If your site is of particular relevance to a region, you must suggest your URL to a regional category. For example, a museum in California should be suggested under Regional > U.S. States > California > Arts and Humanities > Museums, Galleries and Centers.
4. Personal. Suggest your personal web pages under the category Society and Culture > People > Personal Homepages.

Uncertain? If you think you have found the right category to submit to, check out what sites are already listed under it. If you find that they are unrelated, think twice before submitting. View the “Description” of this category or go to the “See also” heading and look at a list of related categories to help you find a better location. To use directories effectively and establish your site’s link popularity, always ensure that you submit your URL to the relevant directories and to the correct categories and subcategories within these web directories. The task may be time-consuming, but with a little patience, you will see inflow of links to your site.

Others utilize the pay-per-click (PPC) system which is cheaper because one only pays for the user traffic generated. Another method that has proven to be truly effective in delivering increase in user traffic is link building. An off-page optimization strategy within the SEO framework, link building is the process through which one website is advertised in another website similar in content and/or field of interest. It is one of the best optimization tools available used to increase a site’s popularity, ergo, a business’ online image.

This is precisely why link building is considered one of the most vital factors in the SEO campaign. The idea is for your site to achieve higher page rankings with the search engines, more specifically, by building link popularity. Link popularity is the quality and number of incoming links that point to your site. When other sites link to yours, this implies that your site is regarded as important; in turn, the search engine considers your site important as well. Therefore, link building as a sales strategy can make or break the business. It is also tedious and time-consuming, and requires a degree of experience and expertise. Nonetheless, the potential benefits of link building have made it a prerequisite among modern businesses who want to maximize their sales and profits. While some businesses may choose to handle their own link building campaigns, others can choose to contract a link building service to assist them.

Link building contributes to the business in five ways:

1. Acquiring quality traffic from relevant web sites;
2. Obtaining a favorable image as a valuable resource through high quality links;
3. Generates visibility, awareness, and credibility of your site;
4. Allows the site to gain a wider search engine exposure; and
5. Helps the site get indexed by search engines.

Link building could be inbound, outbound, or reciprocal. Each method has its own pros and cons. Inbound linking. These are the links that point to your website. Inbound linking has a vast potential of generating user traffic. Whenever a site has a link to yours, some of its traffic will visit your site and increase your link popularity. Indeed, the user traffic that a single link generates is small, but as you build more links, you can see an increase in the number of visitors. Moreover inbound links increase search engine awareness for your site. The more links major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) detect that point to your site, the more relevant it considers your website as. Here are some of the most recommended methods of acquiring links to improve your site’s traffic.

• Website directories. Registering a site on web directories may be a boring and painstaking process, but pays off in terms of user traffic. There are free web directories and some that require a fee. Other directories offer enhancements that will add exposure and additional ad space for your site.

• Article directories. One viable way of getting more exposure is to submit content to online article directories. While a monotonous undertaking, it is worth the effort altogether. Submit content or articles that are relevant and newsworthy. Make sure that the website publisher sees valuable content or you will end up wasting time and effort. When you write an article for the article directories, you want to make sure that it is informative and newsworthy. Sales pitches are usually rejected.

• RSS Feeds and Blogs. Aside from article directories, creating an RSS feed will help improve your site’s visibility. An RSS feed delivers your content to RSS subscribers. In essence, you are bringing your product to users, giving them a reason to visit your site, thereby increasing traffic. Moreover, once the feed is listed in distribution sites, the latter rescans your feed and updates their database information, saving you the effort of resubmitting each time you add new content.

• Press Releases. This is among the most recommended methods of generating traffic. Press releases may be free to create and release and has the potentiality of generating tons of traffic the instant a media outlet picks up your releases.

Outbound linking. Outbound linking is the placement of links on your site which directs the browser away from your site to another website. Placing a link on your site suggests to your users that there is value to it. Conversely, linking to a site that has similar content with yours generates value to that site from the viewpoint of the search engine. Essentially, you are helping another site gain traffic while increasing the relevance of your own site, provided that the site you are linking truly complements your site.

Reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking or link exchanges refers to the process where two webmasters agree to show the other’s link on their respective sites. A reciprocal link is generally a banner link and/or text to a site that has also created a text and/or banner link to your site. The message of reciprocal links to search engines is that you consider the site valuable to your visitors and are willing to let them leave your site to access the other site. To ensure that you use reciprocal linking effectively, you need to ensure the other site’s credibility and the initial placement of your site. Check on whether you link has been moved or deleted and the functionality of the link and avoid splashing your site with mismatched reciprocal links. Link building is an arduous process but remains one of the most effective and most recommended optimization tools to ensure online marketing and advertising gains. To maximize the tool’s benefits, link building campaigns must ensure relevant, congruent, and complementary links within your field or industry.