What is a backlink strategy? This is simply a description of the strategy a website owner follows to get other websites to link back to his website. The popular misconception is that as far as this goes the more the better. There are countless SEO ‘experts’ running around charging customers huge sums of money to get thousands of links back to their websites.
These guys argue that Google loves external links to a website. The more backlinks it finds, the higher it will regard that website and the more often it will appear on top of search results.
Right and wrong. Google is not quite that stupid to only take a look at the number of incoming links to a website to decide whether it will be ranked on the first page of search results or the last. If that were true anyone could quickly set up ten thousand pages with links back to his own website and get listed in the number one spot for whatever he wants.
The important issue for Google is not quantity but quality. They have never published the exact algorithm they use to rank the listing of web pages, but it’s fairly certain that they don’t simply look at the number of incoming links to a site, but to the quality of those links as well.
But what is a quality backlink then? Why would one link be given a higher value than another link? The answer is simple: relevance. It’s not really such a difficult concept to explain. Let’s say you have a website about building model aeroplanes and down the road is another guys with the same type of website. Now you get the local butcher to link to your website from his, while the other guy manages to get a link from a well-known, highly regarded website about hobbies. Who do you think Google should list at the top?
Suppose further that you notice his site is listed above yours, so you buy links from all the shops in town back to your website. All of them create special pages with no other content but the link to your website.
Google will still rank the old lady’s website first. Why? Because the one backlink she has is from a highly regarded source. A source that gets thousands of visitors every day and which has numerous other top quality websites linking to it. Not to mention that the link pages you bought have no content except for the links and is therefore totally irrelevant to Google as far as your website’s ranking in search results is concerned.
To get quality backlinks to your site is not easy. That is why so many people still fall for the “10 000 quality links” trick. You might have to write to 50 website owners and ask them to look at your website content to get one good backlink in the end. Should it be from a authoritative website that one link might make a big difference though.
Writing articles for top quality article directories, a strategy known as article marketing, will also get you some worthwhile backlinks, since they allow you to link back to your site from the article. And if your articles are as good as you think, they will eventually be syndicated – other websites will publish them as well and also link to your site. As a backlink strategy this will be much more effective than buying low-quality links.
Tags: article, Article Marketing, backlink, backlinking, backlinks, content, linking, website