What are backlinks and why are they so important
A backlink, also known as an inbound link, is a link that directs back to your site from another site. They are one of the key ways to get your site noticed by the major search engines, especially Google. When someone thinks the content of your site is important enough to put on their site, the search engine spiders will index that content and place you on the search engine so you don't have to do it manually.
The higher the number of backlinks you have the higher the rank the search engine will give your site. But, keep in mind, it's not just the number of backlinks, it is also the quality of the backlink that is important. A search engine will consider a backlink good in quality it its content is related to the content of your site. So it's good to get backlinks from sites with a similar content base.
Here are some ways that you can build backlinks:
- Run contests and giveaways
- List your site in directories like DMOZ
- Post in forums. In some forums, when you post, it is acceptable to add a link to your site in your signature line.
- Post comments on blogs that are similar in content to yours. Post comments that are relevant and sincere, don't just comment for the sake of creating a backlink.
- Comment on Ezine articles
- Google has a great feature called Alerts. You can enter search terms related to your niche and google will alert you by email or feed when your search terms are found in the latest articles, latest blog posts, latest web pages, latest videos and the latest 'group' posts. For backlinking purposes you can choose to be alerted only when your search terms show up in new blog posts so you can visit that blog and leave a comment.
- Build Hubpages
- Build Squidoo Lenses
- Submit your RSS feed to twitter so every time you create a new post to your blog it will be automatically tweeted for you.
- Write about things people want to know. People are always looking for good information, tutorials and how-to's
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