Recently, one of my readers commented and asked me to write an article about backlinks. Rather than just give you a definition of what backlinks are, I wanted to share with you how to use backlinks to promote your Internet business and how it will benefit you over the long-term. Additionally backlinking is another SEO strategy you can add to your list of activities and it does require consistent effort. If you can outsource this to someone, I would recommend it and you can focus on the dollar productive activities.

What Are Backlinks?
Wikipedia defines backlinks as:

“Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank, are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.”

Simply it is a link from another website linking back to your website with a keyword.

How Does Backlinking Help Your Internet Business?
Backlinking and SEO go hand in hand when it comes to promoting your Internet business. The more backlinks you have to your website, the higher chances your website will be displayed on the first page of a search engine (such as Google). An important thing to note is how you go about getting quality backlinks. It is possible to get a lot of backlinks to your website, but if it is not relevant then your efforts are being wasted. Therefore, when getting a quality backlink to your website, make sure the word or phrase is relevant to the link. Let me give you an example, if you have a website based on nutrition and you write an article on women’s health, make sure that your linking keywords are “women’s health” and not nutrition. Google awards you for relevant phrases linked to relevant websites by ranking you higher.

Where Can I Find Out How Many Backlinks My Site Has?
All search engines offer a backlink look-up tool that you use to find out how many backlinks your website has. All you have to do is type in link:www.yourdomain.com into the search form. Just replace yourdomain with the URL of your website or webpage.

How Do You Get MORE Backlinks To Your Internet Business?
There are many ways to get more backlinks and it comes down to how much time and effort you are willing to put in to building them. I would allocate no more than an hour each day on these activities as it is a long-term process and will not happen immediately. These are just some of the methods I currently use build backlinks to Internet Business Path:

• Submitting your link/site to article and blog directories
• Do link exchanges with other sites and blogs
• Comment on blogs related to your topic or industry (Remember to contribute to the conversation and not just one line comments that will SPAM the blog)
• Sending a press release with your website link into publicity channels
• Post in forums (make sure to include your signature with a link to your website)
• Write guest articles or reviews for people and include your website link
• Build more websites and link them altogether

If you consistently apply all the methods above, you will build up a huge network of backlinks. Remember to contribute your thoughts and not to simply post a one line comment with a website link. You will not only build your reputation but also link to lots of new people online.

Tyrone Shum
Hunting for more backlinks