Backlinks (also called “inlinks”) are your main building blocks for a good SEO foundation. What are backlinks? They are external links pointing at your website. Think of them as little votes in search engine eyes. Every time a search engine finds a backlink on another website they give you an extra “point”. There is no limit to how many backlinks you can have. The more, the better. However not all backlinks are the same. Search engines prefer them to be from more popular, quality, related and established sites. Links from such sites will give you more credit. And one-way links, where another site links to you, without you linking to them, are even better.

How do you tell how many backlinks (if any) you have?

Simply do this search in your favorite search engine:

link:www.yourdomainname.com

(there are slight variations). Examples for this website:

• Google
• Yahoo Search
• MSN Live Search

Please note that new backlinks will take time to appear in search engines. Google, for example only updates your backlinks a few times a year. It also might not show some of them if it thinks they are less important.

How do you develop backlinks?

There are a number of ways of doing this.

1. Link exchange: It’s the practice of exchanging links with other relevant websites. The simplest way of doing it is to email another website owner and ask to do a link exchange. You place their link on your site and the other site in return will place a link back to you. Make sure the link compliments your website theme.
2. Directory submission: Its when you submit your website to web directories. There are a LOT of them around all over the internet, both big and small, niche and general, free and paid. Does not matter which directory you submit to, you should only do it if you feel like you will get clicks (visitors) from your actual listing. Don’t bother if the directory you are submitting to looks young or dead. I have compiled a little list of free (hopefully) directories you can submit to here, but there are plenty more around. Quality, not quantity, is the key!
3. Articles: This is a really good way of getting quality and related backlinks. How it works, is you write an article related to your website of around 600 or so words (every article directory has its own rules and criteria). You add a few backlinks to your website(s) either in the text body or the signature. You then submit your article to an article directory (there are a many of them around, have a look at the list I have compiled here). After your article is approved, other webmasters will visit the article directory in search for some material they can publish on their websites. If they like what you have written and they think it might be of some use to their readers, they will publish your article on their website. Voila! You have new backlinks!
4. There are many other ways. Some are dodgy (”black hat”) and some kosher (”white hat”). Stay with the accepted linking methods, otherwise your underhand attempt will probably come back and bite you in the ass! here are some examples:
   • Create free website templates or themes with your backlink in the footer.
   • You can also buy backlinks. Even though search engines do not like people buying backlinks in order to boost their SERPs, many of them will get away with this and even have great results. I would however not recommend buying backlinks because the potential downside is too big.
   • Another way is to pay for a “write-up” (i.e. a short article with a backlink) about your website on another site. Some people have had similar success with “press releases” on those PR sites.
   • You can also join a “webring” of like-minded sites (e.g. see webring.com), or use a so-called “link farm” or “links exchange”, although I do not recommend the latter two options as search engines might penalize you.
   • Lately, social bookmarking sites, and websites such as Digg and Stumbleupon have also become popular to try and get backlinks and website traffic.

I will cover these subjects in more detail later on.

Anchor text

Anchor text is very important. You should include the keywords you are targeting in your anchor text. But it’s a good idea to refrain from using the same anchor text too often. For example, your website is about computers. The keywords you are going for are: “buy laptop” and “computers”. Instead of using “buy laptop” and “computers” in your anchor text for every backlink, try to alternate it: e.g. “buy quality laptop”, “Best place to buy laptop”, “Great computers” and “Accessories for computers”, etc. Keep it related, short and sweet.

General link building tips

Create a unique and useful website with a good product, service or content. People will link to you even without you having to ask them (those one-way backlinks are the best!). Great websites can spread over the internet like wild fire.

Next: 4) SEO (Onpage)