Backlinks: Why your web pages need them

backlinks clinic

Backlinks commonly called ‘page links’ are critical to the visibility of your web pages in the search engines and attracting visitor traffic. To understand backlinks there are three elements you need to consider, the source from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and the content of the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.

The amount of backlinks

The amount of backlinks to a page is one of the factors the search engines consider when deciding how to position the page in the results displayed to the searcher.

The source of the backlinks

Backlinks are very similar to votes with different ‘rights’ that relate to where they originate from So it follows that pages with backlinks from authoritative pages will receive a much higher value consideration from the search engines. Government (.gov) and educational (.edu) sites are good examples of sites that are authoritative and trustworthy.

Google Page Rank

Google has the concept of ‘page rank’, this is the value indicator it awards to a page it considers to have a history of accumulating authority from backlinks..

The ‘anchor text’

Just like a label, the backlink anchor text has influence over the search engines valuation of the backlink. Relevance is the guiding principle for all search engine software and it follows if the information on the page is about ‘drying chillis” then it is from a search engine’s perspective, more valuable for the backlink’s anchor text to this page to contain the word ‘chilli’ as opposed to a related term such as ‘drying spices’.

Common issues

It’s not rare for first timers to confuse the quantity with the quality of backlinks and become quickly perplexed by their lack of progress For instance if the volume of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page originate from pages not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost always bring you the wrong visitors.

How to create backlinks

So here is my tried and tested guidance for getting backlinks to your pages, great positions in the search engine results pages and quality traffic to your web pages.

1. Discovering the right keywords from the beginning is essential.
2. I like to build a keyword ‘cloud’.
3. You should always start by identifying a key word or phrase which has a high volume of traffic.
4. The fastest and cheapest method to find out how much traffic a keyword or key phrase is getting is to use the Google keywords discovery tool.
5. I analyse words and search phrases associated with my primary phrase and create my ‘cloud’.
6. I then create content in the form of articles and videos containing backlinks with the correct ‘anchor text’ to my ‘money’ or ‘target’ page and send these to the various directories.
7. My golden rule is to write content that will attract visitors and compel them to follow the backlinks to my money pages as well as send backlinks.