Marbella SEO

backlinks clinic

For any web page to be ‘ranked’ in the search engines and attract visitors it’s essential it has backlinks. Backlinks have three key properties, the web page from which the backlinks originate, the anchor text of the backlinks and what’s on the page to which the backlinks directs the visitor to.

The volume of backlinks

The number 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

The pages from which backlinks originate pass ‘authority’ and traffic to the page to which the backlinks point. So it follows that pages with backlinks from ‘trusted pages will receive a much higher value consideration from the search engines. Government (.gov) and educational (.edu) sites are obvious examples of sites that are authoritative and trustworthy.

Google Page Rank

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

The ‘anchor text’

When you see a backlink on a web page it normally has a label a word or text associated with the subject at the page to which this backlink is pointing, what this ‘anchor text’ says has influence upon the value the search engines attribute to the link. If the content of the page is about ‘parenting’ and the backlink on the page is labeled or given the ‘anchor’ text ‘parenting’ then the search engines consider this to be of more value to the searcher looking for information related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.

Common problems

Many people undermine their backlinks strategies because they fixate on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. For example if most of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page come from sites not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost always bring you the wrong traffic.

How to manufacture backlinks

So let me tell you my no nonsense method for acquiring backlinks that will make the search engines love you and bring the right type and relevant traffic to your web site.

1. It is critical you select the right keywords before you expend any effort whatsoever.
2. I like to build a keyword ‘cloud’.
3. I most often start with a single ‘top’ level keyword or key phrase which has significant visitor 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. The Google tool builds a list of keywords associated with my main keyword and from this list I flesh out my cloud.
6. Using this cloud I create a selection of content containing articles, videos and blog posts each with backlinks embedded with the related anchor text and then use a portfolio of content distribution systems to push my content to a group of 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.