This article is written by Elmer.James : hospital anxiety depression
When you build a website, the last thing you want to do is disappear into obscurity. Instead, you want your website to get indexed by the search engines for your relative keywords, and to do so quickly. How do you do this? Through backlinks.
Truth is, it can take search engines a long time to find your website if you are not actively promoting it and the best way to promote it, is using backlinks.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are links pointing back to your website from another source, such as another website. These are not links on your site pointing to another page of your site. No, these are other sites linking to yours.
Which type of backlink works the best?
When considering backlinks, it is important to understand that not all backlinks are the same. Sure there are numerous FFA (free for all, but are they really?) pages all over the internet. There are sites that claim that they can get you indexed, get you submitted, and even claim that their program is the best if you'll only plop down a couple hundred dollars or grab a membership. The only problem with all of these tactics is that they do not offer you linkage to a website with similar content and what you'll really end up with is an email inbox full of SPAM (FFA's are good for that).
You see, the only way that you are going to benefit from backlinks is to have your site link to another that has similar content and keywords. To put it more bluntly, at times, you need to be schmoozing with the enemy. A kind of scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, if you will.
Won't all this linking with my competition hurt my chances?
No, not necessarily. Sometimes it is beneficial for the consumer to have a choice. The only problem that you might have is if your site doesn't own up to high enough standards. If your site can truly hold its own in the quality content department, then you shouldn't worry much. Consumers probably won't go searching the links section of that website, and the only one who will is indexing robot who's job is to go out, find a link, see what kind of content is around it, and decide if your site is important enough to be placed in a higher section of the search engine results.
How do I create all these backlinks?
Some of the advice that I offer to my clients at MBWebDesigns is to get involved in the internet world. Blog, comment on blogs, visit forums pertaining to your website's content and be an active participant. Go out there and schmooze a little, rub elbows with other webmasters and socialize.
Now that doesn't mean go out there and SPAM every forum you come across. Forums and other social sites, like MySpace, etc. have very strict rules that prohibit you from just saying, “Hey, try my product at my website.” That is a big NO-NO and it will get you banned. Instead, you want to do it subtly, such as placing your website's address in a signature block that is automatically placed into every post you make. It works. I have links from posts I made nearly two years ago still sitting out there from a forum I was a member on back in 2005.
MySpace if another popular site that seems to be gaining a lot more members. The accounts are free, you can place links to your site in your profile, and they even have a blog for you to use. Gather up some friends and you could have instant access to not only potential customers, but you can promote your site and through your blog for all to read.
Then there are articles you can write and load up to a free article source such as Ezine Articles. You can write an article on a topic that reflects your expertise or that of your website, place an author box that tells a little bit about you, your website, and your products in that article, and submit the article for use by anyone who is looking for free content.
But the best way of finding a place to build some backlinks is to do a search for sites with the same keywords who are offering a link exchange. Just go to your favorite search engine and do a search for your keyword along with the words, addURL or add link.
“Keyword” + “add URL”, “add link”
Then just visit every site and add your link, then add their link to your page, and… what? Is it too much?
Well, that is one way, or you can go out there and purchase some of those programs that are out there that may or may not work. There are a lot of programs out there on the market now. Out of all of them, I found two that I would truly suggest.
The first one, ARELIS, is expensive, but you could not ask for a better product. This software program not only finds relevant, highly ranked sites for you to link with, it can also help you to perfect your site for search engine indexing and help you correct problems with your webpage that may prohibit it from achieving a high ranking. As an extra plus, it will also allow you to monitor your sites rank progress, so you can actually watch your site climb in the ranks. Plus, as you create backlinks or reciprocal links, it will keep all those links and build the link directory for you, placing it into a webpage design exactly like your own and even upload it to your servers for you. Now that is what I call a full service program.
The second, SEO Suite, is much like ARELIS offering some of the same features in easy to understand formats. The only slight variation is that with the SEO Suite, you can manage your article submissions.