Dave's Blog

Most webmasters will attempt some form of Search Engine Optimization during their career as website owners. They will do this because they want to increase their Page Rank which will increase their website traffic. Most will fail; this article will go into depth on how to build a good backlinking campaign correctly which will in turn increase ranking and sales.

When most people think of SEO they think of backlinks. They are under the perception that the more backlinks they have the better page rank they will get. They are partially correct, but it needs to be done correctly. Below are some helpful tips on the correct way and the incorrect way of building backlinks.

The correct way to build Backlinks:

1) Get relevant websites with good Page Rank (PR) to link to your website.

2) Join a Forum that allows you to put your link in your signature. You'll want to find a forum that is in your niche that way you'll build relevant links. Do not spam the forums, that is the fastest way to get yourself banned. Participate, and not only will you create backlinks that the search engines will spider but you will get traffic from the forum itself and develop relationships with others within your niche.

3) Get a Good Link Baiting campaign going by providing content that attracts other webmasters to link to it.

4) List your website in relevant Directories.

The Wrong way to obtain Backlinks

1) Write hundreds of articles (This produces low value, spammy links from the same block of IP addresses).
2) Write Hundreds of Press Releases about your site stating how great it is.

3) Have unrelated sites with poor Page Rank to link to you.

4) Participate in a Link Farm

5) Spam blog sites comment fields. This is a waste of time anyway since most blogs put a tag on any user created link of (rel="nofollow". When Google spiders the website, if it comes across any links with this tag it will disregard them. Read more about the no follow tag from the Official Google Blog.

The most important thing to learn from this article is that backlinks from relevant sites will increase your page rank the most. Spamming blogs will do nothing but waste your time and irritate the blog owner.

Useful Tool

SearchStatus Firefox Plugin :  This is a very useful plugin for building relevant backlinks.  Remember above  where I said you want backlinks on relevant pages with good Page Rank.  Well this plugin puts a little bar graph on the top of firefox that weill let you know what the Page Rand and the Alexa rank of whatever page you are visiting.  Not only that but it has a setting that will highlight any link on a web page that uses the no follow tag.  This is very beneficial if you are looking for page to establish backlinks on.