How Important Are Backlinks?

As we've learned, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves an abundance of aspects. However, when it really comes down to it, most webmasters will tell you that links, or backlinks, are the most important part of SEO. Even if you do nothing else, if you have thousands, or millions, of backlinks you're going to rank in the search engines. This week we're going to take a look at how link building, the process of finding well-rated, relevant (preferably), websites that will add your link to their site. These can involve different methods including, but not limited to:
forums
blogs
social bookmarks (i.e. digg or del.icio.us)
submitting your articles to article directories


That's just to name a few, backlink obtaining methods are discussed more in-depth in another lesson.

An optimally effective SEO strategy MUST include a good back link building method. If you don't have time for back links but you have a little cash to play with, you could always pay for an expert to do it for you. A quick Google search on "buy backlinks" will give you plenty of results to look over.

As we've talked about previously, there are good ways to get backlinks and there are bad ways to get backlinks. Let's take a look.

Good ways to get backlinks:
One of the first things you should do: add your site to web directories and search engines.
Use the profile page of your blog, article directory, or forum membership to promote your link, especially if it has a high PR (PageRank).
Write articles and submit them to multiple, high-ranking article directories, placing a link with anchor text in your Resource box.
Make useful, informative posts or comments on relevant blogs and forums with your site link in your signature.


Bad ways to get backlinks:
Link farms. Can be summed up to any site that wants you to pay for a link placement on their site, with the exception of the Yahoo! Directory.
Trading links with sites that your visitors would not find beneficial. This usually tells you that it's not relevant enough to link to so you shouldn't waste your time.


Now let's take a brief look at a few more ways to get links. Believe it or not, this is much easier than it sounds. What you want to do is go to Google and search for "submit link -keyword-". So if you were selling oranges you'd search for "submit link oranges". This would most likely get you to some directories for "oranges". If you wanted a forum you'd just replace "submit link" with "forum" or "forums" sometimes used interchangeably.

So what have we learned? In short, backlinks are important in SEO. Why? 1) They build on link popularity, telling Google your site is more important. 2) They point Google in the direction of your site every time it crawls the page(s) your link(s) is(/are) on. 3) They increase your Page Rank (PR), increasing your search engine rankings!