Finding the Perfect Backlink

It’s no secret that you need inbound links (also called backlinks or inlinks) in order to rank highly on search engines. Just about any backlink is better than nothing, however certain inlinks are much better than others and you should be spending more of your time getting these.

So what is the perfect backlink? Is it even possible to find the perfect inbound link? Here are some criteria you should consider when you set out on your linking campaigns…

Related Sites

As a general rule the best backlinks are from websites that are related to yours in content and niche but do not directly compete with your site. For example: A link from a make money online blog to your work at home website would be ideal.

Anchor Text

The anchor text of the link should include keywords related to your website. Anchor text should also be varied because if all your links have the same anchor text they will not appear natural to the search engines. For example: If your website is about home based business then you might have links with anchor text such as; home business, work at home business, home based business opportunities, home based jobs, and others related.

Page Rank (PR)

When you have an inbound link from an authority website with high PR it will carry much more weight in the search engines than a link from a new website or one without any rankings.

DoFollow

Your backlinks should be live, followed links. If it contains the “nofollow” tag you are not getting any benefit from the link as far as the search engines are concerned. Make sure you are getting do follow backlinks!

One Way Links

If a site is linking to your website without you linking back to them in return it’s called a one way link, and these are much better than link exchanges, paying for links or any other way of artificially gaining backlinks.

Deep Linking

All of your backlinks should NOT be pointed at your home page. Deep linking is when you have inbound links pointing to internal pages of your website. This appears more natural to search engines and will help boost your rankings. If all your inlinks point to one page of your site (usually the home page) it can be interpreted by the search engines that you are trying to artificially inflate your rankings.

Gradual Link Building

You should gradually build your inbound links over time instead of all at once. The gradual building of backlinks is much more natural and will help a lot more with your search engine rankings.

Spread It Out

Your inlinks should come from many different sites. Having a lot of sites linking to you with just one link each is almost always better than having a lot of links from just a few sites.

Updated Content

Search engines love sites that are updated frequently instead of static sites that never (or rarely) get updated. So getting an inlink from a site that is updated often such as a blog is often better than getting one from a static site.

Number of Links and Position

With all other things being equal it’s always better to have your link on a page with fewer outbound links as opposed to a page with a lot of links. You will get a lot more “link juice” this way and your backlink will carry more weight with the search engines.

It’s debatable but the location of the link on the page can also count towards your link juice. Some people say the higher your link is on the page, the more weight it is given.

Aged Domain

The older a site is the more authority it gains with the search engines. So if you have inlinks from sites that have been around a long time it’s a lot better than having all new sites linking to you.

Links in Content

An inbound link from a page with a lot of content such as inside an article is much better than a link from page that is just a list of links and no real content.

Age of Backlinks

It’s always good to keep getting new links so after time you will have aged inbound links and new inbound links. It looks pretty darn good to search engines if you have sites that have been linking to you for years and you are also still getting new links.

Finding the perfect backlink is not easy to do, if such a link even exists. However, the above tips will help you tremendously in finding high quality inbound links that will definitely increase your search engine rankings and traffic to your website!

Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
Make Money at Home

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Reciprocal Links Aren't Dead - Stop Believing This Crap!

Reciprocal Linking is a topic that I have been meaning to write about for a long time but never have for one reason or another.

One of my favorite bloggers, Courtney Tuttle, posted on the subject of exchanging links in a recent post, Building Authority With Blogroll/Sitewide Link Exchange.

So I figured this is the perfect time for me to put in my thoughts about reciprocal linking and confirm what Court discussed in his post.

Just about everywhere you read these days you will find the "experts" saying that reciprocal linking (exchanging links) is dead. I am here to tell you that is NOT true!

Sure it might not be as effective as it once was but that doesn't mean it's dead and doesn't work at all anymore.

Think about it, when you exchange links you are still getting an inbound link from another website and search engines do like inbound links. It's not as good as a site simply linking to you without a reciprocal link, but it's better than nothing.

I know this for a fact because I have built very high search engine rankings for many of my websites and blogs, and a large part of how that happened was through reciprocal linking.

Plus, high search engine rankings are not the only way to get traffic to a website. There is still a little thing called humans who click links on one site to take them to another site. Doing link exchanges with other sites gives you a link on their site that people can click on to visit your site.

Now don't go reciprocal linking with any site that will accept your link exchange request. That method certainly does not work anymore! If you want to use reciprocal linking to your advantage then you must only exchange links with quality sites that are somewhat related to yours.

What does that last paragraph mean?

I suppose "quality" is a relative term and will be seen differently in each individual. However, you can usually tell a quality site fairly easily. Does it provide any useful content? Is it loaded with ads and not much substance? Is it ranked in search engines? Does it have any PR? Are they spammy? What kinds of sites do they link to? Etc... Look at these factors and you will be able to determine how quality a site is.

As for "related" that is very easy to define. Basically that just means that you don't want to be exchanging links with sites that have nothing to do with the topic of your site. If your site teaches people how to make money online then you don't want to do link exchanges with sites about dog training. They have nothing to do with each other. Instead, you will want to exchange links with sites about home business, working at home, internet income, making money, and others similar to these topics.

One more thing you want to be sure of when reciprocal linking is that your links have a good anchor text on them. Again if your site is about making money online then you want that for your anchor text instead of your name or simply the URL of your home page. For example, my home page is http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com and my site is about home business so I would want my reciprocal link on their site to look like this - home business. Doing so will help you improve your search engine rankings for your keywords and will also tell any potential visitor what your site is about.

Before I end, I want to send you to another post on one of my favorite internet marketing blogs. It is also about link building. It's not actually about doing direct reciprocal linking but something similar with a different twist. Here you go: Link Building - Leveraging Pre-Existing Sites to Build Authority

Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
Owner of Free Home Business Tips

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