If you have come upon this article, then you likely will fall into one of the following three categories
1) You have a website (probably for business) and are wondering why you don't have any visitors
2) You have a website and have heard that you need to drive traffic by using backlinks but you're not sure what that is
3) Other (this last group is to cover my butt!)
If you find that you are in one of the above categories (especially categories 1) and 2)), then you will definitely need this primer. Here I will explain what a backlink is and how it drives traffic, why you need to build them, and then a brief summary of tried and true tactics for building backlinks.
WHAT IS A BACKLINK?
Any link to your website is a backlink. Whether it's on craigslist, your mom's blog, on a youtube clip description, the chamber of commerce site, or wherever it is, that is a single backlink
HOW DOES A BACKLINK DRIVE TRAFFIC?
There are two ways it drives traffic: direct traffic and search engine traffic.
The first way, the direct traffic way, is pretty simple to understand. Any time someone sees your link they may click on it to visit your site. The more links out there, the more times your link will be seen by people.
The second way, the search engine traffic way, is because the more links you have to your site, the higher you will rank in search engines when people type in search terms to find something.
Let's give you an example. Let's say you have a website about dog training. In the first example, let's say you put a link to your site on a chamber of commerce website. Someone visits the chamber of commerce website, sees your link, and clicks on it to visit your site. That is direct traffic. Now let's say there are many sites out there linking to your site. Search engines will think it's important and rank you higher for related search terms. So if someone goes to a search engine like Google or Yahoo and types in "dog training", the higher your site ranks, the earlier it will be listed in the results and the more likely someone will see it and click on it.
HOW DOES A SEARCH ENGINE USE BACKLINKS?
In the old days before internet marketing and search engine optimization, people were just happy to have websites up. Being able to link from your site to another site was something that was just new and very cool. In those days if people found a cool website they would quickly put up a link to it on their own page.
As the internet grew, search engines started popping up to allow people ways to find things on the internet. Search engines would crawl around everywhere and index pages and take note of which pages got the most links. Algorithms continue to evolve giving different "values" to different links (for example, how authoritative is the page that the link si on?). All of this means that different pages would be ranked differently in search results.
Then it also started paying attention to the "anchor text" of that link. For the longest time the most popular anchor text was "Click Here". Then people started including other words like using "Dog Training Manual" for the anchor text
Instead of using
*CLICK HERE* for a great Dog Training Manual
People now use
Click here for a great *DOG TRAINING MANUAL
Search engines loved this type of descriptive anchor text better as it could use it to rank the site that was behind the anchor text more accurately. If the anchor text used was "Dog Training Manual" it would know to rank you strongly for "Dog Training Manual" and to a lesser extent "Dog Training"
So the two things search engines consider when setting a value on a link: the anchor text used with the link, and the "quality" of the site providing the link. Search engine algorithms continue to change and add or delete different criteria when determining value. However these two main points are enough to get you going.
Now that you know what a backlink is and how backlinks are used to drive traffic to your site, you need to know how to build them. Keep an eye out for part two of this article series which will explain why you need to take it upon yourself to build your backlinks and how you should go about doing that task.
1) You have a website (probably for business) and are wondering why you don't have any visitors
2) You have a website and have heard that you need to drive traffic by using backlinks but you're not sure what that is
3) Other (this last group is to cover my butt!)
If you find that you are in one of the above categories (especially categories 1) and 2)), then you will definitely need this primer. Here I will explain what a backlink is and how it drives traffic, why you need to build them, and then a brief summary of tried and true tactics for building backlinks.
WHAT IS A BACKLINK?
Any link to your website is a backlink. Whether it's on craigslist, your mom's blog, on a youtube clip description, the chamber of commerce site, or wherever it is, that is a single backlink
HOW DOES A BACKLINK DRIVE TRAFFIC?
There are two ways it drives traffic: direct traffic and search engine traffic.
The first way, the direct traffic way, is pretty simple to understand. Any time someone sees your link they may click on it to visit your site. The more links out there, the more times your link will be seen by people.
The second way, the search engine traffic way, is because the more links you have to your site, the higher you will rank in search engines when people type in search terms to find something.
Let's give you an example. Let's say you have a website about dog training. In the first example, let's say you put a link to your site on a chamber of commerce website. Someone visits the chamber of commerce website, sees your link, and clicks on it to visit your site. That is direct traffic. Now let's say there are many sites out there linking to your site. Search engines will think it's important and rank you higher for related search terms. So if someone goes to a search engine like Google or Yahoo and types in "dog training", the higher your site ranks, the earlier it will be listed in the results and the more likely someone will see it and click on it.
HOW DOES A SEARCH ENGINE USE BACKLINKS?
In the old days before internet marketing and search engine optimization, people were just happy to have websites up. Being able to link from your site to another site was something that was just new and very cool. In those days if people found a cool website they would quickly put up a link to it on their own page.
As the internet grew, search engines started popping up to allow people ways to find things on the internet. Search engines would crawl around everywhere and index pages and take note of which pages got the most links. Algorithms continue to evolve giving different "values" to different links (for example, how authoritative is the page that the link si on?). All of this means that different pages would be ranked differently in search results.
Then it also started paying attention to the "anchor text" of that link. For the longest time the most popular anchor text was "Click Here". Then people started including other words like using "Dog Training Manual" for the anchor text
Instead of using
*CLICK HERE* for a great Dog Training Manual
People now use
Click here for a great *DOG TRAINING MANUAL
Search engines loved this type of descriptive anchor text better as it could use it to rank the site that was behind the anchor text more accurately. If the anchor text used was "Dog Training Manual" it would know to rank you strongly for "Dog Training Manual" and to a lesser extent "Dog Training"
So the two things search engines consider when setting a value on a link: the anchor text used with the link, and the "quality" of the site providing the link. Search engine algorithms continue to change and add or delete different criteria when determining value. However these two main points are enough to get you going.
Now that you know what a backlink is and how backlinks are used to drive traffic to your site, you need to know how to build them. Keep an eye out for part two of this article series which will explain why you need to take it upon yourself to build your backlinks and how you should go about doing that task.
About the Author:
Want to learn more about backlink buiding and how to make money blogging? Come by Emil Yau's Squidoo Lens Make Money Blogging For Beginners for all info you need to start, run, and market your blog!