What Are Backlinks, And Why Are They So Important?
When considering SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Getting indexed quickly by the search engines, and gaining page rank with the various search engines, one of the deciding factors is how many other websites refer back to yours. In other words how many other websites have a link that points to your website.
This can be accomplished a number of ways, such as being active on relevant blogs and forums and including your website in your signature, writing articles for ezines (electronic magazines) and including your link in the authors bio or signature, and of course including your site on social bookmarking sites and site directories.
For now I am going to discuss the latter two options. Social Bookmarking and Web Directory submissions can increase the number of back links to your site to unbelievable numbers. With a large number of social bookmarking site and 1000+ web directories you can create back links to your site that will increase your sites visibility exponentially.
This is important for a new site especially so that the website will get indexed in the search engines.
What Are Web Directories?
Aren't They The Same Thing As Search Engines?
In short, No. Search Engines use keywords as their search criteria. You type in a word or short phrase and the search engine bases the results on the specific word or words used for the search. A web directory on the other hand has links to websites organized into categories and sub-categories.
Want to get on the first page of the search engines. Back links are one of the big pieces of the SEO puzzle, because they show the search engine that your page is relevant.
How Do I Get My Site Listed In Web Directories?
Actually, getting your site listed on a web directory is pretty simple. For the most part you can go to their site and fill out a short submission form giving them the information about your site and which category is the most applicable to it's content.
A basic submission is typically free, and in some cases you can choose to have your site listed as a "featured" site. The featured link is usually a paid option.
What Are Social Bookmarking Sites?
Why Are They Important?
Bookmarking sites are a great way to create back links.
You know when you find a website that you really like, and you want to save it so you can return, you add it to your web browsers favorites or bookmark list? Think of a bookmarking site kind of like that, only it's online and it can be shared with others. There are many social bookmarking sites out there, creating yet another way to create backlinks to your site, such as Yahoo Buzz, Google Bookmarks, and Stumbleupon, just to name a few.
Social bookmarking sites are important for one very good reason. The bookmarks belong to YOU!
Web directories, in some cases, will only list your site temporarily if you are not a subscriber to their services. With social bookmarking, you create your own free account to store your bookmarks online. You can then choose to keep your bookmarks private or make them public so that others might find the sites useful and enjoy them. By adding links to your site and making the bookmark public, it creates permanent backlinks to your site.
Back Links Vs. Page Rank
One thing you should know about back links and how they relate to page rank is this; If all you did to increase your page rank was get your site listed on a hundred different sites with a page rank of 0 (zero) then your page rank would still be zero.
Getting page rank from back links comes from having those bank links on websites with an existing page rank. The search engines see these sites as authoritative and therefore, by proxy, yours must be authoritative also. You then get some of that authority, or rank, yourself.
I tell you this in preparation not as discouragement from creating back links as I've already discussed as it's all part of the puzzle. The next step of creating back links would indeed be to seek out higher rank sites and get listed on them. I will cover that in a future article.
Time Vs. Quantity Vs. Return On Investment
ROI or Return On Investment is a term that you will run into quite frequently in any business. In most cases this term is used to describe how much money is made compared to how much money was spent on advertising.
In this case I am using it in the terms of time invested.
With so many website directories and social bookmarking sites available, it can be quite daunting a task, and take hours upon hours to submit your URL (website address) to all of them, and if you are in the home based business industry you should know that automation and time management are very important.
There are a number of software programs that will handle automating the task of submitting your site to the various directories and/or social bookmarking sites and definitely worth looking into.
As always for more information, tips, and tutorials I invite you to visit my blog.
Mike Amberson is an Internet Marketing Entrepreneur who has spent years learning the different aspects of successful marketing online and has devoted his blog to helping others make the most of their online presence. For more tutorials (written and video) and helpful tips visit his blog at: http://www.mikeamberson.com
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