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A backlink is a search engine optimization (SEO) term used for links that point to your site. You may have also seen them called inbound links or incoming links. Regardless of how often a search engine’s algorithm changes, backlinks are almost always an important ingredient.
Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are a good indicator of how popular or relevant your site is. Although outbound links have almost no impact on SEO, whereas backlinks actually have a lot.
For example, if you create a sports car niche blog site and place links to the top sites in the world (i.e. Top 3 as of this post are www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.facebook.com), it would be pointless for SEO purposes. Otherwise, everyone would do what I just did (by listing outbound links) on their blogs, even if they have absolutely nothing to do with the content.
On the other hand, let’s say your sports car niche blog site, actually had quality posts. Now imagine if the top sports car sites reference your blog on a regular basis. Essentially, you have others in your niche community vouching for the content on your blog site. Shouldn’t that represent that your blog site has valuable content for that audience?
Remember, this is just part of the top secret search engine formula that the public will never know. However, since we know that it’s important and it’s somewhat easy to do, doesn’t it make sense to ensure we get some backlinks on our site?
Since backlinks are so important, here’s a quick, do-it-yourself method to guarantee backlinks for your site.
Create your own backlinks
As I mentioned in my Why are backlinks important? post, I’m about to share a way to create your own backlinks. Unlike many of the tools available, some free and some way too expensive, this method allows you to be completely independent.
- Go to blogger.com and create an account if you don’t already have one. Although there are many places to start your own blog site, blogger is one of the best free offerings available.
- From your blogger dashboard, click Create a Blog. You will be asked for a blog title and a blog address. For the purposes of creating a backlink blog site, it doesn’t really matter what you choose here.
- Choose a template. You can always change it later but again, for our purpose, this is really irrelevant.
- Click New Post and simply type the following two things: (1) name of your post/article and (2) link to your post/article. It should look something like:
Why are backlinks important? (this will be the anchor text that will be a live link that points to http://freebloghelp.com/why-are-backlinks-important) - Moving forward, every time you create a new post or article, add to this post.
Simple, right? It literally takes less than a minute to do. Again, there are other methods of creating backlinks but, especially for people starting out, there’s little reason not to create their own page that they have total control of.
Gabe Young is a business professional with
an entrepreneurial spirit. Gabe has an MBA and managed IT departments in the Fortune
500, creating strategies and tactics for some of the most popular websites. Visit
Gabe at Free Blog Help dot Com.
Backlinks are important yes, and building them by ourselves is a great way to get started – but making a post with a list of links back to your site will not do much, so I’d go ahead and add at least couple of lines of text to go with the keyphrase link.
And also, individual posts will probably work better in the end than putting all the links into one post…
With that, a simple setup with a Posterous, adding free blog services like blogger, Tumblr and WordPress.com into the auto-post settings + posting a summary of a post in the main blog and link to it via Posterous will give you several links for the same effort (in addition to possible social media links back to Posterous if you add those services as well).
Antti Kokkonen´s last post ..WordPress Speed Challenge – The 4 Optimization Steps
Antti, I’m curious too. Gabe has some serious chops in this arena, though, so his answer might be surprising.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..I want to be an Olympic blogger Part I
Antti, you’re absolutely right. This is simply a way to get started. As you stated, adding a few lines won’t hurt either.
If one has the time, taking it to the next level and use keyword anchor text would be a bonus.
LiveJournal, Vox, Jimdo and Blogsome are a few other free sites you can use.
I am also currently experimenting with setting up a couple of Squidoo lenses that relate to my blog niche and link back to my blog. These are a little more work, but they are fun and easy to do. And once they take off they can become very high ranking. Always a good thing.
Blog Angel a.k.a. Joella´s last post ..Guest Post Content Are You Posting Original Articles
Joella, I try to grab my little piece of real estate on all these sites, even if I can’t develop them much right now. Once I have them, I can cycle through every couple of weeks to add content.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Content Strategy – Olympic Blogging Part II
Squidoo is actually a great way to market your articles. The problem is that creating “lens” can be incredibly time consuming.
Hey Guys,
Just found your blog and I am enjoying it very much.
Now concerning Squidoo, I spent hour, days even making about 5 lens, including the time I spent to learn the ins and outs.
All gone now because they do not like my niche (MLM).
Lesson, Back up your work somewhere, because all that work is GONE.
So I’m a little gun-shy of Squidoo.
Just my 2 cents.
Bruce
Thanks for the feedback, Bruce. Seth Godin can be pretty picky when it comes to certain things. He sorta does his own thing, even if it goes against what other experts think is “normal”.
Nonetheless, too bad about you wasting your time there.
Yes, this is one of the ways to make backlinks. But as you say, there are many other ways. And many other free ways actually. Like: web directories, social media, article directories, blog commenting, guest posting, forum signatures and more.
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Agreed. There are many ways to create a backlink. The point is start to with an easy, self-serve method, regardless of which tool you use.
Agreed on the importance of having backlinks pointing towards our websites. I am only somewhat confused as to creating such links through blogger.com (new ones specifically). Are they really worth it and do they really carry more value than say using services such as Amplify. Posterous, Tumblr, Clipmarks, etc? Or is this just an added bonus? :)
DiTesco´s last post ..How To Build Links- Share Content And More Using Amplify
DiTesco, an open question to be sure.
My guess: anyone not building backlinks right now could do a lot worse than this.
I also suspect backlink strategies are about to evolve very quickly, again, given all the new platforms coming up.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Blogging Outside the Box- Approaching Your Blog with Creative Spirit
I simply chose blogger as an example. The important thing is to use the right anchor text. So if you’re using titles with nice keywords already, then you’re all set, regardless of which freebie site you use.
I use a nifty little program called: Link Builder Pro, which automatically create accounts and dozens of social netowrking and free blogging sites. It will then post articles to them(with links).
It’s 30$ a month but well worth it if you have a real understanding of it’s value.
Josiah Staggs´s last post ..Your Next Blog Post- Who Will Read it
Ok! Done and done! I have a new blogger account and I added the first few lines of my Flattr post with a “read more” link to my actual blog.
Thanks for the info!
Curtis´s last post ..Flattr – A New Way to Make Money with Your Blog
Thanks gabe. I jus do those step on blogger.com
just get backlink :)
Hieu Martin´s last post ..Secret of link building – Be a top commentator
This is a very interesting idea. Are any of the platforms better than the others?
mark´s last post ..How Change Can Happen to You
Honestly, hard to say. My strategy is creating decent links over a long period of time. One top quality backlink hundreds of lower quality, but my guess is that with a lot of persistence, your quality will come up.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..I want to be an Olympic blogger Part I
For the first few months, other than a comment here or there, these will essentially be the only backlinks you’ll have control of. It doesn’t matter what platform you use, just get a few links pointing to your site.
Problem is, if you don’t build backlinks to that blogger page, the links coming from it have little to no value. Have you actually tested this method with any positive results? Because in my experience (based on testing done 3-4 years ago) it doesn’t provide any SEO advantage.
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Reciprocal links are by far the best so if you can have links that point to each other, then go for it.
Otherwise, backlinks do have value. Not only will it tell Google what other content is related to yours but if you have PR juice then you get that as well.
The only type of link that has no value at is an outbound link with no return.
Sorry, I meant ‘one-way’ not ‘reciprocal’.
I wonder if Google has ways to discount such easily generated backlinks, perhaps all the way to zero. These links wouldn’t have any real authority behind them.
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I agree that for the most part, you’re not going to generate any real “authority” as you state. However, what you’re demonstrating is that your blog has links coming and there’s activity surrounding it.
It’s not the best type of backlink but there’s definitely value for new blogs.
Gabe,
That is one way you can build backlinks for your site. You would probably be better off writing a little unique content before linking back to your main site. In fact, you would be better off writing about 300 words or so before linking back. In addition to doing that, you would want to go do a comment run where you comment on a bunch of dofollow blogs. In your blog comments use the URL of the blogger blog in there instead of your primary blog website. Then your Blogger blog will get the love from Google that you are looking for ad will add way more ranking boost to your main site. You would also want to add in some other unique content and mix up the links a little bit. Otherwise, it is very likely that Google will label that Blogger blog as a splog and delete it on you after about a year or so worth of effort on your part. This has happened to a lot of bloggers who have used Blogger as a Web2.0 link property for money sites. If they see what you are doing, they will nuke the site.
Kathy´s last post ..Free Do Follow Links Links Links
Agreed! There are many more ways that are better for link building for the long haul. What I’m suggesting is simply generating backlinks in a quick easy way. In the long run, this method loses value quickly. Other methods must be used, some of which you suggested.
The point is, there are many ways to accomplish the goal of getting backlinks. Ideally, one would have way more coming in than going out. This is just one early on method that I’ve used that has worked well for me.
Gabe,
One other thing I forgot to mention was your point on reciprocal links. In my experience, reciprocal links are way (way) lower value than one way links. One way links from topically relevant posts on theme relevant sites from sites that are popular within that niche are by far the juiciest links. And, the link has to appear as though it was given honestly. Otherwise, Google will eventually discount it to being nearly worthless.
Kathy´s last post ..I Am A Firm Believer In Helping Other Bloggers Out
You’re absolutely right. Reciprocals used to have much more value but SE’s have greatly reduced their importance. I actually meant one-way links, which I have corrected by adding a reply. Thanks!
That is correct Kathy. Even though most reciprocal links are well-meant, search engines devalue them most of the time :)
Gabe, Well, bloggers blogs aren’t much powerful way to build links honestly. Quite long ago i used same method, created several posts over period of time. The blog is still online but it hardly provide a sound quality link. I remember, it won’t even indexed for certain period of time. Link from blogspot is possibly authority kind of backlink but not much sound quality.
I’d, rather advice to posts articles on sites like selfgrowth, ideamarketer, articlebase and EZA.
Kathy, Recip links still helps. But not those lousy resource page links where many sites of different themes are listed in single page. They must be from high quality pages. I.e. In-content links helps a lot.
Some people refer to sites that you set up to point to your blog as “hubsites”. You can use your hubsites to create a link wheel. For example, if you have three hubsites with two links per each, use one of the links to point to your main site. Use the other links like this. Point your Spuidoo to Bloger; Bloger to Wikidot; and Wikidot to Squidoo.
Connecting the sites in this manner will put a charge in the spiders…..I hope that this helps,
James@Canon Vixia HF S100´s last post ..Camcorder Myths Dispelled By Truths
Nice. Anyway to automated it?
Jayce´s last post ..Top 10 Sprint HTC EVO 4G Tweaks and Hacks
Not a COTS that I know. I’m sure someone can code a way though.
Not a bad idea Gabe. I see people doing this over at blogReaction (my site, also offers free blogs) and it seems to work well. The backlink is only as good as the other sites that point to it, so often people use free blogs as an in-between for a 3-way backlink system. Do you have any thoughts on using a 3 way system?
Aaron´s last post ..Free Blogs
Essentially you’ll have similar outcomes I believe. IMO, your own backlinks is only valuable early on and not a viable long-term solution.
It seems like a good idea. Is blogger no-follow or not. What is your take on this matter. There seems to be some divided thoughts. I tend to believe the do-follow approach.
Right now I’m really interested in promotion I can do before my website opens in a month. Blogging and article submission seem like the best since the good directories want a completed site. So, Yahoo and DMOZ are out for the time being.
I’m not a big fan of directories anyway, especially Yahoo which will set you back about $300!
Anyway, any activity is good activity in the first few months. However, there’s almost no point in promoting a site before it’s up and running.
This nice move. get more trafic from more backlink.
luciser´s last post ..Review 2011 BMW 6 Series Generation
i agree with you. Backlinks are a good indicator of how popular or relevant your site is
kikio´s last post ..REVIEW NEW Toyota FT-HS
another trick by getting back links by Google buzz you can buzz your article and in minutes get indexed this one i tried it and really working with me
i agree, blogger and worlpress is the best way for backlinks
Thanks for the tips, these are nice backlinks. It feels nice to have a few from the really big sites to give some link juice.
:D
Smoothie´s last post ..Fläder och röda vinbär
Backlinks are truly essential to every websites. It helps in the progress of your site.
But can I ask which is better for blogging, blogger or wordpress? Need your answers. Thanks