Creating back links to your website is one of the best ways to gain a higher ranking in the search engines. Almost any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert will agree with this point. The SEO experts will also tell you that your placement in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) can make or break your website.

The most important thing you need to learn about search engine optimization is this - there are two prongs to your attack:

1. Back links
2. Search Engine Saturation

Back links are important because all of the search engines use them to determine how you page ranks. Therefore, the more good back links you have, the better. So what makes a good back link. Three criteria:

1. It’s a one-way link, nonreciprocal
2. From a website on the same topic as yours
3. Originating from a website with a higher PR rating than yours

These three criteria are in no certain order of importance. But you do need to consider these criteria when seeking back links. Sources of back links are legion. Here are some you can and should consider:

• E-mail other webmasters
• Directories like DMOZ and Yahoo!
• Reprint Articles
• Forums and Bulletin Boards
• Blogs

Webmasters - Seek webmasters who have websites similar to yours. Ask them to link to you. Give them good reasons to by providing resources they and their visitors will find valuable.

Directories - DMOZ takes a while to get into, but it’s a resource that shouldn’t be overlooked. Yahoo! provides free listings for non-commercial websites. They do not guarantee a listing but they will consider your website. It’s worth a shot.

Articles - Articles stick around a long time. It’s not a quick fix, however. It’s a long-term strategy and can be time consuming. If you manage it carefully, it can yield some great results. Pick 10 article directories and submit one or two articles per week to those directories. The goal is not to get listed in the directory; it is to write an article that is so good that other websites similar to yours will pick them up and publish them. When they do so, you’ll get back links. Most directories allow up to three links in your author’s resource box. Imagine one article per week at 10 directories and each article is picked up by five publishers bearing three back links each. That’s 7,800 back links in one year. If you do that, you’ll be well ahead of your competition.

Forums and Bulletin Boards - Find three forums in your industry and become a regular contributing member. Every post you make results in a back link when your signature is posted.

Blogs - Two ways to do blogs. Post on other people’s and start one of your own. By posting on other people’s blogs, you are doing the same thing you are doing by posting on forums and bulleting boards. Starting a blog of your own, however, can be much more rewarding. Here’s how:

• Each blog post is counted as one page in the search engines
• They are typically crawled faster than normal web pages
• Each and every link is counted as a back link to your website

That said, there are two ways to do blogs. Host it on your own website or purchase a separate domain name. We don’t recommend the free blog hosting sites like Blogspot. If you host on your own website then each back link is counted at Yahoo! and MSN but not at Google. However, if you have a separate domain name then the back links are counted at all of the search engines. Consider that you include a signature at the bottom of each post and two or three back links within each post and you post daily. Three back links daily after one year will give you a total of 1,095 back links.

So there you have it, back links in a nutshell. And we haven’t even talked about search engine saturation. Hope this helps as you build your website’s recommendation this year.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 7:00 am and is filed under MAIN. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.