You’re in business, you’ve created (or had created for you) a business website. You’ve also made the commitment to incorporate a blog as part of your online footprint and have dutifully added to this section of the site on a regular basis. Now you want to make your blogging efforts visible to as wide an audience as possible. One way to do that, aside from generating good, original content that attracts users, is to incorporate backlinks into your postings. Considered one of the main building blocks of any website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts, backlinks (or Inbound Links as they are sometimes called) are essentially links from an outside website back to your blog content.
The actual number of backlinks to a blog entry is viewed by Google as an indicator of the website’s importance in terms of SEO. Websites with quality backlinks are given more credit and placed further up the page than those without. A key phrase here is ‘Quality Backlinks’ as poor ones can create the opposite effect, driving your website deeper down the page, further from the top page or two.
For example say you are a mill owner and that your company is in the business of producing two-by-fours. On the firm’s website you regularly write blogs that extol the values and uses of this product. But somewhere along the way a website that sells pet toys or handmade soap reads your blog, likes it and links its blog back to your entry. As the links are to websites in areas beyond the normally accepted scope of two-by-four usage, the backlink is considered of poor quality and may actually hurt the website’s search rankings. If a carpenter, lumber yard or building contractor were to backlink this same entry the results would be entirely different, as that would be considered by the web bots as a quality backlink.
Websites with quality backlinks are given more credit and placed further up the page than those without
Another thing that can negatively impact the value of a backlink is when they are artificially introduced solely for the purpose of SEO enhancement. In this example a Webmaster may have access to multiple websites, for themselves or for their clients. To try and boost SEO they arbitrarily backlink multiple blog posts between the various websites they administer. Unfortunately backlinking between websites from the same IP address (the Webmaster’s) will have the same downgrading effect as a poor quality link.
So how can you create quality backlinks? There are some automatic tools available online that might help, such as this one from Small SEO Tools. But many web gurus believe one of the most effective ways is to post entries on other, appropriate websites. The mill owner above might consider posting entries on relevant industry sites that permit it. By sharing your information the website you are posting to is going to be more receptive to linking back to your page. It’s important when doing this to post more than one entry – a solo effort just to develop a backlink might also be viewed in a negative light by the search engines. Having a number of quality and appropriate entries on someone else’s website will enhance your site’s rankings and your personal reputation as a blogger.
Publishing blogs on websites related to your industry is an excellent way to develop good quality backlinks
Another simple way to add backlinks is to always link your blogs to your personal Social Media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This technique offers a huge potential for exposure, and for other readers to link to the blog entry on their own. This could be one of the easiest ways to generate quality inbound links. Overall however SEO is a huge subject and backlinking which we’ve only touched on here is just one element. To learn more surf the net, do some research and develop a strategy that works best for your skills level and available time constraints. If you have any questions about this or any other marketing topic please feel free to contact Evolution Business Media Group at any time. We’re always happy to hear from you.
