SEO For The Common Webmaster

There is a lot of information on the Internet in regards to building back links. Back links are links that point to your site from other places on the web. These are important to help get you site indexed on the search engines. They are also used to get your site Page Rank (PR) from Google. And last but certainly not least, they are important to get traffic to your website or blog.

When building back links, you need to look at many factors and what you are trying to achieve. If you are looking for traffic, you want links that are related to your topic. Find sites that are popular and try to list them there. You will be targeting people who are interested in what you have to offer and your traffic should be good quality.

You can target forums, blogs, websites, and directories that are related to your niche or topic. For example, you do not want to place a link on a site about gardening if your niche is politics. This will not get you focused traffic. You would much better to get a link on a site about politics.

If you goal is gaining PR, you will want to look at sites that have high PR. These can include forum signatures, free directories, paid directories, blogs, and other high ranking websites. Higher PR sites are great also to help your site get listed in the index of Google and other search engines.

When looking at blogs to advertise, you can get links in several ways. You can request the blog owner to add your link to their blog roll. If you have a good quality site, some may and some will not depending on how closely related your site is. Most ask for you to include a reciprocal link on their site. You can also ask for a review or blog post of your site. Some blog owners do this for free and some ask for a small fee to cover the expense of their time to write about your site.

The other way to add a link is to leave a comment on one of the post on the blog you are interested in. Make sure your comment is on topic and of good quality or the webmaster will just delete the comment as spam. I normally will accept any quality comment but I delete a lot of garbage links.

Forums are great to advertise your site but these are a little tricky. If you join a forum just to advertise your site, you waste your time and build a bad rep for your site. Take the time to find quality forums and become part of the community. If you contribute good quality posts, there are many opportunities to list your websites on the forum. Many forums also allow you to place your website links in the signature of each of your post. This is a great way to get traffic and build good back links. If you are on a forum that is connected to your topic, you can get many hits a day from one link. Make sure you know the rules of the forum and where you can and can’t post your links.

Directories are great to build back links for PR but most do little to get traffic to your site. There are thousands of free directories on the Internet and many paid ones. The conception is that paid ones are better and the quality is better because they invest more into them and they are more exclusive. I am not positive either way but I think it is more hype than reality. I think most of that came from directory owners who are wanting to sell listings.

One key point to be aware of when placing any link is rather it is a no-follow or a do-follow link. If the link is no-follow, the search engines do not follow the link so you receive no credit for a back link and no PR juice from that link. Google seems to favor sites that use no-follow links. Before you start thinking they are useless, think again. They are not good for building PR but they are great for traffic if placed on a related popular site. I would take a quality no-follow link over a lower quality do-follow link any day of the week.

Do-follow links are just the opposite, the search engines follow the link to the site and if it is your link, you get credit as a back link and if the site and link was of quality, you will also gain PR from it.If they are a high PR site, they will also help your site get listed quicker in the search engines.

Contrary to the information all over the Internet, it is not against the rules of Google or any other search engine to purchase a paid link for your site. However, if those links are determined by Google to be purchased just to boost your PR ranking, they may not be counted in your PR. They are still links and are good for driving traffic to your site.

Avoid link farms and scams where they promise you great results. The search engines like Google and Yahoo are the only ones who know what they use to determine your back links and the algorithms involved. Many so called experts do not know their ass from a hole in the ground. If you choose to let someone else do your Search Engine Optimization. Check out their back ground and ask for examples of their work. If their promises are too good to be true, they are. No one can guarantee top page results or any certain PR ranking. All these are determined by the search engine’s algorithms.

Remember when webmasters build quality back links and do good Search Engine Optimization, there is a fine line between link building and spam. A webmaster who wants to build a well respected website will avoid spamming at all cost.

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