Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links found on other websites that, when clicked, direct visitors to your site. It’s the antithesis of “forward links”, which are links on your own website that direct visitors to another website. Because many search engines (Google in particular) use backlinks to determine page ranking, it’s important to have a good number and quality of them. Ideally, you’ll want to get backlinks from other websites that have many backlinks of their own. This will help boost your page rank, which may result in more web traffic. Here are a few of the best ways to get backlinks:
Quality Content
This is the most effective way to create backlinks. There is no better site than a good site that provides quality content. If your site has valuable content, then other webmasters will use it for their own site. Of course, your content will contain a copyright-protected link to your site. That’s a backlink for you! Other webmasters will simply post your link in their website to give their visitors more information.
Forum Posting
This means being an active participant in the forums. Post your ideas, meet the members of the forum, engage with them. Tag your post with a link back to your website. But make sure you only write good posts.
Article Submission
If you’re an expert in your site’s content (which is more or less the case), spend a little time writing and submitting thoughtful, well-written articles to other sites. Each article you create is one backlink; if it’s good enough, other sites will copy and publish it, giving you more backlinks.
Directory Submissions
There are more and more free web directories popping up. Go online and check out every free web directory available and submit your site and URL. Make sure you only submit under your keyword or niche category.
Reciprocal Link Exchanges
As the name suggests, these are websites where you can ‘trade’ links with other site owners or webmasters in a niche. ‘You put my link there and I put your link there’ approach. However, there are two key things to remember when it comes to link exchanges: 1. Always make sure you’re exchanging links with sites that are relevant to your business. 2. Never send out mass emails to webmasters. Most will just ignore you. It’s better to reach out individually (especially to sites whose pages are important to you) and recommend a link exchange.
Link Baiting
This is when you post controversial content on your site, or you post something interesting on your site with the goal of getting bloggers to blog about it and link back to your site. Some people consider this spam or ‘black hat SEO’, but don’t worry about it – people decide to link to you; you don’t force them to.
Provide a "Link to Me" Code
Make it simple and convenient for people to link to your site. “Link to Me” is a piece of HTML code that people just copy and paste into their websites and blogs. But don’t use only text – use graphics, create icons or buttons to add to your code. Users who are looking for filler content may only be willing to use your sleek, shiny and attractive banner or button because it’s free and available.
Consider RSS Feeds
With RSS feeds, you can either syndicate your content or let other websites show your content on their own sites with a backlink to your original article or page.
If Desperate, Buy Text Links
If you have the means, why not just buy text links? It’s an option if you don’t want to go through all the hassle of the methods mentioned above; but it’s worth it if your real goal is to earn money by selling text links to others.