Backlink Anatomy

          BACKLINK ANATOMY

Business owners and blog managers spend a lot of time or money, usually both, on SEO optimization and quality content.

The rule of "Content is King" reigns over the Internet How-To forums for bloggers like some kind of plague. As if they are saying, "the reason you aren't getting traffic is because your content sucks." But that isn't always the case, and everyone in this business knows it.

I mean, what good is paying $1 per word for quality content, if you can't get anyone to look at the site?

Are you really going to just sit there and wait for Google or Bing to bring you a thin thread of potential customers who might be interested in what you are doing? Let's face it: the easiest way to get to the top of those lists is to be popular, and how can you get popular if nobody sees your site to begin with?

This is a perplexing problem for bloggers and businesses alike. You need the page views to grow an audience. You need the audience to create buzz and grow your page views, and you need traffic to stand out against the rest of the SEO experts out there vying for the top spot on every Google search.

You need a plan of action. Typically, the next course that many of us take is to go social, but we've all seen that hit a wall too.

You go on social media with no idea what you are doing, and invest hours in learning how to set up a page, dumping money into advertising campaigns that seem to be going nowhere, or you pay someone extra to do all of this for you with the same dismal results.

The best advertising professionals cost a lot of money for a good reason. They know how to drive traffic, not just set up a couple of pages, optimize some content, and then take your money and watch you fail, afterwards pumping you for more cash to expand the advertising budget.

Backlinks are the solution to these problems. And whether you'll be the one out there spreading them, or your "tech-guy" will be put in charge of it, it's the most effective and fastest means to get users to your site. So why the heck did nobody tell you this to begin with?

Because you need the content first. You need the social media presence. You have to grow your assets a bit so that when you cast that huge net to start pulling viewers from blogs and other sources, they can actually find you, and resonate with your content, and do Google searches for YOUR articles.

Driving traffic isn't a simple solution. You are literally competing with everyone else on the Internet, from Casey the Cupcake Lady to Linda's Fashion Blog to Halliburton.

You have to compete with politicians slinging mud at each other. The odds are stacked against you, so you need all of it. Every tactic you can get your hands on and implement. And now that you've got the great content, the easy layout that works on mobile, the advertising dollars ready to spend, and three or four social media accounts with thousands of followers; I'm going to show you how to add an incredibly powerful tool to your belt: the backlink.

If you master this tool, you will be able to consistently drive high traffic, and you will piggyback of traffic from others. The best part is, backlinks aren't a single flash in the pan. If the article they are attached to is good now, it'll still be good in the future.

The page will still be there, and so will your link.

This means you aren't getting a sudden spike of traffic, you are consistently shuttling new users to your site, and you aren't paying a dime in most cases. You can repay the favor by linking to other sites as well, and possibly even get affiliate dollars for doing so, but that's a tad beyond the scope of this course here today.

A backlink is a simple enough concept. Forget all the marketing jargon that surrounds them. At their heart, they're simple. It's just a link from another place on the web to your site.

For instance, links from your business pages on twitter and Facebook could be considered backlinks, but more effectively, putting links on forums, blogs, Facebook groups, Reddit, and other social media platforms would be a more fitting description. The best place to plug backlinks is on blogs that are not owned or operated by you, but you link appears in a post on the blog, or in the comments section of specific articles.

The same applies to other businesses or customer websites that link back to your content. Many times, simple in-line text links are the most effective, as they appear more natural on a blog then a banner or some other type of advertising. You can pay affiliate marketers to link back to you in this way.

Backlinks are not some magical Internet thing that nobody understands. All it is, at the end of the day, is a link. Its purpose is to direct traffic from one website to another, that's it. They tend to stay on a webpage over its lifetime.

A backlink doesn't create a surge of traffic that is over in a day or two, like normal advertising. Instead, the link stays put for as long as the website owner keeps the page up, so as the page itself continues to generate traffic, your link will be waiting for new readers interested in your product or service.

In this section, we're going to briefly look over some of the most popular and resilient methods for putting your links out there. Each method will be broken down at large, so you understand exactly what it entails.

Start on your own page.

Good SEO practices encourage the use of backlinks, so don't be afraid to start linking to other company websites from your own page. Ideally, you want to have a good mix of incoming and outgoing links. You don't want to be a link hog. You also want outbound links aimed at quality content that will interest your readers, and high traffic sites that will keep the search spiders happy.

The simplest way to add value for your own customers is by linking, not necessarily to the competition, but to related websites that offer slightly different sources than your own.

Become a hub of good information for the people that stumble across your site on any given day.

Think about it...

If you come across a page on the Internet that has links to all of the best information out there for your specific hobby, even if nearly all of it is hosted on another site, are you going to bookmark each individual site, or are you going to bookmark the list of links?

This is a good first step, not only to keeping your audience coming back to your list, but also to building a rapport with other companies on your link list, providing a valuable resource that your viewers will appreciate, cementing your brand name, and maintaining a good mix of outgoing links, which the search engines will appreciate.

Create buzz.

The more people talk about your site, the more back links will come in naturally like clockwork. The retweet is probably the simplest example.

You post a link to your own content, someone reads it, and then they go back to twitter and either provide their own link to the content, or they retweet the link you shared with a comment.

The link is seen by a larger audience, and you drive more traffic, because people are talking. This should be the end goal of your social platform. Not just to create huge followings and post about your own stuff, but to engage with the community, and when your website can help other members of a discussion, then you can plug it.

Most social media platforms are perfect for this, but some excel. If you can get your backlink to stick to the front page on Reddit for any amount of time, then you will see a swarm in traffic.

Longer lasting discussions.

If getting retweets on twitter is good, then getting people talking about your website in the comment section of a blog is better.

Ideally, you should be invested in other blogs that cater to your industry. You should have a Disqus account that you use to leave comments on blog posts. They don't all have to be directing traffic back to your site, and in fact, they shouldn't always be that way. However, if you see an opportunity to drop a plug somewhere, then by all means, do it.

You are creating a link back to your website from someone else's content, and as long as the whole of the comment is in good taste, the blogger isn't going to mind, because their discussion is growing, and they are getting more traffic. This tactic can obviously be used for nefarious purposes, so be careful what you post. You don't want to be labeled as a spammer.

Guest blogs are another way to generate traffic.

If you are an industry expert, you can find blogs willing to let you post your own articles, and at the bottom, your name and picture will appear with a link back to your website. This is definitely one place where content is truly king. Your blog has to be good enough to not only catch the normal audience for the blog, but to convince them to see more content from you by clicking your link.

In most cases, the blog article itself can link back to products on your page. Just make sure that you and the blog owner are clear about the rules of posting on their site. A happy blogger can be a solid ally, but if you make them upset by using your post as a giant promotion packet that adds no value to their site, then they probably won't host it.

Forums have been around for a long time, and they persist to this day with surging traffic numbers. Most of them have rules about content, but they are filled with off-site links, and a great place to draw some attention. Internet Forums are basically an open discussion.

You create a user profile, log in, and you can leave a comment on any discussion, or thread. Threads are often divided into categories or topics for relevance, and there is a forum out there for just about anything.

● Want to start keeping bees? There's a forum for that.

● Want to write books?

● Want to fly a helicopter?

● There's forums for those too.

In fact, there are so many, and they are so popular, that if you haven't found at least one in your industry, it's likely that you haven't been looking. Most of them will allow you to customize a signature, which can also contain a link to your website. Every time you leave a comment, you get a plug, regardless of the topic of discussion. Easy.

The daunting Press Release.

Press releases are older than the Internet, but they are still an effective tactic. Many times, trying to get a blogger to host your article is no different than trying to get a local paper to do a piece about your business. You send off and email, make an announcement, and try to make it newsworthy. The press release today follows the same format, but with an online press article, you are also creating links back to your site from newspaper websites.

Now, you can work it up the chain.

Let's say you land a couple small blogs and newspapers. Having a press style article about your business allows you some leverage. If it's good enough for one blogger or news feed, then it's good enough for another. Modify your press release or article submission to tell other bloggers that the story is already being featured elsewhere, and provide links.

Many bloggers work long hours with little pay, and they are hungry for new content. Use that to your advantage. You might be able to spread the content around until you can catch the attention of the Huffington Post, or some other major blog. Once that happens, tons of smaller bloggers will want to comment on it too, so that they can put their own spin on it, and at that point it even looks appetizing to major media outlets.

Don't just promote your site, promote the blogs and feeds that are promoting your site to create more backlinks. Make your content available to your email list by adding a simple call to action, which allows those receiving your emails to repost your content, not just via email, but also to their social media platforms.

Don't push out some clunky email about a new product idea, make it a sizzling story that they will want to share with their friends

Show them how your product solves an interesting problem. Occasionally, send them something random that will benefit them without asking for anything in return. You email should contain share links to an article about the product, or something exciting happening at your company, but a backlink at the bottom of any email is helpful.

The call to action will prompt your subscribers to repost about the article, and create organic and healthy backlinks, right on their own pages.

You want people talking about your products with others they know. As you may know, word-of-mouth, or in this case word-of-tweet, is still the most effective marketing strategy.

Just remember, none of this works without having good, SEO friendly content and a solid headline. If you don't have good articles or information about your business to start with, then the above tactics aren't going to do you much good.

If you are providing a worthwhile service however, and providing engaging content, then getting and using backlinks will be incredibly effective for increasing the size of your audience across platforms, and turning more members of that audience into paying customers.

From here, you should head out to your website or websites and go through your content. Make sure that you're not bloating your pages with links everywhere. Try to work in links to your other pages. See where you can network out and expand your brand and websites exposure as a means to create more backlinks. Practice friendly and rule-compliant promotion and your backlinks will become far more valuable in the long run.

In closing, I'd like to just thank you for taking the time to go through this course and I hope you've learned a thing or two.

Good luck with your future SEO and back-linking endeavors!