Backlink Building Leads to Traffic

Today if we wish to have a successful website, we need to work with top rate content, search engine optimization, niche markets and enormous competition. And that list is merely the start. We will quite possibly also need to acquaint ourselves with copywriting and marketing and how to turn our visitors into buyers. However, for almost every webmaster, the greatest problem is bringing in traffic.

That brings us to the topic of this article. What do I need to do to get Internet surfers to my website?  One answer to that question is backlinks!  So, precisely what do we mean by backlinks and precisely what do backlinks have to do with attracting traffic to my website?

Well, there are two basic types of traffic, paid and organic. Examples of paid traffic are things like advertising through pay per click networks, banners on other peoples' websites and any other way in which you can pay to attract a surfer's attention and persuade him to visit your website. If you are only focusing on paid traffic then you don't need to pay much attention to backlinks.

Organic traffic is traffic that comes when somebody performs a search on one of the search engines for a topic that they're interested in. When the free listings come up the surfer then clicks on one of the websites listed to visit the appropriate webpage. When it comes to organic traffic the webmaster doesn't have to pay directly for the link that the visitor clicks on.

Generally, organic traffic is said to be free traffic. Though it can be, it usually comes at a price. The webmaster will need to do quite a lot of work to get a page listed among those search engine results. And this brings us once more to backlinks.

Very often, the number and quality of backlinks pointing to a website are what determines sites that come up when we perform a search. A backlink is nothing more than a hyperlink from one website to another website. So it helps to have a whole lot of websites linking to your website if you wish to be ranked highly in the free search engine results.

But remember that quality also matters. A backlink will be considered to offer high quality if:

• The words forming the hyperlink (known as the 'anchor' text) are highly relevant to the subject of the page to which the link is leading. (You should not use "click here"!)
• The subject on the website from which the backlink originates is related to the subject on your website.
• The website linking to yours has a lot of high quality backlinks linking to it.
• The page rank of the website linking to yours is fairly high (preferably a PR3 or above) and the higher the better.

Of course there are far more criteria, but those listed here are an excellent starting point.

So, precisely how does a webmaster create the necessary quantity of good quality backlinks to his website?  There are dozens of different ways of doing this and even more software programs that are designed to provide the answer. Buying the software programs increases the cost of your backlinks.

The only really free way is to simply wait for another webmaster to discover your website and like it enough to link to you. That's all very well, but can take a while. You can of course get in touch with other webmasters and ask whether they will trade links with you. You simply give them a link from your website and they give you one from their website in return.  These are however referred to as reciprocal links and are of uncertain value these days.

Another way is to use Article Marketing which initially involves writing articles on subjects that are relevant to your website. Your articles are then submitted to a number of article directories and include hyperlinks of your own choosing in the resources box which is attached at the bottom of your article. Submitting your website to several website directories is yet another method that can fit into the free category.

You could also decide to pay to get backlinks. One of the easiest ways is to purchase a link directly. The Internet marketing discussion boards are an excellent place to find linking opportunities on offer. You might have to pay as much as $50 a month or more to put a link on a PR5 site. You'll get a lot of traffic from it, but you will have to pay. Of course the lower the PR is then the lower the cost.

Whatever technique you select, building backlinks is vital to your success in ranking in the search engines. You'll want to get hundreds or even thousands of backlinks. The important thing is that you get going and build your links up over the coming weeks so that you can start to enjoy a continuous and growing flow of traffic to your website.