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So what’s a backlink? And why do I care?

In simple terms, “backlinks” are links to your site from other sites all around the Web. When other sites link their pages to yours, you’ve been backlinked.

You care because backlinks are one of the primary indicators that the search engines use to decide how important your site is.

For example, say you sell deep sea fishing equipment at your online store. And so does your closest competitor, Captain Big Skinny. Both of you have websites that offer information about deep sea fishing, and a nice range of merchandise for sale.

Now let’s imagine Jack is planning a vacation, and needs some deep sea fishing gear. He enters the term “deep sea fishing gear” into Google. And he gets a list of sites that sell the stuff he’s looking to buy.

How did Google decide whether to put your site on the top of this list, or Cap’n Skinny’s? They used a measure called “PageRank.” This is a number between 1 and 10 (you want a higher number) that is assigned to your site based on how “important” it is.

Backlinks Improve Your PageRank

Okay, you need a better PageRank than Skinny so your site appears above his in the search engine results. How do you get it?

Let’s see what Google says about how to improve your site’s ranking:

“In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”

Build Organic Backlinks with Content Distribution

The key to effective backlinks is they need to be “real.” In other words, having all your friends and neighbors link to your site from their blog really won’t do you much good in the search engines. You need to get backlinks from high quality sites that are relevant to your site. For example, a link from a travel blog read by sports fisherman, or a newsletter that offers advice on landing the big one.

Getting these links requires some strategic content distribution. All you need to do is write articles about deep sea fishing (how to choose the perfect pole; what bait to use for what type of fish; the best deep sea fishing spots in the Gulf, etc). Then distribute that content to niche publishers, article sites and content directories. Your article is published, along with a link back to your site, and gets in front of interested readers in your niche.

Putting All the Bait on the Line

This kind of backlinking strategy depends on two things to be successful:

1. Distribute your content as widely as possible, by using a content distribution system that reaches thousands of sites and niche industry publishers; and

2. Continue to distribute new content frequently, to constantly build new backlinks.

It’s like putting a thousand poles in the water all over the coast, instead of just one…you’re just plain gonna catch more fish this way!