Backlink Theory

Building Backlinks isn’t just about grabbing external links….your internal link structure can be a powerful way to boost page rankings….

One of the most talked about things that webmasters and marketers talk about is getting ranked.  After all, if you can’t get ranked, you don’t get traffic.  And if you can’t get traffic, then you won’t make money passively.

The solution for this is to get a ton of backlinks.  Basically, they tell you, you need to get more relevant backlinks with the proper anchor text to beat your competition.

Now, I can’t argue with this.  But do you really know what backlinks are there for?  I mean, really?

There are two main purposes for having backlinks for SEO:

1. You need backlinks to get indexed- If you have ever gone through the forums, you will see a large number of people wanting to know how to get indexed quickly.  This is easy.  You basically leave links (or trails) that lead the bots back to your website.  If you are smart you leave links on sites that get crawled updated regularly so the bots can follow the link.  And if you are really, really smart, you will make sure that the links that are on these sites are actually following  (or don’t have the <no follow> tag).Once the bots actually hit your website, you need internal links that will point to various pages on your site so the search engine bots will crawl your other pages.I know that I am making this sound simple but it is not hard to get indexed.
2. You also need these backlinks to come from a trusted source- What I mean by this is that Google and the other search engines give more credence to trusted sites.  If the site is trusted, then the backlink will count, anchor text or no anchor text.The reason why I even bother to mention this is because most webmasters and marketers alike fail to realize that once you actually get noticed and indexed, your site will eventually become a trusted source. And when you focus on internal linking structure, you can actually get ranked simply by utilizing your own site as leverage.Don’t believe me? Try it out. Court mentioned it on his site. It is called keyword sniping and once I learned how it worked, I quickly realized the power of structuring your internal links can easily propel you to the top of the serps.

Why would internal links help get you top rankings?

Besides the fact, that a good internal link structure will help the user navigate your site, the real deal is something that most marketers don’t consider.

Websites don’t get ranked.  Website Pages get ranked.

A website might be contextual in theme but the real deal is that each page gets ranked separately.  And because your internal link structure is pointing toward a page, it is helping google recognize and cateragize what it is about.  If you have enough pages, internal and external, with links pointing to it, then you will be giving the bots ample reason to believe that indeed, the page must be about whatever it is about.

Now obviously, there are more factors that will help with your ranking.   Your page about widgets should be optimized for the keyword widgets.

There are three ways to get ranked in the search engines.  (I have seen all of these ways, by the way)  Incidentally, you could get ranked without any backlinks (or in some cases, very few)….

1. Lots of on page content-  Most people will tell you that all you need is 300-500 words on a page.  Well, this may be true.  But understand that the more content you have, the more chances you have to insert keywords into your article.  The more you hammer a keyword home, the more relevant google thinks you are. By giving more content, you will also get more potential keywords to rank for.There are sites that get ranked purely by volume of content.
2. Lots of inbound anchor text links- Just like the example above, the more times you spend linking to a page with the keyword or variations of the keyword, the more relevant the page is.  This is exactly what some marketers do when they use the keyword sniping model.
3. Lots of page content AND anchor text links- Once again, if you are gunning to get ranked in low competition niche (less than 1,000,000 results) then this method will help get you moving up the rankings.I actually tested this with a semi popular forex keyword that had 800,000 competitors.  I built a site based on the keyword and wrote 16 articles that were 2,000+ words.  All of them pointed to one page on my site.  Within 6 weeks, I was not only indexed but was ranking #4 for the keyword.  This was without a ton of external backlinks.

More Reasons Why You Should Pay Attention to Your Internal Anchor Structure

If you buy that google ranks pages, not sites (and you should because it is true), then there is another reason why you should pay special attention to your internal backlink structure….

Because your internal anchor text is part of getting your page ranked.

It is part of google’s algorithm….

GoogScore = (KW Usage Score * 0.3) + (Domain Strength * 0.25) + (Inbound Link Score * 0.25) + (User Data * 0.1) + (Content Quality Score * 0.1) + (Manual Boosts) - (Automated & Manual Penalties)

I underlined the part that matters.  See the KW Usage Score?  If you believe that to be the a relative model of google’s algorithm, then you can see that the Keyword usage score is actually the highest of the variables in the algorithm.

And if you have a page that is linking to another page on your site, you are essentially giving it more rank for your keyword.

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Now let’s suppose that you have done these things and still aren’t in the game (meaning you aren’t in the first 20 pages)…what then?  You can start to build links.  And if you can, you should aim at authority backlinks…..

But wait a minute….

What does an Authority Backlink Look Like?

First of all, I hate the term authority and all that it implies.  To Google, Yahoo, MSN, and most of the other search engines, all authority really means is that it recognizes it.

That said, there are really only two types of authority backlinks…

1. Absolute Authority Links-  These types of links are basically sites that are general in nature.  For instance, wikipedia, cnn, digg,ect.  Other types of absolute authority links are sites like DMOZ and the Yahoo directory.  These types of sites pass authority because they are trusted.
2. Relative Authority Links-  These types of links are usually the types that most of us aim for.  Usually, these links come from another site in the same niche or topic.

While it is hotly debated, I have found that back links that come from relevant sites will give you a much higher boost than links coming from a non-related niche.

Some people disagree but if you believe the notion that Google wants to be the most relevant search engine, it only seems practical that relevant niches linking up related content should, at least in principle, be given precendence over sites that aren’t really related.

My reasoning is this-  If you are on a site that sells cigars, and there is a link for baby toys, then by all practical standards, it would seem like the link itself would not benefit the visitor.  However, if the same cigar site had a link going to a cigar humidor site, then this link would be valuable to the visitor and therefore, to google, the link would actually mean something.

Maybe I am over thinking this but that is what I think.

That said, that does not mean that you shouldn’t drop links where ever you can.  I just have a hard time believing that a woman’s bra  back link on a bar-b-que recipes site would quantify much of anything since it doesn’t really provide value to the niche.

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