Backlinks: what are they and how to use them

One of the tips we share in our Purple Snowflake Marketing book is the value of getting backlinks to websites and blogs, and how to get them. Because of this, I was recently asked in an interview if, looking back, I now consider this effort a waste of time; after all, it doesn’t result in immediate sales or increased customers. I can certainly understand how people can question the value of doing this time-consuming activity when there are so many other things pressing into the daily schedule. However, it is a worthwhile task to fit into the schedule nonetheless.

First, let me try to explain what we are talking about here. When a website publishes a link to another website, it is a “backlink.” On the Conscious Discussions blog, for example, we often post an author interview and share your website for readers to follow, which is considered a “backlink” for the person we interviewed. (Backlinks are sometimes also called: one-way links or inbound links.)

For a backlink to be effective, it must have a hyperlink; This means that when the mouse is dragged over the backlink, the item can be clicked and this automatically takes the user to the website. The backlinks must also be on another website; Any link on your own website that takes a user to another page on the same website is called an inbound link and has nothing to do with backlinks.

When entrepreneurs are ready to present their work online, the first thought is how to set up a site. The business must decide whether to buy a website URL, use YouTube or Facebook, or focus on using a blog format. You may decide to use several different media. Regardless of the medium the company decides to use, it takes a lot of thought and weeks of work to get it perfect for the initial release. Each of those media will have a unique URL that can be used to create backlinks.

Once the site has been published for the public to access, business owners can send notices to direct contacts and advertise it on social media or include it in their email signatures, but generally, no one knows. Neither do search engines that use complex programs to determine where to place your site on their ranking scale. And trust me, you want to be on that ladder. It works like this: When someone conducts a search using keywords that are associated with your business, they want your site to appear in search results. Over time, your site will move up the ranking ladder to be among the first recommendations on the first page of search results, rather than the bottom of the last page, where it may never be seen.

Getting the attention of search engines and making them see you as a relevant site can be done in a number of ways, including backlinks. The goal is to publish that URL on as many sites as possible. While this activity is quite time consuming, business owners can control the time they spend on this project. Initially, they can schedule two hours on a specific day of the week just for this task. As time goes on, they may only spend half an hour a week. Sometimes they can skip a week, two, or even a month. However, no backlink opportunity should be overlooked.

Very often, I can find a resource, such as a list of small businesses for our area, or a place to submit a press release, or a profile that I could complete more fully, or be included as a recommended resource on a blog. , and while I can feel that all of these are good backlink opportunities, my schedule is so heavy that I can’t deal with any of them right away. In this case, I find it more useful to have a file on the desktop where I can make a note of that resource. When the schedule allows, I can go back to that file and never feel like I’ve missed an opportunity.