Posted on January 20, 2012 by CJ Article Team

Backlinks are one-way or two-way connections that direct from one website to another. The backlink is sometime referred as the lifeblood of search engine rankings. There are other factors used to determine ranking but backlinks still appear to be a major component in the search engine ranking process.

The one-way backlink leads in one direction only. For search engine ranking many search engine optimization (SEO) experts believe one-way, inbound backlinks have greater value. One reason is that quality, one-way backlinks are more difficult to obtain. Two-way or reciprocal backlinks will lead in both directions and can have less ranking benefits.

When considering backlinks, selecting high quality, well established websites that are themselves high ranking is best for improving your search engine ranking. Also, the websites must be relevant to each other. Backlinks from a poor quality or unrelated sites may have a limited or no benefit to your search engine ranking.

The more backlinks a website contains the higher it can rank. A larger number of backlinks are like being more popular.

This popularity can equate to a higher search engine ranking. Numerous, well placed backlinks can be as good as using the correct keywords or paid advertising.

There are several suggestions for getting the best backlinks pointing to your website. Article submissions is one of the top Internet marketing strategies for gaining backlinks. The articles need to be informative and relevant to your website. With submission to the right article directories your website can gain credibility and you get viewed as an expert in your niche. Also, your articles will contain information about the author and links to your website in the resource box section usually appearing at the bottom of the article.

Commenting on relevant blogs and forums can create backlinks to your website. The comments should offer informative and useful content. Additionally, there is the opportunity to interact with other bloggers and forum members. This gives the added possibility of monetizing these relationships over time. To add comments to blogs and forums you must create a profile along with a signature containing your link.

Participating on social media sites is a related strategy but must be done correctly. Backlinks are best not included in your feeds or URL profile boxes. A link can be added in most bio boxes to achieve a backlink. By syndicating your writing you can earn backlinks on updates to your web feeds through the RSS aggregators.

Social bookmarking is another strategy but somewhat more dicey. There are hundreds of social bookmarking sites.

These websites are used to manage information about different topics and niches. The sites accept content which can include information, photos, bookmarks and backlinks. Some social bookmarking websites are ignored by the search engines resulting no impact on ranking.

Submitting a website to an Internet directory like Open Directory can lead to creating quality backlinks. The submissions are reviewed by live editors and may take some time before search engine ranking results are evident.

The backlinks to your website can be searched using Google or Yahoo! by simply typing your domain name or website page address after “link:”. This will pull up lists of websites with backlinks to your domain or website pages.

The ultimate goal of backlinks is to produce greater web traffic meaning more visitors to your website. Having relevant, high quality backlinks means a higher ranking and increases your chance of generating traffic.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3149840