In the previous post I talked about the importance of backlinks. So here’s my tips for securing for good backlinks for your site:

• Submit your site to web directories
  There are a huge number of web directories around. Submitting to the larger directories (like dmoz.org) is easy, but to really get the benefit, you want to be submitting to a large number of web directories, and this needs to be done automatically.There are many pieces of software, and websites, out there that will submit your site to many web directories on your behalf, some charge a fee, and some don’t. They will cover a huge range of different directories.As BeachyUK offers a Search Engine, and Web Directory Submission service, I’d best mention that now… but there are many others too.
• Buy expired domains
  This is a surprisingly large business, so it must work. We don’t have any experience of this ourselves, as we consider it a short-term and improper practice (can you tell we’re English?!). Basically, it’s based on the fact that websites don’t update their links regularly. So if a website expires with a lot of backlinks to it, the new owner will benefit from these backlinks, even though they pre-date the owners use of the domain.
• Forum Signatures – Yours or buy
  Far too few webmasters make proper use of this. Simply join forums, add a link to your site into your signature, and get stuck in… each time you post on the forum, you’re adding a backlink to your site!For best effect, join relevant forums, and get really involved in the community of the forum. You’ll earn some good backlinks, but will also earn potential custom from the forum, based on the value you’re adding there.
• Link to your site from your social networking profiles
  Particularly where profiles are publicly available (the same is true on forum profiles), adding a link, is another potential backlink.
• Exchange Links
  Most common, people either join Link Exchange sites (where two parties agree to link to each other), or you agree this through a forum, or personal exchange of e-mails. I favour an e-mail to targetted sites, choosing sites of a similar PageRank to yours (otherwise there’s little in it for them), and clearly pointing out the similarities in your customer base.
• Buy links
  Links are always up for sale. You can shop around on dedicated sites, or approach a site directly. Just be careful to ensure you are getting a backlink from a higher rank site than yours, and that it isn’t marked as “nofollow” (which means many Search Engines, like Google will not count the link as a positive backlink).

What are your tips on getting more/better backlinks?

What is PageRank?

PageRank (PR) is one of Google’s  key calculators of the importance of a page of the web.

Put simply, PageRank views links between pages as “votes” for page. In its first iteration this simply means the most heavily “voted” for (linked to) pages are seen as the most “important” in the Google index.

In reality,  this simple image is however played over-and-over, with each iteration taking account of the previous iterations page “importance” to give “important” pages a more heavily weighted “vote”. This, in essence, means a link to BeachyUK.com from a relatively unknown site has less impact on our PageRank than a link from Microsoft.com… seems fair enough really.

But, there’s one more thing that makes PageRank such a heavily watched area… and it’s a secret.

No, really, it is a secret. The formula behind PageRank is a constant secret by Google, and it’s often changing, preventing even the best from reversing the facts back to a formula.

So how do you get a good PageRank?

• Write consist content: Search Engine’s like a site with related keywords
• Fool nobody: If you try to fool a Search Engine, you’re very likely to be blacklisted, getting poor, or zero PageRank from Google. Don’t even think about it.
• Get lots of good, relevant Backlinks: Backlinks are links from other sites, to yours, they are the “votes” in Google’s eyes. But don’t forget about the secret formula, Google doesn’t give a lot away, but it is clear the Backlinks from sites with similar keywords counts for more, so find relevant sites, and exchange links with one another.
• Write good content: This is the best advice I can give anyone. Good content attracts visitors, some of whom will spread the word, creating backlinks to your site
• Search Engine Optimisation: Don’t forget to make sure your site is easy for a Search Engine to read, and written with them in mind, as well as your human visitors. Good basic Meta Tag use, and Search Engine Submission is essential.

Summary

In truth, I don’t believe in PageRank, that is, in trying to boost it. Google is always looking to make PageRank a quality ranking system, so your best bet is to write good content, and link to, and get links from, good (and relevant) sites.

Links

Meta Tag Analyser -http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/
This online tool provides excellent feedback on your website from a Search Engine perspective. Don’t be too worried about being 100% in all areas, the key is that you’re considering the Search Engine perspective. So long as you’re achieving 80%+, you should be fine.

Google Technology Overview – http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html
The official Google statement on PageRank.