If you're serious about Search Engine Optimization, then one of the most important aspects is going to be building backlinks. More than any other aspect of your website except perhaps for keyword-rich content, who links to you and how popular they are affects your own page rank.

Any website can stuff a page full of keywords. But only legitimate sites--or so the reasoning goes--will actually have lots of other sites linking to them. Backlinks, then, become essential in Search Engine Optimization and website development.

But how do you go about getting them? Who are the best sites to get them from?

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today. Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of “x” months. Thus the term “Sandbox Effect” applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not being targeted by many other websites (low competition). There are a number of tools out there that can help you find them.

Wordtracker

The best tool out there, Wordtracker is one of the most essential SEO tools. To use Wordtracker:

Everyone knows that if your website has a high Google Pagerank, you have all chances to reach good search engine positions, to get serious partners, or simply get more money selling text links.

But how to get a high Pagerank? (Let's clarify: saying ‘high Pagerank', we mean at least PR6)

Of course there are many different ways. You may start exchanging links with PR1-2 websites, then with PR2-3, then with PR3-4 etc… and after a year of this madness you'll probably get a result. But till that time, your mailbox will burst from tons of “link exchange proposals” and your website will look more like a free-for-all directory. Or you may start writing articles adding your website URL in the bottom, but not everyone can do this, and it'll also require many months of efforts.

Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice on the Internet. Webmasters have been asking other webmasters for reciprocal links since the beginnings of the Internet. The very nature of the web is linking websites to one another. It is of even higher importance, now that AltaVista and others have changed their ranking algorithms.

If a webmaster considers your email spam, then he can report you. If your emails are unique, without commercials, and are personalized with unique personal information about the webmaster's web site that you are emailing, then it would be hard to call your email spam.

All webmasters must be responsible in their asking for reciprocal links. This includes following simple rules and guidelines in choosing web sites to include in your link directory.

We all want to get our websites high up in the search enignes but how do you do it? One thing you shouldn’t bother doing is submit your site to any search engines. Not Google, not Yahoo!, not AltaVista. Sound a bit strange? Read on...

Submitting to all the search engines

Submitting your website to every search engine is an incredibly time-consuming process. There are hundreds and hundreds of them out there - no doubt, you've come across the companies who'll submit your website to 1000 search engines for you.

Search engine professionals know that the vast majority of these search engines have a very low usage rate and will drive hardly any traffic your way. In fact, it's only a handful of search engines that drive the majority of traffic from search engines to websites.

There's such a thing as taking search engine optimization too far. I'm not talking about black hat versus white hat, things that might get you banned versus staying pristine. I'm talking about keyword stuffing in the title. As far as search engine optimization goes, there's nothing wrong with it. You might very well make it to #1 with a title like "Widgets, Black Widgets, Home Widgets, Cheap Widgets."

But who's going to click on that?

Oh, I'm sure some people will. But I'm betting the guy who's at #3 with "Widget Information" is going to get more visitors.

Sometimes we webmasters spend so much time trying to second-guess the search engines that we forget potential visitors, people, are the ones we really need to impress. Yes, it's important to get onto that first page of search engine results, but once you're there, think of ways to entice people with your titles.

Website owners and webmasters who are trying to improve their search engine ranking by trading links with other sites should beware of being cheated. Beware of link cheating.

What is link cheating?

Link cheating is when the other party in a link exchange does not live up to the bargain and does not add your link to his site. Link cheating can happen when you add someone else's link on your site first, then submit your link info, and assume that they will reciprocate and add your link to their site. What often happens is they don't add your link. And you end up with a one-way link, giving a link and getting none in return, improving someone else's search engine ranking and not yours. Link cheating. Even worse, you end up wasting a lot of your valuable webmaster time and energy for nothing. And, often, you won't even know it. You may not know you are the victim of link cheating or may not find out your link was never added to the other site until weeks or months later! Because link cheaters don't email you telling you your link has been added to their site and they don't email you telling you they have decided not to add your link (for whatever reason). They will just take advantage of the one-way benefit of you linking to them. Link cheating.