What are backlinks and why are they important?

Before we delve into the creation of back links, let us consider exactly what back links are.

Backlinks are like a democratic voting system. If you were voting on the next President of your country you would go along to a polling station and cast your vote. The person who gets the most votes wins and becomes "President*.

In the context of SEO consider your site as a candidate for 'president' i.e. seeking the number ! position on Google for your keyword phrase. In order to get this position it is in competition with all the other presidential candidates i.e. competing websites.

Yes certainly the 'candidates* credentials (on page optimization, content, etc.) is an important consideration, but ultimately it is the number of votes that will determine who gets the number # 1 position.

Google considers each backlink as a vote in favour of your site. However Google goes one step further. Whereas in our presidential election example every citizen's vote has the same weighting, Google gives certain citizen votes more weight than others.

It does this through a system it terms 'Page Rank". A site's page rank or authority is ultimately determined by how many other sites are linking to that site. Page rank varies from 0 to 10 with a backlink from a page rank 10 site being far more valuable that a backlink from a page rank 0 site.

So if your website receives more backlinks than your nearest competitor site, then technically you should dominate the number one position on Google.

Now this is an over simplification as factors such as 'on page optimization* and 'quality content' are very important considerations also. But one thing is for sure. If you are intent on dominating page one of Google for your primary keyword phrase, then you MUST make it a priority to generate as many quality backlinks as you possibly can.