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How To Make Your Backlinks Count (Part I)
By Serge Botans (c) 2006

I think that we all know now how important backlinks are for
the search engine ranking success of our web site. I also think
that we all know now that one way to get these backlinks is by
doing link exchanges with other sites. (For the uninitiated,
backlinks are links on other web sites that point to ours.)

But do we know that there are various things we need to check
before agreeing to exchanging links with another web site?
After all, the whole point of exchanging links with others is
to benefit from the ranking of their web sites. It is therefore
imperative that we investigate ahead of time as to whether
exchanging links with another site is to our advantage or not.

I have thought about this whole idea of link exchange
preparation and came up with a 3-step process that involves an
analysis of 3 pages of the web site we want to exchange links
with. The 3 pages are:

- the home page where we will need to check 7 things about that
page,

- the directory page: this is the page that contains a list of
categories that the site has put together in a bid to organize
its link exchanges. We need to check 7 things here,

- the backlink page: this is the page that will contain our
backlink. We also need to check 7 things here.

Note that in some cases, the 'target' web site will not have a
directory page. In that case, our analysis will be a 2-step one
rather than a 3-step one.

In this first article, of maybe 2 or 3, we shall look at the 7
things (organized in 2 groups) we should check about the home
page of the target web site.

1. We need to check what Google thinks of the site. This is
done by looking at some things that Google is happy to report
about a site. The idea here is to see if there are any problems
with the site, from Google's point of view, that would cause us
to decide not to exchange links with them.

I suggest that you look at:

a) how many pages the site has indexed? This can be done
by using 'site:www.site.com' in the Google search box,

b) how many backlinks does Google report for the site? This can
be done by using 'link:www.site.com' in the Google search box,

c) is the site listed in Google's index? This can be done by
using 'http://www.site.com' in the Google search box,

d) what is the Page Rank of the site/home page? There are
several ways of doing this. One way is to get the Google
toolbar and visit the web site to see its PR. Another way is to
use one of the many web sites on the Internet that enables us to
find the PR of any web site. And still another way is to look
for software that will tell you the PR of any web site.

Although you will generally need to look at these 4 things
together in a sort of table in order to decide whether the
target site passes the first step or not, there are definite
results that would cause me to decide straight away not to
exchange links with a site:

- if the PR of the site is zero,

- if the site is not listed in the Google index,

- if the site does not have any pages indexed by Google.

You will note here that I am using Google as the first step in
the preparation. In fact, we can use any search engine if we
want to but given that Google is more fussy than others when it
comes to backlinks, I would suggest using Google in the above
first step.

2. I would then suggest that you look at 3 tags of the home page
of the target site, in a bid to determine if the site has a
theme compatible with yours:

a) Its title tag,

b) Its description tag,

c) Its keywords tag.

There are several ways of checking the content of a web page's
tags. If your browser, such as MSIE, allows you to view the
content of a web page, then you will need to visit the home
page and click on the right menu command to view the content
of the page. Then you will need to scroll to the top of the
page to view the content of its tags. The alternative is to
look for web sites on the Internet that enable you to view the
content of the tags of any web pages. There are many such web
sites on the net.

The reason for this step is that Google takes into account the
theme of web sites when looking at backlinks. This means that
backlinks from a site that has a theme compatible with yours
will be of higher value than one that comes from a site that
has nothing to do with what your site is about.

As mentioned above, this preparation is for the home page of the
target web site and is only the first step. There are 2 more
steps: one for the directory page and one for the backlink page.

It is only when the target web site passes the 3 steps that you
should feel confident about exchanging links with them in that
the link exchange will be to your advantage. Needless to say
that the target web site will also need to conduct a similar
3-step analysis of your site prior to wanting to exchange links
with you.
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Serge M Botans is the CEO of http://www.seo-analysis.com/
online-tools where you will find 2 free custom SEO tools. One
of these tools will enable you to conduct the link exchange
preparation mentioned in this article.
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