As you probably know, backlinking is an extremely important part of SEO (we call it off-page SEO). Backlinks play a huge role in how Google ranks sites. If you are one of my coaching students, you are aware of the amount of time I spend teaching the concept and the importance of backlinking.

In case you don’t know, a backlink is a link to your site from another domain. For example, if you submit and article to EzineArticles, your bio for the article can contain a link back to your site; that is a backlink.

If you aren’t one of my students, you may be at a loss as to why your site won’t rank on the first page. In many cases your site may in fact be BETTER than most of the sites that do rank on the first page for your keyword. How can that be?

Backlinks matter. It is the quantity and/or quality of sites which link back to yours that makes all the difference in how pages rank in Google.

Unfortunately, there are no backlink tools that are anywhere close to accurate. Even Google Webmaster Tools does not provide good results for how many backlinks sites have. And always take the free backlink tools’ results with a grain of salt…they are NOT accurate at all.

Here is a method that shows the differences between how Google sees your site vs. those sites that rank on the first page for your keyword.

With this technique you can see how much exposure and marketing your competitors have already done compared to you:

Search the keyword your home page is optimized for and find the top ranking site in Google for that keyword. Find a private owned site that ranks high for the keyword (don’t look at things like Youtube, Wikipedia, etc.)

For example, I searched for “mountain bikes” in Google and www.konaworld.com was the #1 result. I then searched for “http://www.konaworld.com” in Google and found 260,000 results. In other words, their URL showed up in Google over a quarter million times in some way shape or form.

Again, these 260,000 results are not all backlinks. Also, there are many backlinks that do not show in a search like this. This large number simply shows just how busy the site owners have been and how broad the site’s reach is.

Now, do the same search in Google for your own domain. Put your full URL in quotes in Google and search. How do the number of results for your URL compare to those who rank high in Google for your keyword? Oftentimes, those sites on page one will have tens of thousands of results while your site may only have a few hundred at most. THIS is one indication for why the other sites rank high compared to yours.

Of course simply having your site referenced more on the web is not the only factor for ranking well, but it is connected and important. This example simply shows how busy some owners are in marketing their website.

After checking your site and comparing it to the first page competitors, you may feel quite frustrated. You may wonder how you could ever compete with those high of numbers.

This is a long post, but I think it is important to brush up on the basics once in a while. Take 5 minutes to read this long mail and you may very well find some areas which need tweaking with your online efforts.

1. Do not invest much money in your first site. This is the great thing about the Internet! There is little downside and the rewards can be almost unlimited. If you can’t make money on a low cost start-up, you won’t make any money no matter how much you spend on the site…advertising etc. I started Cactus Canyon with a $3.95 per month hosting account and one case of product I bought for $200! There is not another business opportunity ANYWHERE with such low risk and high reward possibilities than an online business.

2. Google’s ranking criteria consists of over 200 different variables. Relevant and optimized content and the number of incoming, one-way links from relevant sites are at the top of the list.

3. If you have someone else design and build your site, your first question to them is do they have a good working knowledge of SEO (search engine optimization) and Internet marketing in general. If they don’t have a clue, find someone else. Better yet, learn to design your site yourself. In my opinion, your chances of success are slim to none if you don’t learn how to create and modify your site yourself. It is not rocket science. Take the time to learn it if you are serious about making money on the Internet.

4. The more pages of content the better. Set yourself some goals for content. Imagine if you create one new page per day. In a year the site will have 365 pages of great content! This content should attract a lot of traffic! Even if your goal was only 2 pages per week, you would still have over 100 pages in a year!

5. Write your content page AFTER you have determined the exact keyword phrase you are going to use and then optimize with it. Never write content simply for the sake of writing content. Always use keyword tools to help you write content which people are actually searching for.

6. Remember that keyword phrases 3 and 4 words long are MUCH easier to rank for. Although there are many more searches for “dogs” than “dog training tips”, it will be far easier to get traffic to the page optimized with the longer phrase. PLUS the people who search for and find your “dog training tips” page will be interested in EXACTLY what your page is about.

7. Think NICHE! The Internet is HUGE, and so is the competition! But no matter what the area is, there are enough niche areas within it to generate a LOT of traffic and profits.

8. Keep your site’s theme narrow. Google LOVES themes! In other words, for a dog site, focusing on a narrow theme will make it more attractive to Google. All things being equal, a hundred page site about dogs in general will have less respect from Google than a 100 page site about dog training. Keep your site focused!

9. NEVER pay money to a company to “Get your site submitted to hundreds of search engines”. This is a COMPLETE waste of money.

10. NEVER sign up with a company which promises 100’s of incoming links! Remember that saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it is”. AND it could get your site banned if Google thinks you are personally participating in link spamming! There are no free lunches in Internet Marketing. Before you ever pay money for any type of listing or linking service, PLEASE write to me and let us talk about it first! Don’t end up shooting yourself in the foot!

11. Be careful about spending money for even “legitimate” links. There are many great sites with high page rank which will place a one-way link to your page from theirs for twenty-five to fifty dollars. As you may know, having a link to your site from a site with a page rank of five or six and with the same theme is a VERY good deal for your site. Google will give your site bonus points for a link like that. However, Matt Cutts with Google has stated that Google minimizes the importance of the link if they detect it is paid link. And as I said earlier, the Google spiders are VERY smart.

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13. You can submit your site directly to Google and Yahoo if you wish, but the search engines will give your page more relevance if they find its link in some other way; like at the directories which you submitted to. I never bother submitting directly to Google or Yahoo anymore. Besides, when Google sees links to it from another site, they will give my new site more relevance.

14. Do not spend your time or money on pay-per-click advertising like Google AdWords until you have traffic and sales coming from regular, “organic” searches. The learning curve is high for pay-per-click success. Your time and money should be spent learning basic search engine marketing. Remember, search engine optimization, both on and off page SEO,will be your most effective marketing strategy.

Need help? Schedule a no-cost call with me here: http://www.talk-to-steve.com

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Your success on the Internet, or with any other goal, is determined by a series of steps. There is a great book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill that is perfect for developing an action plan for any goal. I highly recommend it… you won’t be disappointed!

I am asking a few questions here to help you drill down to your specific plan. Please put thoughtful consideration into each answer.

OBJECTIVES/CHALLENGES

1. If I had more free time, I would…
2. What is my burning desire? What are my goals? What do I want in life and why am I doing this?
3. What are the greatest obstacles to attaining my goals?
4. How much time am I willing to dedicate each week to accomplish these goals?
5. Will I continue with my occupation after this is completed?
6. Name two things that I am willing to give up or sacrifice on your way:

Those questions are designed to see how serious you are about achieving success. Now for the steps:

The 6 Steps
1:  Fix your mind on the exact goal you desire. Be definite … Be specific!

2:  Determine what value you intend to give in return.

3:  Establish a definite date when you intend to complete the goal.

4:  Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin immediately! Whether you are ready or not… start today. Put that plan into ACTION! The specific details will work out later. Just get started!

5:  Now write a clear, concise statement of your goal, the timeframe, what value you plan to give, and then describe how you intend to accomplish it.

6:  Twice daily read your statement aloud – morning and night! Read with conviction – see it and believe you’ve already accomplished your goal.

Your ability to define specifically what you want to accomplish, putting an action plan in place, and then acting is of vital importance when building an online business. But the key is to convince yourself – with feeling, emotion, and “a burning desire” that you will be successful. That desire, kept strong in your mind, will help ensure that you are acting to accomplish your goals and therefore will lead to your success.

When you follow these steps, you WILL have success!