As an Internet Marketing Company with a strong emphasis in Search Engine Marketing, Optimum7 must know this information to be successful on behalf of our clients.  Our Link Velocity Tool is a major player in our toolset and is available now free of charge at http://www.linkvelocitytool.com/.  As the name implies, this tool measures your link velocity rate i.e. 10 backlinks per week.  Of course, you need to start with a baseline and continually measure this statistic to generate the data because it is measure of rate of change vs. just a static data point.  The tool provides you the ability to compare your link velocity vs. the link velocity of your competition.  So now you know how fast your horse is going, how fast the other horses are going and therefore you will know how fast you need to go to outpace your competitors and win the race!  As in life, this is a marathon and not a sprint … link velocity tool can help you run the full marathon by giving you a constant gauge as to where you are in the race and what you have to do to win the race.

Remember, backlinks don’t come from thin air; the most important or the most valuable links always start with great, non-duplicate content that is highly relevant and targeted on the keyword (s).  Track your content production.  The more backlinks you need to compete successfully, the more content you will need to create.  You can shorten the odds greatly through high quality and highly relevant content.  These simply score more points.  So it follows that it is possible to have fewer backlinks and have a higher search rank because your content and resulting backlinks have more quality and relevance … and Google is all about relevance.  Of course the Link Velocity Tool will be of little help if you cannot or will not make the firm commitment to content, weekly, even daily for some.  If you are like us, imagine the great satisfaction you will gain from seeing your site rise in backlinks and rise competitively on the Link Velocity Tool and ultimately the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

If you have any question about the Link Velocity Tool, Internet Marking or SEO, just contact us and we will be happy to help.

So how do you go about adding backlinks for your site? It’s pretty basic and complex at the same time. In the online marketing industry, it’s a norm that if you create unique and interesting content in your own industry or segment which really provides information and offers value to the reader, you will get backlinks from users who like your content. However, sometimes it does not work exactly as planned and you might need to do some extra work. Here are some methods:

1. Article Submissions: While this method does not define the backlinking process, it definitely helps. There are hundreds of online articles sites that will gladly accept your content and publish it. The benefit for you here is that you get a backlink from each submission. You can use software like “Article Submitter” or a web-based version.
2. Directory Submissions: This is a great method to boost your backlinks. There are programs such as IBP, which do these submissions manually and automatically. You can also use the “Directory Submitter”. While these backlinks might not be really relevant backlinks, they definitely help.
3. Online Classifieds: These sites are free to list and you can get an easy backlink. Just make sure that you do not spam these sites; a one-time post will be sufficient. Sites such as Craigslist and BackPage are examples of classified sites. You can also post on sites like Squidoo, Technorati, Merchant Circle and many more to get one-way links. Another potential positive of these sites is that they actually show up pretty fast on Search Engine Results Pages.
4. Blog Commenting: While this is a more time consuming process, it provides more value. You must identify the blog sites and forums that are related to your industry or business and engage in conversations on these sites. Do not forget the first rule of quality content; give value to the users so they cannot get enough of you. Use your expertise and answer questions on answers.yahoo.com. It definitely helps.

Things You Should Not Do

• Do not send a million emails trying to exchange links. This complicated process takes a lot of time and is not productive.

• Do not spam classified sites or do not use automated blog commenting software; that is considered as spam and you will not benefit from it.

• Try not do buy links and make it too obvious all your backlinks is from one source. Google sees it all. Try to diversify the number of links you get spread over different sites and IPs.

Remember, content is king. While there are hundreds of ways to get backlinks, the above should be a quick start. Of course, for more advanced techniques, we are here to help.

There are a few main ways to check your backlinks.

1. Yahoo – If you go to this site (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/) and simply enter any URL you can find out how many backlinks you have and exactly where those backlinks are coming from.  This site also allows you to export all the backlinks to a CSV file for analysis and evaluation.
2. SEO tool called SEO Quake – (http://www.seoquake.com). It’s a really cool Firefox plug in (frequently updated) that allows you not only to check your Yahoo and Google Backlinks, but also your Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, and other metrics that are significant for SEO.
3. If you go to SearchBliss (http://www.searchbliss.com/seo-tools/google-backlinks.asp) it lets you know your backward links according to Google.
4. LinkVelocity Tool is a really cool new SEO tool that allows you to not only track your backlinks, but also that of your competitors.  It also gives you the rate at which you and your competitor’s links are increasing, so that you know at what rate you need to increase your backlinks to catch up and eventually surpass your competition.  You can create a graph to see your growth rate, your competition’s growth rate.  You can add multiple competitors and continually measure your progress against them over time.

Check your backlinks weekly.  You should see steady progress; in absolute terms and in relative terms versus competition.  Make sure to check them regularly so that you can accurately track your rate of growth or decline.  If you need help obtaining backlinks you can check out this article, or if you want a more personal and in depth strategy you can always contact us for a no obligation consultation.