Many new Internet marketers know that they must build tons of back links. That's easier said than done. The back links will bring along SEO benefits with them. In other words, back links help boost search engine rankings. The more quality back links a site has, the more likely it is to rank well in the search engines.



For any SEO campaign, there should be 2 areas of focus - on-page factors, and off-page factors. Link building is essential about off-page factors. Although it's easy to understand, it's harder to execute, since you don't own the sites that link to you. It makes sense to start with on-page factors because those are elements that you have full control over. Here are some tips on how to optimize your site before even going into link building.

Use a simple template.

Many websites tend to use CMS (Content Management Systems) to publish web pages online. Popular CMS include Joomla and Wordpress. When you use a CMS, you will also be using a template for your website. It's fine to use a template. The problem is, some templates come with so much unnecessary bells and whistles (e.g. widgets) that they make the site less friendly for the search engines.

Always keep in mind that your site should be as friendly as possible when the search bots crawl your site. In other words, the bots must be able to discern what your website is about. If you add too much fluff on it, the bot finds it hard to find out the main theme of your site, and thus assign it a lower rank.

Use static URLs.

Popular CMS do come with static URL options these days. A static URL looks something like your-keyword-here.html instead of ?p=139

Obviously, a static URL is easier to remember. Your CMS should also include the keywords in the static URL. These words will appear in bold in the search engine results whenever someone uses those keywords to search for information.

Use keywords in title tags.

This is no SEO secret. Most Internet marketers already know that they must include the keywords in the title tags for their website to be search engine friendly. However, once in a while, you may still come across a site that uses the same title for every single page. For example, you see "Danny's Website" in every page title. That is not the right thing to do.

Create a site map.

To ensure that the search engines find and index all your web pages, create a site map. The site map is a static web page containing all the links to your other web pages. Search engines love site maps because they make it easy for the search bots to find all the web pages.

Once you have optimized your site, it's now time to build as many inbound links as you can back to your websites. Remember to use your target keyword phrases in your anchor texts. Don't use "click here" in your links. Instead, use something like "my keywords" in your links. That will help improve your search rankings.