If you're an online marketer, probably one of your highest priorities is to get backlinks to your website. Though there are a variety of ways to get backlinks, I'm always amazed at the emails I receive from people essentially begging me to put a link to their website on mine. Folks, there are much easier ways to get backlinks!

For new marketers that are not familiar with the term, "backlinks" are links from other websites to your own. They’re important for website ranking because the more quality backlinks you have, the better your website will rank in the search engines, resulting in more traffic for your site.

Using Blogs to Get Backlinks

One of the easiest and quickest ways to get backlinks is by using blogs. If you don't currently have a blog set up on your website, consider adding one. I like Wordpress because it can be cleanly added to an existing website and it has a wide variety of themes and customization options. You also can create a blog at Blogger.com, but Blogger blogs don’t integrate as nicely with existing sites and they don’t have nearly the customization capabilities of a Wordpress blog.

Once you have a blog set up, do a search at Technorati.com for blogs covering topics similar to the website you are promoting. Set aside an hour or so a few times a week to make the rounds at relevant blogs and comment on updated posts.

When you comment, make sure you offer valuable input. Don't just do a drive-by “I like your post” and consider your job done. Doing this will likely be considered spamming and your comment probably will not be published. Remember, bloggers are a community, so you want to make it a priority to contribute to the community. Additionally, you want to represent yourself and your site well, so take the time to make great comments that add to the discussion.

As you comment, you'll probably notice that you often have the opportunity to submit a URL with your comment. This is the way you will get backlinks from commenting on blogs. What URL you submit is up to you, but I usually prefer to submit the web address of my main blog page if it’s different from the home page of my site.

Another great way you can get backlinks to your website with blogs is to do guest posts. Many people are under the impression that it is difficult to do guest posts for other blogs, but I’ve found other bloggers more than welcoming of guest posters. Being a successful blogger is about constantly updating your blog with fresh content, so guest posts are a great way to “outsource” some of this work. Bloggers that welcome guest posters are usually more than willing to give you one or two backlinks in exchange for publishing your great content to their blogging community.

Conclusion

Again, blogs are a great way to obtain quality backlinks for your website. If you don’t have a blog, get one set up. Once you do, start making the rounds and contributing to the discussion online. Not only will you get great backlinks, you may also begin to develop your own readership that can greatly enhance your online marketing efforts.

- Mark Robert

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Also, feel free to check out my other article about how to make money on the side in the next 30 days.