The Importance Of One Way Links For Home Business SEO

by Rick Carbone

How important are one way links? The best way to measure is to not have any at all and see how well you are ranked. I can probably answer that question right now, because you will not rnk well. Most search engines value one way links to your site as a sign of subject authority or subject matter expert.

A basic refresher on one way links is that they are links from other sites to your web page or site without a reciprocal link back to that site from your site, hence the name "one way" links.

The idea behind it is that if a site links to you and there isn't a link from your website back then you must be a subject matter expert. The more of these types of links the better, in the eyes of the search engines. It makes sense because anyone can get reciprocal liniking,e.g. "I'll link to you if you link to me."

The problem that arises is that how to you get people to link to you without reciprocating? The answer is based in your content. Is your content unique, is it cutting edge etc.? Not everyone has cutting edge content and not everyone has unique content unless you write all of your own articles. There is a simple way to get a form of one way linking that just about anyone can do, it's called article writing and distribution.

When you write an article and distribute it to an article directory and someone posts that article to a website or blog, that is called a "back-link." Back-links are very helpful for SEO because of the one way status. The only thing that is better is a straight one way link to your site from another site or blog without an article attachment. This means that the linking site thinks your website is really good and it has something to say about your niche or industry that stands out from everything else on the same subject.

So you can see that from a search engine’s perspective a one way link is a reflection of importance within your niche or industry and in turn indicates that you are an authority on the topic.

There are some so called black hat activities that will produce the same effect but I wouldn’t recommend them as they are only temporary and in the long run could hurt your chances for sustained positioning within your niche on the search results pages.