Sometimes it is funny how times change. Just a few years ago the best way to get ranked on Google and Yahoo was to use the hot keywords of the moment. If you placed the keywords in the content on your website often enough then when people searched those keywords your site would pop up. Thankfully for both the customer and the entrepreneur search engines have wised up. Keywords are still important, but if you want to get ranked, and rank high you need backlinks.

It should be pretty clear that you can have the most amazing website in the world, with the most up to date, ground breaking information on it that would change the life of your readers forever... but if you don't have readers or more to the point, traffic then you what good is the website. You should also know that you don't necessarily have to have the best looking website in the world to get traffic. One of the high-test ranked website on the Internet right now is a very plain looking website. White background and blue lines, I am sure that you have heard of it, it's called Facebook.

To get people to your website you need to spend the time to do a solid marketing campaign. This means that you need to take time to get backlinks. Getting backlinks to your site is the quickest way that you can climb in the SERPS. One has to ask then, what is a backlink.

A backlink is a link that is placed on another website that will lead the people that are reading the content back to another website. Trust me when I say that you have seen backlinks. You have been scanning the page that you are reading and in the middle of the article you will see highlighted words, which if you click on them it will send you to another website, if you roll over it you will see the web address. If you are reading an article on a site such as ezines then the backlink is going to be in the resource box at the bottom of the page. This is also true for any article directory site.

Now here is why it is so important. When you have a backlink to your website that is placed on another site is both popular and relevant it is tagged by Google. A date is given to it and Google will record the actual phrase that is used in the link. What Google then does is it takes the information it has gathered and saves it so that Google can then establish a rank for your site.

This does not mean that you need to have hundreds of backlinks. What it means is that you need to have quality backlinks. Search engine work under an assumption that not all links hold an equal amount of weight. So a backlink from a popular or well-known website holds more value than a link to your friend's website that your family visits.

We have established that you need backlinks to improve ranking and that those links need to be on popular or high ranked sites. But with everyone realizing how important the process is, how do you go about getting the backlink to your site and not some other guy?

Article marketing is a great way to get backlinks and even the Link building Services recommends this method as one of the best way to get backlinks. When you take the time to create original and informative content that can be reprinted websites will pay attention to you. Many websites, many popular websites actually, take advantage of article marketing articles because it offers the webmaster a way to keep fresh quality content on their site. Another excellent way to get backlinks is through blog commenting or guest blogging. Make sure that you find blogs that are in your niche, relevant and popular.