A text link is a hyper link, also referred to as Anchor Text, that is coded around a word or phrase on a website that links to another website.

Your website's popularity and over all value is measured not only by the amount of relevant content it has, but also by the amount of relevant websites that link to your pages or content. Building inbound links to your website should be as high a priority as researching the right keywords is. Google has created what is known as PageRank or PR. PageRank is achieved by the number of inbound links that are pointing to your website. Google assigns a numeric value (0-10) to all websites that are included in their search index. This linking value is based not only on the number of incoming links your website has, but also the quality or PR of the website(s) that are linked to you. There is quite a bit more to the PR algorithm, but in SEO terms inbound links are a combination of quality and quantity. In simple terms; any website that links to your website which has a higher PR (PageRank) will raise the value of your websites PR.

Sounds pretty simple huh? So now the question is where do I find websites that will link back to my website. Your first step should be to research websites that offer similar services or products, and then begin a linking campaign. In most cases you do not want to build links with sites that are in direct competition, but rather sites that offer products or services that would benefit or enhance your product or services. If your website sells auto insurance, then having inbound links from auto sales, auto repair, and auto parts websites would be perfect examples of the kinds of sites that would help raise your sites PR. Another good example would be backlinks from top-level auto insurance websites or insurance advocacy sites. The focus of all search engines is to provide valuable and useful results to the visitors who use their search engine to find products, services, and information.

Is inbound link building really worth it? Yes, Yes, and Yes! Having relevant one way text links to your site should be an integral part of your websites SEO campaign.