Especially if you are a professional such as a realtor, an attorney, or a financial advisor, it’s essential to have a website, a blog, and a comprehensive, proactive internet marketing campaign. You should be establishing your brand and online presence and offering practical and engaging content. Your options are many; video, podcasting, ebooks, and multiple websites are just a few of the online marketing tools that professionals are using successfully. But without effective backlinks, the rest of your marketing efforts could be futile.

Backlinks are links on other websites that “link back” to your own site. Good backlinks are imperative because Google determines both the number and the quality of your backlinks and ranks you accordingly. Without sufficient backlinks, your rankings plummet because Google assumes that you have nothing very interesting to offer.

An experienced internet marketing firm can help you acquire the important backlinks that you absolutely need, but an internet marketing firm cannot know your community like you do. People who operate websites with amazing numbers are close to you, in your community, and maybe even right across the street. Seek out opportunities that can lead to landing a backlink. Local schools often have sponsorship opportunities. Community organizations often have pages dedicated to local businesses that make a donation. Write guest commentaries for local publications, and seek out opportunities to speak publicly or to be interviewed by local media. Small, weekly community newspapers will often be happy to accept guest columns from local professionals, and almost all of those publications have websites that locals routinely visit.

When counting your backlinks, Google only counts reliable, high-quality pages. You can’t cheat and willy-nilly create websites solely for the purpose of backlinking. A good internet marketing firm can ensure your website has quality backlinks, but if you really want to reach effectively the potential clients who are closest to you, you’ll need to acquire a few backlinks on your own. In so many cases, just asking for a backlink does the trick. Still, if your internet marketing isn’t doing the job, speak right away with an internet marketing firm about boosting your search engine rankings. Don’t lose any more business. Make the call promptly.