People often ask me if I do backlinking. For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, or how it’s related to SEO, guess what? You’re not alone.

I know what backlinking means – geez, I need to, it’s my job – but I really hate the term. Although its meaning has changed, I first started hearing the term in the midst of when creating SPAM was considered a good SEO practice – when it was ok to go onto Yahoo! Answers and tell whoever would listen that Acme SEO was the best place to go to get your question answered (and by the way, here’s my handy-dandy affiliate link that I’m going to get credit for!)

Did that last paragraph sound like the mother/teacher in Charlie Brown? Sorry. Let me break it down: backlinking is – SHOULD BE – creating relationships with other relevant sites so that they’ll link to your website.

An example of not-at-all relevant backlinking:

You go into Yahoo answers and click on someone’s question about where to buy great jewelry. You answer their question by telling them that your Etsy store doesn’t sell jewelry, but you DO sell one-of-a-kind-homemade scarves!

An example of somewhat relevant backlinking:

Getting yourself listed in a directory with your business name. Don’t get me wrong: you should also get yourself listed in directories. You should make sure that you’re using the same address, phone number, email address, etc. in each listing. But entering your business information into The Yellow Pages website does not count as highly as building a relationship with a mom and pop store with a loyal following that wants to sell your scarves for you – nor are you as likely to get any customers from a directory listing.

All that being said, starting off by getting yourself listed in directories is a great first step. Here’s a list of places to start. Some of these you need to pay for; most of them you need to create an account:

• Best of the Web Local
• Neustar Localeze
• Yahoo Local
• Yext.com
• Aboutus.org
• The Yellow Pages
• InfoGroup
• Here PrimePlaces
• Yelp for Business Owners
• Hotfrog
• Superpages
• eLocal
• DMOZ open source directory
• URL.biz

An example of relevant backlinking:

Fatworks Foods sells natural fats: high-quality tallow, leaf lard, duck fat, etc. The new paleo diet/lifestyle touts eating like our ancestors did which means eating a fair amount of fat and slim-to-no grains or sugars.  Everydaypaleo.com did a blog post about Fatworks Foods – how they’re a great place to order the natural fats you need for your paleo lifestyle. That’s an example of good backlinking, which is really more like networking. It could be that the owner of everydaypaleo.com stumbled upon Fatworks Foods all by herself, or it could be that Fatworks Foods reached out to her and asked her to consider linking to them, considering that they were a match made in heaven and all.

Ultimately, the more relationships you can build, the less you need to think about backlinking. Ultimately, Google wants to know that your site is relevant and linked to by other sites that are authorities in your industry; this is a big part of their algorithm, and it makes sense if you think about it. Are you more likely to take the advice of the lumberjack on where to buy an ax, or from the guy who brings you your mail?