In the world of search engine optimization backlinks are considered to be very important. If you want your site to show up in the search engines and be seen on the first page of search listings by potential customers, you must have a decent page rank. In order to gain a higher page rank you need strong backlinks.

Backlinks are quite simply a link from another site back to yours. There are many ways to create backlinks to your website but most of them will not help to increase your search engine ranking.

Many sites add a piece of code onto their page called a NO FOLLOW tag that informs the search engines not to list or count the backlinks. Creating backlinks on these sites may not be credited to you by Google and other search engines.

Your goal when creating backlinks is to have them placed on sites that use DO FOLLOW tags so they will be counted by search engines in order to help increase your link popularity and search engine page ranking.

Where your links are placed is more important than how many backlinks or one-way links you have out there.

A backlink from a site with a higher page rank (PR) is far more valuable than having several links from low PR sites.

One of the best places to get backlinks from is an authority site.

Authority Sites are websites that are content-rich and have well over 1,000 pages in total. Search engines feed on content-rich websites like hubpages and squidoo.

Search engines give more weight to incoming links from authority sites providing the authority site's main keywords are the same as yours.

Most authority sites have a page rank of PR7 and higher. Links from other authoriy sites will help you to establish your site as an authority site as well as helping to increase your overall page ranking.

There are many ways to build backlinks on authority sites but we are going to cover the 7 best. Some of them you may be using, others you may not have even thought of yet.

1. Commenting on Blogs in Your Niche: Find blogs within your niche that have higher page ranks. Once you have identified them, become a part of their community and leave valuable comments on their posts.

If the blogger has created a post on a subject that you have specific knowledge in, then add to the post by offering other suggestions that may help the blogger's readers. At the end of your post lead readers back to your website.

2. Use Signatures In Related Forums: Identify the most popular forum(s) in your market and then become involved in discussions the same way you did with blogs. Add to the discussion by sharing your knowledge and/or answering questions. Close your "post" with a signature that leads readers back to your website with your most targeted keyword.

3. Create Backlinks In Your Profile Pages: Social networking authority sites like Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook offer an opportunity to gain a large number of followers and potential traffic to your website.

When creating your profile on social networking sites you are telling others who you are and why they should listen to you. It helps to establish your "expert" status within your market. When creating your profile, consider your most targeted keyword carefully. What is the main keyword of your website? Anchor that keyword a few times throughout your profile with your most targeted keyword linking back to your website.

For example... if your main keyword were 'traffic' then use that word strategically throughout your profile and link the word 'traffic' back to your website. It creates a strong backlink to your website and since it's on an authority site, it becomes more powerful and helps to increase your page ranking.

4. Add Backlinks To Your Articles: Content is king and creating valuable, content-rich articles with strong resource boxes is a great way to get traffic to your website. Posting your articles on authority article directories like ezinearticles.com can offer more than just a strong backlink to your site. It can create multiple backlinks when other publishers and bloggers decide to use your articles on their websites.

Create your resource box by anchoring your site's main keyword with a link back to your website in the same manner as you did with your profile page.

5. Answer Questions on Yahoo Answers: Yahoo Answers is an authority site that can provide more value than just a strong backlink. Answering questions that you have particular knowledge in will also help to enforce your 'expert' status and thus help to increase traffic to your website.

Get involved and give valuable answers to other's questions and then lead them back to your website or blog, especially if you have created content that could further assist the reader.

6. Post Contextual Ads on Blogs and Websites: Contextual ads created in the same manner as a Google adwords campaign, targeting your site's main keyword is a great way to create strong backlinks. They are much more powerful when they appear on high traffic, high ranking blogs and websites.

There are two main ways to have your contextual ads included on blogs and websites. The first is to pay for the site owner to 'advertise' on their site. The other is to email the site owner and ask them to add your contextual ad/link on their link page. This isn't always as effective since most will require you to ad their link to your site as well.

7. Create Hubpages: Hubpages like this one are execellent ways to create strong backlinks. Hubpages is considered an authority site and creating content-rich hubs that get read is among the easiest ays to create backlinks and increase your site's page ranking.

Once you have created backlinks with higher link partners then you will want to ensure your pages are optimized properly for the search engines. Utilize your main keyword(s) and eliminate the excess clutter.

After you have optimized your pages properly, then it's time to re-submit your site to the major search engines and directories so that they can re-index your website and move your site higher up in the ranking.

As long as you focus on high page rank lists that are relevant to your website's theme and provide only one-way backlinks, you will ultimately increase your page rank faster than any other method.