Since the ranking factors for Google are considered a top secret, you can only use a few sure-fire ways to get listed atop in the search engine. One of these high-impact ranking secrets are LINKS!

About 75% of all rankings are made from external links, and the number and quality of those links will define how well you rank, and how strong the listing is – for longterm, sustained visibility.

Link popularity is measured as a count of links that are defined as ‘incoming links’ or ‘backlinks’ to your site. 

An external link from a trusted, authority site is more important than just “some odd link”. The code for a link looks like this: <a href=”http://www.yourdomain.com/file.html”>keyword text here</a>. If you make sure that the ‘keyword text here’ has the keyword term you are targeting, and better yet – matches the destination page in context/reputation, you can rank your resulting page high in Google both from internal and external link work.

Make sure to not get *any* links from spammy networks or crappy directories. Go for high quality and relevancy.

Here’s a great checklist of tools to help you. 

1. History of sites (and links/navigation) – archive.org

2. Powerful SEO and link discovery – SEO for Firefox

3. Domain hosting, IP class discovery – domaintools.com *)

4. Install SearchStatus Firefox plugin

5. Check domain at Yahoo SiteExplorer (Go to Yahoo.com and type linkdomain:<yoursite>)

6. Verify all incoming links on your site, including competition with linkdiagnosis.com

7. Use the MSN “linkfromdomain” operator to find outgoing links like this linkfromdomain:your domain.com

Note *) CClass IP addresses defined

C Class IP addresses are classified as the first three numbers of an IP address. Webmaster can install hundreds of websites on the same web server, which could be used to fool other webmasters into thinking they are getting unique inbound links. The search engines discount links originating from the same C Class IP address

If you want test for duplicate Class C IP address on multiple sites, use the Ip-Report.com tool.

Recently, we came across a brilliant interview on “How to linkbuild” – and answering questions like these:

What are the three most important criteria a search engine robot might consider when it is evaluating an inbound link?

How does PageRank play into natural search rankings and what does PageRank really mean?

Once you’ve established SEO best practices for internal linking procedures, is it worth the time to go back and adjust the entire website? Or should you just move forward with these new practices?

How does the actual text in a hyperlink play a role in SEO?

Will I be passing link value to my competitor if I link out to their website?

From an SEO point of view, when is it advisable to link out to a resource, and will linking out actually help my natural search rankings? If so, can you explain why?

For a under the hood discussion to find answers to these questions and many more articles, please look at this linking article.

Also, as a refresher – make sure to read the “Top Ranking Factors” (SEOMOZ) official document, you’ll understand better how to balance onpage and offpage (links) factors for optimum ranking.