There's a simple formula for getting more traffic from the search engines - create more keyword rich backlinks. Google revolutionized the search game when they started to rank sites based on popularity, and other search engines followed suit. Today, search engines view backlinks as a count for popularity. The more links that you have to your website that say your site is about "natural dog food" the more likely you'll be ranked for "natural dog food."

There are other factors involved in ranking, but it's a sure bet that the more backlinks you get for your specific keywords, the more likely you'll rank well for those keywords. Backlinks offer a number of other specific benefits when compared to other forms of traffic building.

1. Backlinks are free.

While you can hire out link building, it's definitely less expensive than pay per click marketing. And if you do things yourself it will cost you nothing but time! You can create hundreds or thousands completely for free if you invest enough time and dedication.

2. Backlinks create organic listings.

When you build backlinks, your site will appear in the organic search results for your keyword terms. Even though pay per click advertisements will be above and to the right of the search results, most searchers have learned to ignore these ads. It's far better to spend time building backlinks and appear where the searchers are actually looking.

Now that you know some of the major benefits of building backlinks - how do you do it? The first rule is to avoid paying for a link building service or a link exchange site. Most of them are not credible, and Google and other search engines don't see them as credible.

Distributing content in the form of articles and press releases, adding insightful comments to relevant blogs (that have do follow links) and using social bookmarking sites is the clearest and most surefire way to create credible backlinks for your website. Let's look at each of these in detail.

Article Directories

There are thousands of article directories that you can use to submit articles for backlink purposes. You should really only concentrate on the top directories that can provide you with high PR backlinks. EzineArticles, GoArticles and ArticleDashboard are three of the best - but you can also use others that have a high page rank.

Press Release Newswires

Press releases are similar to articles in that they can be submitted to a variety of different directories for backlinks. These directories, called newswires, carry a lot of clout and can help with backlinks. Unlike articles, you can embed several links within the body of the press release for even more backlinking power. Submit to DBusinesswire, PRLog and 1888pressreelease.com to start.

Commenting on Relevant Blogs

Backlinks from relevant blogs give you SEO ranking power and they also drive direct traffic from people who take interest in your comments and visit your website. In order to get the backlinking benefits, try to find websites that have do follow links - these will pass on page rank to your website.

Social Bookmarking

The last piece of the backlinking puzzle is social bookmarking. These website will list your articles and websites by title only and then have a keyword optimized link back to your website. You can submit to Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.com for added backlinking power.

With these four resources, some time and some original content, you'll be able to make the most out of backlinking and see results in traffic and rankings on your website.