Novel to Screenplay: The Challenges of Adaptation

ADAPTATION 101

Brimming with confidence, you've just signed the check purchasing the rights to adapt John Doe's fabulous, but little known novel, Lawrence of Monrovia, to screenplay form. Suddenly, panic sets in. "What was I thinking? How the devil am I going to convert this 400-page novel to a 110-page screenplay?"

The answer is: "The same way you transport six elephants in a Hyundai... three in the front seat and three in the back!"

Old and very bad jokes aside, how does one pour ten gallons of story into a one-gallon jug?

In this article, we'll take a look at this challenge and a few others that a writer may encounter when adapting a novel to screenplay form.

CHALLENGE NUMBER ONE - LENGTH

Screenplays rarely run longer than 120 pages. Figuring one page of a screenplay equals one minute of film, a 120-page screenplay translates into a two-hour motion picture. Much longer than that and exhibitors lose a showing, which translates to fewer six-cent boxes of popcorn sold for $5.99 at the refreshment stand. It took the author of your source material 400 pages to tell the story. How can you possibly tell the same story in 110 pages, the ideal length for a screenplay by today's industry standards?

And the answer to this question is no joke. "You can't! Don't even try!"

Instead, look to capture the essence and spirit of the story. Determine the through-line and major sub-plot of the story and viciously cut everything else.

By "through-line" I mean, WHO (protagonist) wants WHAT (goal), and WHO (antagonist) or WHAT (some other force) opposes him or her? It helps to pose the through-line as a question.

"Will Dorothy find her way back to Kansas despite the evil Wicked Witch of the West's efforts to stop her?"

The same needs to be done for the major sub-plot.

"Will Dorothy's allies achieve their goals despite the danger they face as a result of their alliance?"

One workable technique is to read the book, set it aside for a few weeks, and then see what you still remember of the story's through-line. After all, your goal is to excerpt the most memorable parts of the novel, and what you remember best certainly meets that criterion.

In most cases, everything off the through-line or not essential to the major sub-plot has to go. Develop your outline, treatment or "beat sheet" accordingly.

CHALLENGE NUMBER TWO - VOICE

Many novels are written in the first person. The temptation to adapt such, using tons of voiceovers, should be resisted. While limited voiceovers can be effective when properly done, remember that audiences pay the price of admission to watch a MOTION (things moving about) PICTURE (stuff you can SEE). If they wanted to HEAR a story they'd visit their Uncle Elmer who drones on for hour upon hour about the adventures of slogging through the snow, uphill, both ways, to get to and from school when he was a kid, or perhaps they'd buy a book on tape.

The old screenwriting adage, "Show, don't tell!" applies more than ever when writing an adaptation.

CHALLENGE NUMBER THREE - "LONG-THINKING"

Some tribes of American Indians had a word to describe those of their brethren who sat around thinking deep thoughts. Literally the word translated to, "THE DISEASE OF LONG-THINKING". Quite often, lead characters in novels suffer from this disease.

"Mike knew in his heart that Judith was no good. Yet she caused such a stirring in his loins, he could think of nothing else. He feared someday he would give in to this temptation named Judith, and his surrender would surely bring about the end of his marriage!"

If adapted directly, how on Earth would a director film the above? All we would SEE is Mike sitting there, "long-thinking". That is not very exciting to say the least. And as mentioned previously, voiceovers are rarely the best solution.

When essential plot information is presented only in a character's thought or in the character's internal world, one solution is to give this character a sounding board, another character, to which his thoughts can be voiced aloud. Either adapt an existing character from the novel or create a new one. Of course as always, you should avoid overly obvious exposition by cloaking such dialogue in conflict, or through some other technique. Even better, figure out a way to express the character's dilemma or internal world through action in the external world.

CHALLENGE NUMBER FOUR - WHAT STORY?

Mark Twain is quoted as saying about Oakland, California, "There's no there, there". Similarly, some novels, even successful ones, are very shy on story and rely for the most part on style and character to create an effect. Some prose writers are so good at what they do, that their artful command of the language alone is enough to maintain reader interest. Such is never the case in screenwriting.

Successfully adapting a "no-story-there" novel to screenplay form is a daunting task. One approach is to move away from direct adaptation toward, "story based upon". Use the brilliant background and characters created by the original author as a platform from which to launch a screen story. In fact, if for any reason a screenplay doesn't lend itself to screenplay form, consider moving toward a "based upon" approach, rather than attempting a direct adaptation.

Congratulations! You're now an expert on adapting novels to screenplay form! Well maybe not an expert, but hopefully you have a better understanding of how to approach the subject than you did ten minutes ago. And if the subject still seems too daunting, you can always get professional help as outlined on our web page http://www.coverscript.com/adaptation.html

Lynne Pembroke and Jim Kalergis

Coverscript.com

URL: http://www.coverscript.com

Novel to Screenplay: The Challenges of Adaptation   Novel to Screenplay: The Challenges of Adaptation   

Learning Web Design - What Makes An Effective Website?

Anyone who has an online business knows for a fact that quality web design can make or break the success of his venture. While hiring a specialist in the field could be his greatest option, learning web design may come useful for him.

Primarily, such an effort can keep website owners from spending a fortune for the small changes or services their business sites might need. Also, it can make them be on top of everything that is happening on their respective domains.

The act of keenly identifying the appropriate website types for specific online businesses usually comes along with this learning endeavor. For one, online businesses can be more profitable once effective web designs operate in their websites.

In connection to this, as a site owner looks for a website design provider, the question on the purpose of his website has to be resolved first. Whether it is for selling of products and services or for simple information dissemination about the business, the designer must have ample knowledge of it right from the start.

Moving forward, there are three major factors to keep in mind as business website owners tread the very path of learning web design. They are as follows.

Search Engine Visibility

This is the most important consideration there is when it comes to website design. And yet, it remains to be the most neglected one. Making your website visible to search engine spiders should be any website design's priority. This could be achieved by some off-page optimization which starts from the use of targeted keywords concerning your industry. These keywords may simply be inserted in your alt tags, title tags and meta descriptions. This practice can be paired with some linking strategies that will allow search engine spiders to index all your site's pages. Thus, your site shows surfaces easily in every run search result.

Over All Appeal

Catching the trained eye of online users is the second factor that shapes any how to learn web design undertaking. Posting photos and videos related to your products and services can give your visitors an excellent impression. However, it should never stop at that. For the site lay-out, which includes the formatting and font size use at least two colors and consistent patterns to represent the general theme of your business. Finally, avoid any distractions for your website users. Always provide easy navigation whenever and wherever. Having a clear purpose set for each of your webpages can make this possible. Furthermore, do not let heavy graphics overpower the information your site provides.

Quality And Engaging Web Content

Last on learning website design is engaging your website visitors with the information that they need as they go through each page. Try to catch the readers' interest with attention-grabbing titles and lead paragraphs. Sustain it by engaging them with useful content. Help them browse the page content through appropriate subtitles. As they learn more, keep them going back for additions through little hints of the upcoming things in your website.

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A Step-By-Step Basic Guide to Planning and Creating a Fabulous Baby Shower for the Mother-To-Be

So you're having lunch with a friend and she confides in you that she is pregnant. Because you are her best friend, you will be planning a baby shower for her as soon as she is ready.

"Baby Showers are a mother-to-be's right to passage, especially if it is her first baby!" you say. Baby showers have been in existence since the 1940s in America, and they were created so that women could get together and give advice to the mother-to-be. Today, however, there are no set rules as to who is invited or where one is held.

Have your friend register the baby at her favorite shopping location. This can be done almost anywhere: Amazon, Sears, Target, Babys-R-Us, and so on. This will later be put on the invitations that you send. Decide the theme of the baby shower. Most times this is the same theme as the baby's nursery. For example ladybugs or whimsical dragons. When this has been decided then everything to do with the baby shower should be theme oriented if possible. Decide who to invite. Are you only going to invite girlfriends or will it be coed. This is important to know because the food and games will be different depending on what you decide. Guys generally will need real food - something with meat like chicken wings, hamburgers, or hotdogs; where women only will need just sweets and finger foods. The games also will be different if guys are invited, they prefer more active games. Women are okay with guessing games on paper. If you have a close knit group of people coming games will not even be necessary unless you want them, because they will socialize amongst each other and catch up on stuff they have missed. Pick a place to have the baby shower. This can be a church hall, a park, someone's house, or anywhere the mother-to-be wants to have it. Prepare the invitation. This can be a video by email if you have everyone's email. Or a handmade or bought invitation mailed. Be sure to have everyone R.S.V.P. and send the invitations out at least 2 weeks prior to the event. Buy the items you will need for the baby shower - the food and beverages; paper products (cups, napkins, and plates, plastic utensils if you need them); decorations; and party favors if you will be playing games. Prepare for the party. Put up your decorations. Put out the food. Get everything ready for the games if you are playing some. Make sure you take care of everything before the guests arrive so that you can have fun too. Your job will also be to make sure that the mother-to-be is comfortable and has a place to open gifts where everyone can watch.

Done right a baby shower will be a festive occasion for all involved. Plan on taking some pictures also so the mother-to-be can add them to her baby book.

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Big Hooded Towels Help Bath Time Remain Fun and Comfortable for Toddlers

Towels are a principal component for providing children with a relaxing, comfortable, and fun bath time experience. Hooded versions are in increasing demand among consumers for ensuring a baby remains warm as they transition from the bath to being fully clothed; however, they are also available to meet the warmth requirements of toddlers. Big hooded towels could seem like overkill to some individuals, but many children grow accustomed to these items when they are used throughout infant care. Hooded drying products provide additional comfort dynamics to make certain a child does not experience the cold sensation most adults have learned to suffer through and eliminates any discomfort that might cause a little one to dread their ever so needed bath. Cute designs add fun to this regular event and cause numerous toddlers to desire this product even more. Retailers wanting to reach out to the toddler market without overextending themselves can use wholesale baby gifts to receive lower prices on the most demanded designs. Hooded bath time accessories are necessary for any product line when desiring to help parents in the process of keeping a child's regular routine fun.

Wholesale Baby Gifts Supply Convenient Purchasing Choices to Retailers

A variety of wholesale baby gifts can be purchased to extend or enhance a retail product line. Larger versions come in cute designs with the average size being approximately fifty-two inches by twenty-nine inches. They are made from absorbent terry cloth and come wrapped in a ribbon to create a simple, unique gift for birthdays, Christmas, or any special occasion. How are these towels different from the basic ones found in any general retail store? Big hooded towels have a piece of fabric sewn onto one corner that serves as a head covering. The front portion of this item has a gender or non-gender design to add style to these products. A child can have fun with patterns such as bears, frogs, monkeys, owls, and a variety of additional choices. These patterns can be acquired in bulk to mix and match products in a complete basket or be sold individually for buyers to express their own creative side.

These towels make the ultimate complimentary gift for expecting parents with older toddlers. Toddlers often feel a little uneasy about the addition of a new family member, and a larger towel can be used to include them as part of the present giving festivities. Wholesale baby gifts ease the cost of special giveaways or regular stocking by supplying a variety of manufacturer choices through one source. A retailer can buy the same item in varying price ranges with countless patterns at a designated count without having to place separate orders or pay multiple shipping costs. Bulk buying has several advantages with lowered costs being one of the most significant. Big hooded towels allow family members, friends, and the expecting parents to make older brothers or sisters feel special as they adjust to this transition. Retailers can use the option of bulk purchases to run special promotions, for product line expansion, or as a door prize to improve the customer buying experience.

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A Program That Can Automatically Send Email on Your Behalf

Isn't it exhausting to send out email replies to all those emails that you have been receiving on a daily basis? Imagine waking up in the morning and your inbox is flooded with thousands of emails, and you just wonder how on earth you are going to reply to all of them. Perhaps, it's about time that you invest on a computer program that can automatically send email on your behalf.

Emails

It has been said that of all the activities done on the Internet, email is considered as the most popular. This is further proven by the fact that almost 88 percent of all Internet users in the U.S. use email. Furthermore, a survey revealed that approximately 90 percent of those people who access the Internet daily are using it mainly to work on their business emails.

Autoresponder

In essence, an autoresponder is a kind of software used by most companies to automatically send email replies to their customer's email inquiries. In addition, the autoresponder is also being used by most online retail companies to announce some of their marketing moves. If customers purchase something from the website, they will receive a confirmation email upon completing the order. This email that tells the customers they successfully completed their order and is under processing is sent by the use of the autoresponder. Here are some of the functions of an autoresponder.

It is responsible for sending out a confirmation response to your customers, informing them that you have received their emails and to expect for your reply as soon as possible. There are some autoresponders that have the capability to send out email messages in bulk, and can be sent depending on your chosen time interval. The autoresponder would be able to automatically send email to your customers on a regular basis, in order to keep them informed about the latest products or promotion that the company is offering. This email will serve as an email marketing campaign that can be sent out to all potential clients in your mailing list.

Autoresponders are certainly one of the most useful tools in online business communication now. It helps you to easily connect with your regular customers, enabling you to automatically send email messages conveniently. Investing for this tool is good for your business, because it can possibly bring numerous customers in your business, thus, increasing your business revenue.

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Back Link Building Service: Why You Need One

Anybody who has ever built a website knows the importance of search engine optimization. There are a lot of factors involved in this but the biggest is building back links to your site. This is a job that most people would rather outsource than do themselves.

The reason that you need to use the services of a back link building company it will help to make sure that your website gets found. The goal of the search engines is to make sure that the most relevant and best quality sites are the ones that appear at the top of the search results, in practice this really doesn't happen. The search engines use computer algorithms to rank websites, unfortunately nobody has figured a way that a computer can determine the quality of a site. In order to get around this the search engines use links as a proxy for assessing the quality of a site.

The reason that links are used as a way to assess the quality of a site is that it is assumed that more people will link to a high quality site than a low quality site. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the site that has the most links is the best site. The theory starts to fall apart however when people start building their own links to their sites. These days it is just an accepted fact that if you are going to get a site to rank well in the search engines you will you have to build your own back links.

Building back links is not all that hard to do, it is however incredibly tedious. This is why most people will choose to hire a back link building service. It takes quite a bit of time and it is something that has to be done constantly. You cannot just build links and forget about your site. The search results are constantly changing and that means that you have to keep adding links. Most people decide that it is not worth their time to do it themselves. Back link building services are fairly inexpensive so most people prefer to have them to do the work.

One other reason that you are going to want to use a back link building service is that where the links come from is now more important than how many links you have. This is part of the attempt by the search engines to keep poor quality sites that have a lot of links from ranking well. In order to get around this the links need to come from quality sites, or at least sites that have a lot of links pointing at them. The companies that offer this service have a network of sites that they can use to send back links to your site which makes things a lot easier.

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Forum Profile Backlinks - The Pro's And Con's

For this article, I'm going to talk a little bit about Forum Profile Backlinks. You may know a bit about backlinks, but what about profile backlinks specifically? Are they useful? What are some of their pro's and con's?

To start off this article, let me briefly explain what forum profile backlinks are. Backlinks in itself are links to your website that can be used to help your search engine rankings. Forum profile backlinks are a specific type of backlink that are created on profiles that you create on various forums. Being that this is a specific type of backlink, it has it's own sets of pro's and con's. Let's look at the pro's with this type of backlink.

To start, it has been my experience that the majority of forum profiles will allow dofollow backlinks. The dofollow attribute is very important to some people when they create backlinks. There is a common belief that only dofollow backlinks will actually count towards your search engine rankings. I'm not sure I completely believe this, but maybe it is true. With that said, if you believe that only dofollow backlinks count, then this is a big positive for using forum profile backlinks.

Another positive with forum backlinks is that a lot of forums will encourage them. You may notice on some forums that when you create a profile, there will actually be a box for your web URL. The website is actually encouraging you to leave your backlink there! This is definitely a big positive, and it can lead to links that stick around for many years.

Now, what about the con's? Well, the one major downside I can think of is that because you are creating new profiles, the links will appear on new pages. This means that Google has to first find these profiles, before they can index your link. To some, this is a problem because it could take anywhere from a few hours to a few months just to have your backlink counted. Other's consider this a positive though, because they don't want all of their backlinks being found at once. Instead of having them all found in one day, they can have their backlinks found gradually over a few weeks/months. So when it comes to forum backlinks, the big disadvantage is in fact an advantage depending on who you ask.

In all, I hope this helped you to understand profile backlinks a bit more. Profile backlinks are just like any other tool. If you know how to use them and what keywords to target, it can lead to lots and lots of success. Good luck with your website!

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Backlinking Today

Backlinking today has played an important role in the navigation of websites even before the popularity of search engines. Today, back-links still play an important role in generating traffic and popularity for a website but on a much larger scale than before.

The more quality backlinks possessed by a website, the more popularity and importance it achieves. A website's page rank is determined by Google through the number of quality back-links it has. True enough, backlinking plays a very significant role in determining a website's success when it comes to search engine optimization.

Quality backlinking is emphasized though, because your website can have lots of backlinks, but if they are in no way related to the site niche, then it will not achieve its purpose. There are many ways to increase the back-links that will point to your website.

A website that has achieved a certain level of credibility will become so popular that the owner no longer even has to request for backlinks from other sites. Related sites will actually link back to the website that has very important information related to their niche.

Posting breaking news on a website is one way of backlinking. Celebrity and news websites that post extremely fresh and important information usually use this to attract traffic and back links to their site.

The quality of a backlink is determined by many factors, including the authority of the website, the importance of the topics and the relevancy of the posts. Consider backlinking as votes of confidence for the website and its contents.

One important aspect when creating backlinks is the anchor text. This is a description of or a label which is written in hyperlink, or which, when clicked leads you to the site where the actual information can be found. The anchor text is examined by the search engine crawlers to determine its relevancy to the website.

If you want a successful search engine optimization campaign using backlinking, then make sure you place only quality backlinks on your web pages. Keywords are also important factors that will help determine the quality of your backlinks. The search engines will consider the links more relevant if they point to, of if they are coming from sites with related content.

Some internet marketers request other website administrators for back-links. This is normally done but bloggers and other website owners. But if you go for this method, then make sure the sites are relevant to your niche. The best backlinks are those that are built over time, and are very relevant.

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Back Link Building: How to Choose a Link Building Service

If you are going to hire a company to build back links to your site it is important that you make sure that they know what they are doing. There are serious consequences to using a service that does the job in an improper manner. The good news is that it is not all that hard to tell how good a company is at building links, all you have to do is take a look at their own site. If they have done a poor job of building links to their own site it is unlikely that they will do any better with your site.

The reason that you have to make sure that the company that you hire to build links to your site knows what they are doing is that if the job is not done correctly it can really damage your site. The consequences can be far more serious than simply not getting many visitors from the search engines. If they believe that you have built links in an improper way they can remove your site from the search results entirely so that nobody can ever find it. When this happens your site basically becomes useless.

The first thing that you are going to want to look at when you are trying to determine whether or not a company has done a good job of building back links is to take a look at their own site to see how it ranks in the search engines. After all the whole point of building links is to get your site to rank better, if their link building has not succeeded at getting their site to rank well it is a pretty good sign that they don't know what they are doing.

In addition to checking on how the site of the company you are considering ranks you are also going to want to take a look at the type of links they have acquired. These days where the link comes from matters a lot more than how many you have. It is important to make sure that the link building service that you hire knows how to get the good links. If all they have pointing at their site are links from places like forums and blog comments they are not the kind of company that you want to hire.

If you have taken a look at their site and they rank well and they have a good link structure they are somebody you should consider hiring. You will however still want to take the time to talk to them about how they are going to build links for your site. You want to make sure that you are on the same page about your needs and that they are going to do as good a job for you as they did for themselves.

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The Benefits of Using a Backlink Generator for SEO

Backlinks are vital for any online business. However, most webmasters have a difficult time building quality links for their sites or blogs. Link building is a daunting task that requires a lot of work. Having access to a backlink generator allows you to create free automatic backlinks within days. You must use a program that guarantees high quality links for it to become worthwhile.

Running an online business will bring you lots of benefits, but finding your way to success can be difficult. While organic link building is highly beneficial for your website, it requires time and money. The popularity of a website or blog is based on the number of inbound links that direct traffic back to them. By using automatic backlink software, you can get hundreds of quality links that will designate you as a major player in your industry and increase brand awareness.

These online tools work very well if you implement them in a solid link building campaign. All you have to do is to sign up for a quality backlink generator, choose your main topic, and specify a few keywords that are relevant to the content of your website. After you complete these steps, the backlink generator will get to work and search for websites in your niche. The more backlinks you obtain, the more popular your website will get. This will help you drive more traffic to your site and attract more readers.

Before using automatic backlink software, make sure the keywords you choose appear multiple times and in multiple places throughout your site or blog. This will help you obtain relevant backlinks that match your content. A program that can generate inbound links for your site will save you time and money in the long run. The inbound links offered by a quality backlink generator will appear all over the internet and bring constant traffic to your website.

With automatic backlink software, you are not required to do the hard work yourself. However, it is necessary to choose a high quality program in order to obtain significant results in terms of SEO. This kind of tool can generate links for several campaigns simultaneously. This will increase your website rankings for multiple keywords and niche markets in a short period of time. All of the work required to build links to your site will be done for you so that you can focus on the most important aspects of your online business.

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Backlink Building: Best Link Building Tools for SEO Experts

Building relevant links requires time and effort. A quality link building tool can help with your SEO efforts and improve your rankings in search engines. Tracking links to your web pages is a key part of any SEO strategy. Depending on your budget, you can use free or paid tools for backlink building. These tools will help you accomplish tasks much faster and easily.

Open Site Explorer (OSE)

Open Site Explorer uses factors like domain authority and page authority to evaluate the number of inbound links pointing to your website. This tool can help you determine who is linking to your site and who is linking to your competitors. If you want to analyze one site at a time, you can use the following metrics:

• Facebook shares • Facebook likes • Linking root domains • Tweets • Anchor text • Linking domains

Majestic SEO

This tool allows users to track link information for any website. After you sign up, you will be able to access the number of pages, sub domains, images, referring domains, and backlinks. With Majestic SEO, you can identify your site's top pages, analyze your competitors, and compare up to five domains.

Link Diagnosis

This free tool uses Yahoo! to find links that point to a site. It is ideal for running quick analysis of websites. This software is completely free and there is no limit on the number of backlinks it will show. Their backlink summary includes anchor text, page age, and outbound links.

Ontolo

Ontolo features a comprehensive suite of tools to help you manage multiple link building campaigns and data. You can use these tools to search link prospects, find relevant competitor links, and look for page topics and page types that mention your competitors. Users can also monitor and visualize the backlink score of their competitors.

Wordtracker Link Builder

The tool developed by Wordtracker can help you find thousands of quality link prospects in seconds and analyze your competitor's linking strategies. With this program, you can easily build a linking campaign that exponentially grows your online presence. Users can build and manage unlimited campaigns, see who's linking to their competitors' pages, and use this data to increase traffic, conversions, and profits.

BuzzStream Link Building

The innovative tools from BuzzStream are perfect for managing link prospects and monitoring backlinks. This software automatically collects metrics like site age and unique visitors, searches for contact information on "About" pages, and identifies links that are new, changed or removed. Some of its main features include automated notifications, scheduled link checks, and link reporting.

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Building Back Links and Avoiding Bad Links

When it comes to building your PageRank value and scraping your way up the search engines' results pages, optimizing your page with keywords and masterful internal linking will only get you so far. To get to the top, you need back links, i.e. links posted to your website on other websites. To search engines, if another website is linking to yours, that other website is giving credence to your site. In a sense, linking another site counts as a vote for that site. By building up your repertoire of back links, you are gathering votes for your site from around the Internet, and search engines will take notice of these when calculating your position on the results page.

You might think that getting back links works like a meritocracy: if you have good content, then you'll get good links. If you build it, then by all means they will come. Would that it were so. Unfortunately, relying on the quality of your content (no matter how good it is) to place on the results page will take longer than going out and getting back links.

There are ways to get good back links with your content. Lists will garner lots of attention. If you have a page on your site like "Worst Misconceptions About Blank" or "Best Places to Eat in Blah", that page instantly gains an air of authority, so people will link to it. You can also write content for other websites, like an article or blog post. If you write guest content on a website like yours, then that website's readers become interested in your website. You sign your blog post with your name and an encouraging link (not "click here", but a link whose anchor text is a keyword relevant to your site). Not only does this link build your PageRank, but you gain an audience who might link to you from their own pages in the future.

There are good ways to get back links, and there are bad ways. Buying your back links is a bad way. The link-as-vote analogy is particularly apt here. We think it's wrong if a politician pays people to vote for him, so we also think it's wrong if a web master pays people to link to his website. It's cheating, and search engines will know which links on your site are legitimate. If you have a bad link, then your PageRank will take a hit. So much the worse if you actually bought the link, since you basically paid money to lose PageRank.

Also, consider again how you wrote an article for another site. This will only work if the link is one-way, i.e. if his site links to yours, but not the other way around. Reciprocal linking will actually result in losing PageRank to the other site, so it's a good idea not to do reciprocal linking, and to be careful when doing content exchanges like the kind mentioned above.

Building a repertoire of solid back links takes time and patience, but it will pay off when you have a high PageRank value and place high on search engine results pages.

Using Advanced Search Queries To Identify New Linking Opportunities   Backlink Tool: What Is Anchor Text and Why Is It Important for Link Building?   Backlink Building Service: Link Building Tips for Charities   Back Link Generation Service: Can They Help Your Business?   SEO: Why Build Links?   

All Links Are Not Created Equal - 8 Factors Search Engines Use to Calculate Link Value

Link value isn't a black and white science, there are many different values of weight which search engines place on links for a lot of factors which you may not have even considered or thought of. Here are 8 of the major factors which search engines use to calculate and assign link value.

Position on Page

Links closer to the top of a page are deemed as being more valuable as links which are further down on a page. So if I'm writing this post right now and I include a link in the first couple of paragraphs, it will give more juice to a page than if I included one to that same page but in the 6th or 7th paragraph.

The position is so important that even if a link which is lower on a page is better optimized than one which is higher on a page, the higher one will generally still hold more link value even though it's less optimized.

Links in Text Hold More Link Value Than Those in Menus

The position point I just made gets challenged by the second point. Those in the menus pass less link value than those in the body/content of a page, even if they appear above the links in the body/content of a post.

Higher Authority Domains Pass More Link Value

This one is obvious; a link from an authority and trustworthy domain like CNN.com will outrank a link from a lesser site. Links from deep within the architecture of a site like CNN will even outrank a top level link from a lesser domain, as well.

Links in Text Outrank Those in Image Alt Attributes

In Google image ranking, I covered how to get your images to rank in Google. You can obviously also add in a link to your image's attributes rather than just giving it a keyword to go with it, but if you point an image and text link (2 total) to a page on another domain, the text will pass more link value in the eyes of the search engines.

External Links Are More Valuable Than Internal Links

Another obvious one, but an external link to a site holds more link value than an internal link from that site to itself. This makes sense because it's easy to link to your own site from your site, but when someone else links to your site from theirs, that's seen as another webmaster giving your website a virtual thumbs up and approval of your content which the search engines take into consideration. See this post on internal links and external links for more information.

Domain Diversity is Good

This one is in the same vein as the last point. Getting 10 links from one webmaster is good, but getting one a piece from 10 different webmasters is worth a great deal more because that's 10 different people giving you a thumbs up versus one person doing it 10 times. Search engines identify the IP address of every link which gets sent to your site to identify if they're coming from the same place or different locations.

Other Sites Which a Site Links to Affect It's Link Value to You

If a site links to spammy sites as well as your site, the link value which you receive from it will be diminished. Conversely, if a site links to good content as well as your site, the link value will not be negatively affected.

Degrees of Separation Matter

In keeping with the idea that search engines positively love and reward popular/well trusted authority sites (like CNN.com as our example), search engines will place grant more link value to sites which have less degrees of link separation between themselves an an authority site. So if you get one from a site which has itself received a link from CNN.com, your link will be worth more.

This makes sense though and is really just another way of saying that search engines like and reward authority/trustworthy/popular sites, because if a site receives a link from a high authority and well respected site like CNN.com, then that site will be seen as being higher authority than it was before.

This is the basis of link building and again reiterates the point that links are like getting virtual thumbs up from another webmaster; in this case it just happens that whomever exactly the webmaster giving the thumbs up is especially important in determining how much value you'll receive from that one.

Using Advanced Search Queries To Identify New Linking Opportunities   Backlink Tool: What Is Anchor Text and Why Is It Important for Link Building?   Backlink Building Service: Link Building Tips for Charities   Back Link Generation Service: Can They Help Your Business?   SEO: Why Build Links?   Backlink Building: Effective Link Building With Social Media Marketing