Obtaining an organic search ranking now is a lot of work and is not for the faint of heart. If you've ever looked at a blog, you will see what is called a Blogroll, these are a great example of a link. Nowadays obtaining a ranking in the top 10 for most keywords is very competitive and not only is your onsite content still important, but what you can't see is even more critical.

Backlinks are hypertext links from someone elses site that links back to your site. What are Back Links and How Do They Help With Google. You used to be able to cram your site full content and stuff your title, and marillin description and keyword tags, then submit your site to Google, Yahoo and MSN, sit back and watch the traffic roll in. These links can be in the body of the text, they can be in the site's footer or the left or right navigation bars.

What you can't see without using special tools are the other sites that natale to your site - these backlinks are paramount to getting you ranked in the top 10 at Google.