So you know you want to optimize your website for a certain keyword or maybe for many keywords at once if you are that good.

Question is, how many backlinks do you need? Do you keep getting backlinks forever?

Both answers to those questions can be found by doing some research about the website that is number one for your chosen keywords. In other words your top competitor.

You need to know how many backlinks they have. Not how many link exchanges they made, but the total amount of all the backlinks they have.

That is the average amount of backlinks you need for your own website to outrank them. Sometimes you may need more and other times less than what they have. If for example the backlinks they have are all one way links, even though it is rare but it may be the case, then you may need more backlinks then they have, if you are going to make link exchanges only. That is because one way links are more powerful than link exchanges.

But in general the amount of backlinks they have is a clear indication of how many you require more or less. It is always a great idea to get both one way links and link exchanges.

Both have their positive sides.

For example if you have made a thousand link exchanges in the post two months and you launch a new website. You can email all those webmasters so they make a link exchange with your new site. That is a thousand link exchanges made easy. That is one of the positive things of making link exchanges. There are scripts and tools that keep track of all your link partners information. Some have an option that allows you to email them all at once.

The other good thing with link exchanges is that you can put up a link exchange submission form and you get links automatically. Many webmasters will simple submit their link and you approve or reject it. Once your website start getting more traffic your site will start getting a ton of these links, with no work on your part. You will also get many link exchange request by email, and you should not reject any link if possible. Links are like diamonds in seo.

So as you can see you need to outrank your competitors who are in the number one position if you want to get the number one position. You should aim for that position, it is the position which gets the most traffic. Websites on page two for example, do not get any traffic at all. Websites on page one do get all the traffic, but the site in page one which is the number one position gets almost all of the traffic.

Generally beginners do not have an exact idea what they want. They just want to start doing seo, they get some backlinks and check rankings in all search engines and so forth.

A webmaster who knows what he is doing, will pick up a keyword or keywords, aim for the number one position in one particular search engine and dominates that position. And every wise webmasters will choose Google, since it provides the best customers. It also means you analyze the competitor who is number one in Google.

All these factors make it easier to improve search engine rankings.

There is no need to check where you rank in msn or yahoo or other search engines. Simple because if you know what you are doing, you choose the right keywords and you know for certain that you are going to get the number one position. When that happens you can get another one in number one position, not relying on other search engines for traffic, but getting what you want and which is the best thing.

So you aim big not small. Checking were you rank in msn is like you are aiming too small, you are expecting traffic from msn and make money. You want the best spot in Google. The other search engine still provide you traffic, because if you rank well in Google probably you are also ranked well in other search engines. So think big once you understand well how seo works. Aim for the best to get the best.