In the spirit of this blog, my latest translation attempt will be to use an analogy for “What is a text link ad?” Here we go.

Let’s imagine that you’re looking for a job. You post your resume online, hoping to get the attention of HR personnel and job recruiters. They are looking through the sea of resumes often using keywords to describe their ideal person for the job. Perhaps your resume has these keywords in it, but so do hundreds of other job seekers. This might not be enough to get you noticed.

What if they could search by number of references? Do you think a recruiter might be more inclined to grant you an interview if you had ten, twenty or more references singing your praises in the form of an online reference? And what if some of these reviews came from authoritative experts in your industry? Can you imagine, applying for a sales job and having an online reference from Zig Ziglar? Or maybe you’re applying for a job in law and you have a personal reference from Denny Crane? (Okay, just a little humor for Boston Legal fans…)

The point is, on your resume you can control the content and information. Then you’ve got references. You’ve reached out to those with whom you have a personal or professional relationship, asking them to say nice things about you. You do your best to get authoritative references in your field of expertise, but really, how many of us can get that person to take the time to make us a personal recommendation?

What if there were an easier way to get a personal reference from an authority figure?

Let’s Translate: Your resume is obviously an analogy for your website. You control the content, information, keywords, etc. This is the “on-site” optimization that you have control over. Problem is, every other business in your industry is using the same techniques you are to get noticed. That’s like having a great resume among hundreds. And because you can’t pull a “Legally Blonde” and make your website pink and scented, you’re going to have to do something else to get noticed. Turning to off-site optimization is the next step when on-site optimization fails to get you a high ranking.

Off-site optimization is like having references. Simply put, the more websites that link to you, the better. The more authoritative those sites are, even better. Google sees links to your sites (AKA backlinks) as citations for your site, or votes.

What about the weight of those websites linking back to you? Let’s say you had a personal reference from some like Oprah, stating that you would be great for the job. Even if he was your only reference, even if your resume wasn’t that impressive, I’m guessing you’d probably still get the interview, don’t you agree?

So it goes with the website that has a link from CNN.com, or the authority in their particular industry. Google sees these links from authoritative sites as very valuable votes of confidence. Therefore a link from a great site that is relevant to your industry can make a huge difference where you appear in the search engines.

But how to get these links?! Ah yes, the twenty-five thousand dollar question.

Webmasters and SEO companies work to create backlinks every day. They write and submit articles on sites like PRWeb. They submit your site to online directories and other free sites. They use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Digg to get your name out there on the world wide web in as many places as possible. Sometimes they trade links with other sites. (Although it’s accepted that reciprocal links carry much less value than linkbacks.)

What about real life relationships? These can help. Maybe you own an equipment rental company, and because you’ve written articles for the rental industry’s monthly newsletters, you’ve earned a few linkbacks to your site. Maybe your business did something newsworthy and you have a backlink from the local news station’s website. Maybe it’s something as simple as being a member of the Better Business Bureau and they post links to all their members’ sites. However you get your backlinks, there’s no arguing that they impact your ranking.

Okay, you’ve read this far and I still haven’t really mentioned text link ads. That’s because a person has to understand the value of a backlink and the importance of off-site optimization to understand why businesses use text link ads. And because you now understand that having links from relevant, authoritative sites can improve your site’s search engine ranking, it’ll make perfect sense when I explain that a text link ad is simply a backlink that you rent or buy.

Yep, that’s it. Some clever companies have gotten together and created a network of websites that are willing to post backlinks on their sites for a fee. They have sometimes thousands of sites varying in content and authority in their networks. They sell or rent simple text links on these sites, sometimes in the columns or footers, sometimes directly in the content of the site, to businesses looking to garner more “Google Juice” so that they may increase their organic ranking.

If we were to go back to our analogy, it might be kinda like taking that authoritative person that you want to recommend you for the job out to lunch. And while this could be considered kind of a gray area, you may be THE EXACT RIGHT PERSON for the job.

So it is with text link ads. A citation from a great, relevant site, can help you get in front of those consumers who are looking for you when yours might be THE EXACT RIGHT WEBSITE for their query.