Chris Young asked:


One of the most important aspects to your website ranking in the search engines is link building. This is an ongoing process, which ensures your sites ranking continues to move up in ranking, instead of sliding down the ladder and ending up on the back pages of the search engine.

Generally, link building is not just used to increase link popularity with search engines. This term also refers to link exchanges, newsletter channels, directory submissions and many more avenues that will help your links build traffic.

The best link building practices to use are those methods that not only provide increased exposure to your website, but also go toward turning your site into one that reflects good design, relevancy and builds a solid reputation. This is all goes toward good SEO, search engine optimization. As you will see, most of these link building techniques can all be used together.

One of the most popular methods used for link building is also very cost effective. Exchanging links with other relevant websites and blogs is practiced by many. This method takes some time, yet because of the network you have created by exchanging with other related sites, you are building a very solid network that will generate target traffic for you and your business opportunity. This practice only relies on your ambition and the time it takes, for you to cultivate other related sites for the link exchange.

A few things to keep in mind when using link exchange methods would be:

1. The link partner should have a related theme to your own website for this reciprocal link. It will do you little good, to exchange a link with a dating site, if your site is a bridal theme site.

2. Find sites to exchange with that are popular. Also, find sites that are search engine friendly. If you find a related site, as your own, that comes up in the search engines with a high ranking, go for it! This could be a gold mine for your site.

3. Links coming from sites should have been in place for a long time. This helps to ensure stability and reliability.

One way link building is another avenue to consider, if you have the resource money for this method. One way link building relies on paying for your links to build for traffic. There are many marketing companies that cater to Internet marketers, providing this service to them, for a fee. It should also be noted, none of these services will guarantee their performance for you. When looking at this method, one should also look at the company’s background, in question.

Back link methods are also known as inward links, incoming links, inbound links and a few other nick names. These back links are like gold and the search engines love those that used back linking practices in their websites and blogsites. Google considers back links a major factor when it assigns page ranking to a site.

Link building is a combination of different techniques and methods you need to use on a regular basis to build good traffic. Search engines index sites frequently. Keeping your back links verified and fresh is essential to good SEO. Ensuring your site looks professional, with all of your links exchanges in relevant order is expected.

When you use good sound link building practices you are growing your websites popularity. As you do the necessary steps, you may not notice any large returns on your time invested into your website campaign immediately. Rising in the ranks of search engines and receiving traffic from other sources, takes time and patience on the Internet. Quality, verses quantity using your link building practices will always pay off. Your traffic will be better for it.

There is a wealth of informational resource material online that is free for the taking. Take the time to learn more about great link building practices, and then you can have a plan. Some of the best plans are, using a few of these link building methods together, this is a good resource for link building. Pay attention and learn all you can about SEO, too. Give your site that old, “one-two” punch. By paying close attention to the best ways to optimize your website, you will also naturally be using link building methods.

Jeremiah OConnell asked:


Constantly applying link-building strategies that boosts ones site link popularity will significantly render assistance in transforming your search engine rankings. Link building is an endless technique and should consequently be part of ones web site optimization schedule.

Yet, Link building is oftentimes looked upon as a hard and endless activity and is consequently invariably precluded. Declining to regularly implement link building ideas will come out in weaker search engine rankings. As a Webmaster myself I consider reciprocal link building is difficult to achieve so I have decide on for some less repetitious and more resourceful methods of building links to my web site.

In this article I’m going to unwrap 3 strategies of link building that not only give me added back-links, but also adds creditability and boosted targeted traffic to my blogs as well.

Link building strategy #1 – Article Marketing

Writing and submitting appropriate and informational articles to top article directories, is an ideal way to progress link popularity, increase creditability and direct targeted traffic back to your web site. Not only will you buildup backlinks from the reports directories, but you will also receive backlinks from other websites and newsletters that disseminate your report.

Link building strategy #2 – Forum Marketing

Comparable to the article marketing method above, forum marketing will also help increase creditability, inbound links and traffic. Assuming you submit quality and productive content while always including a link to your site in your sig file, readers will see you as an authority and will want to visit your site for more information.

Link building strategy #3 – Blog Comments

This last method is mostly useful if you host a blog on your own website. Consider popular blogs in your chosen market and supplement to their content by offering relevant and useful comments. Always include your website URL when commenting. The better quality of comment you make the more traffic you will obtain. Now here’s where this method gets really interesting. The largest blog directory on the Internet ‘Technorati’ will assemble these back-links to your blog and classify them as authority inbound links, on balance amplifying your blog popularity and link building efforts.

Subhash Kandpal asked:


 

Link Building is one of the most important processes that affect your website’s page ranking on different search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and others.



Link Building = Number of back links your web site has =Link Popularity



Link Building = Adds Value + Enhances Page Rank

 

Reasons for using Link Building service





It is an ethical way of increasing your website popularity.



It is a one-time investment thus saves a lot of advertising expenditure.



Saves your time.



Last but not the least, your website link appears on another – the moment it is clicked, it starts earning you business.





 



Link Quantity vs. quality







If you establish a number of links in your site, it does not mean that you have got successful to increase your web traffic. Success in link building depends upon the quality of inbounds links.

“Not the quantity of the back links,

but the quality of those pages where your link appears is important.“



 

Types of link building



There are three types of link building:-



One-way



This process is used for establishing only incoming links without displaying the other end’s links on yours, this process is termed as one-way link building or non-reciprocal link building .Basically this link building is done through web directory submission, blogs, articles and press releases. In one word, social media is a great medium for one way link building and drawing traffic to the site.



Two-way



This process is used for submitting your link to other websites and accepting their links on yours in return. This method abides by the “Give and Take” policy. However, one should be cautious while exchanging links with others having the same or higher page rank. It is also known as reciprocal link exchange. Link exchange plays significant roles for any SEO strategy.



Three-way

Three-way method is operated by involving a third website as a medium for exchanging links between the two websites.





A good SEO company will dispense with superfluous link building services and take care of inbound, outbound and reciprocal links for your website.

Oudam Em asked:


This list of top 10 strategies for building links is based on my own experience of building links to my sites throughout the years. It is important to keep in mind that when it comes to SEO, nothing is set in stone. SEO is a cat-and-mouse game, so I will revise this list from time to time as the field continues to evolve.

Please note that the order in which these methods are listed do not necessarily reflect their order of effectiveness. Some methods may work better than others for certain sites.

1. Submit to web directories

Submitting to web directories is a vital part of every successful link building campaign. Apart from driving traffic to your website through direct referrals, web directories provide static, one-way links to your site, boosting your link popularity and improving your rankings on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo.

It is important to note that not all directory listings are equal. Listings from trusted, established directories like Yahoo! and DMOZ are more valuable than those from the thousands of others on the net. All else being equal, a link from a directory focused on your niche is worth more than one from a general directories.

Submit to both free and paid directories. Free directories provide one-way links to your site with no strings attached, but they can take forever to review your link. Paid listings can be a good investment if the fees are reasonable and the pages on which your link will reside have decent PRs. Your sites will be listed with fewer competing links on paid directories.

2. Write articles and press releases

Submitting your article to directories is a highly effective way to build one-way links to your site. First, you write a thoughtful and informative article on an topic in your area of expertise. Then you submit it to article directories to be read by the general public and reprinted on other web sites. Appended to the end of your article is a resource box which contain links to your site and email address.

While there are hundreds or even thousands of article directories on the web, you should focus on writing a high quality article and submitting to a handful of the more popular ones. Having your article published on a top directory can be worth more than a hundred less reputable ones. If you write something that people find useful, they may pick it up and reprint it on their blogs, newsletters, etc. This is how a quality article propagates virally in cyberspace– it virtually distributes itself without your having to manually submit to a thousand article directories.

3. Exchange links with related sites

Online forums like Digitalpoint are an excellent place to find reciprocal linking partners. Avoid sending out spammy e-mail solicitations like those generated by many SEO software programs. I get dozens of these everyday.

4. Make use of social bookmarking sites

Social bookmarking sites help bring together internet users from every corner of the world into a virtual global village. Submitting content to sites like Digg.com, YouTube.com and Del.icio.us can bring lots of visitors in a hurry.

It is important to understand that sites like Digg and YouTube are not necessarily shock sites. Although there is some publicity to be gained from the shock value of an article or video, one must not resort to tasteless and offensive materials to gain attention. There is only so much value in the attention gotten by being the village idiot.

5. Buy text links on other sites

Although link buying is somewhat an unnatural way to build links, it may be the only way to increase your link popularity if your site is not unique or interesting enough to get people to link to you on their own. Most commercial sites fall into this category.

You should buy links in a way that simulates natural linking as much as possible. Buy text links from sites that are related to yours. Vary anchor texts and descriptions. Buy links from internal as well as home pages. Buy links from both high- and low-PR sites (which can be gotten at a bargain prices).

6. Participate in online forums

Sharing knowledge can be a very powerful way to establish your online presence and credibility. If you check your backlinks on search engines like Google and Yahoo!, you may notice that a number of them come from the signatures of forum posts, that is, if you post in forums. Most forums allow signature links. I don’t participate in forums that don’t as allowing them is the least the forums can do to compensate me for contributing to their contents.

7. Write testimonials and reviews.

Writing a glowing review about a product or service and submitting to your vendor or service provider can give you a very high quality link back to your site. But this strategy can prove time-consuming as many vendors publish only a handful of testimonials from their customers. Don’t waste your time by sending a testimonial to a vendor who does not have a “Testimonials” page on their site. When submitting a review or testimonial, don’t forget to mention to your vendor that they should be feel free to publish your comments on their site (along with a link to your site).

8. Ask vendors and clients to link to your site.

I once bought a $350 script package and asked my vendor if they could feature my site as site made with their script. They obliged and gave me a PR7 text link from their site. Since the link is worth at least $40 a month, my initial investement for the script has paid for itself many times over. Besides the SEO benefits, it is responsible for thousands of visitors to my site a month through direct clicks. The moral of the story: don’t be afraid to ask. The worse that could happen is that they say “no”.

9. Blogging

Setting up a blog is a no-brainer. Even if you’ve no web designing experience whatsoever, you have a blog up and running in no time. Blogs allows for a more informal setting to get your words across. So, it’s much easier to write a blog entry than an article to submit to article directories. Use your blog to share knowlege, voice opinions, connect with others with similar interests, and of course, to link to your other sites.

Avoid spamming blog networks like Blogger and MySpace. These spam blogs (“splogs”) are a waste of time as they will not get much attention from people and will yield little, if any, SEO benefits. Write about something you know and have a genuine interest in. Focus on quality rather than quantity.

10. Content is king.

Yes, content is still king. In fact, content is by far the most important of the ten strategies I’ve mentioned. Having fresh, unique, engaging content is an excellent way to attract natural linking from other sites. This is the type of links that search engines like.

You may have heard of the buzz phrase, link-baiting, that is being tossed around in the SEO community nowadays. The idea is to get others to link to you voluntarily, perhaps by causing some type of sensation or controversy on YouTube, Digg, the message boards, or whatever. Link-baiting, in my opinion, is no more than a new play on the old “content is king” mantra.