If you are relatively new to internet marketing you may be asking yourself how does link building work? If you have bopped around the different forums and social networks you have heard the term.
The first step in creating a link building strategy begins with creating quality original content on subjects that people will want to read, and information that is credible, and that gives some value. DO NOT just put up crapÖ it will not get you any authority, and do not put up the same content on several sites, Google hates that.
It is always good to make at least one link to other content on your site this will insure that you can not only move your traffic through your site, and keep them on your site longer (which are both important SEO elements.) Then you must develop a strategy that will create links to your content on other peoples websites.
You can use directories to find places that may link to sites you submit, you can comment on do follow blogs, forums, and networks. The desirable way is to find like minded sites and become friends with people that either need content links to sites like yours, or if you are in a hurry you can find a link carnival that has categories.
You can do article marketing and submit original articles to different article directories. If someone likes what you have to say, and use your article with your anchor link on their website, you get an authority backlink this will develop relationships as well, if you take the time to thank the person using your article, and ask if they have other sites, that you may be able to exchange articles with.
You can write press releases, and post on social sites, that have do follow links. Commenting on other peoples blogs, with relevant, and useful information will get you a good link.
Posting ads on free classified sites with your do follow link in it is very easy. You can gain a large number of quick links from doing this and also putting up banner ads, or other postings around the internet will get you links.
Be sure to put your link on your profile page on everything you sign up to. Some are no follow but someone may see your link and go to your website after all links are about gaining traffic. If your content is really good, as we have stressed they may use or quote a portion of it gaining you a trackback, and hopefully an anchor text inbound link.
Finally the best way to quickly get links to increase your pages visibility, and get it ranking and being spidered regularly is to use a reputable link building service, that will submit your links to places that have been tested, and that are similar to your site. It is very important to talk to the people doing the linking directly, and make sure it is not a link farm, or some type of link factory that could get your site sand-boxed.
There are a few other things you should look for when creating your inbound linking strategy. Some of these include the pr of the page you are linking to. However a link is more important at first than the pr of the page. This should be taken into consideration though as your page ages, and you can be more picky. Only link to good quality work that you would want to have associated with your site. The more difficult the link is to get, the more value it will have to the search engines.
Why are Links so Powerful?
When we write stuff about ourselves, we have a tendency to lie. It is human nature to boost your own worth. This is why meta tags and page copy are nowhere near as powerful as they once were. They have been used and abused.
Links from other webmasters are viewed by search engines as unbiased (or at least less biased), third party votes. While Yahoo! tends to put more weight on page copy than Google does, links are the #1 ranking criteria for competitive phrases in all major search engines.
Links Represent Relationships
Many people who look for links just think link, but often, this is not the most effective way to do link building. If you think of the web as a huge social network and think of links as relationships, you have a huge advantage over your competition.
You can do many manipulative things to make your site appear better than it is, but if you can find more natural ways to build your credibility and embed yourself in the social structure of the web, you will likely become extremely successful without risking getting penalized by search engines for having an artificial link profile.
Outsourcing & Hiring Link Builders
Many people find link building frustrating and time consuming and want to outsource the entire process, which typically produces poor results (especially in competitive markets). Since link building is associated with social relationships, brand building, and customer relations you can’t effectively outsource it in its entirety. The best link consultants will identify strategic links you need to build, and help build some of them, but many of them also teach you how to identify link opportunities yourself. Producing effective results often requires
* created high quality content people value
* formatting it in a way that people want to talk about it
* working with your internal marketing team, public relations teams, and social contacts to help launch and spread the idea
