Why are these links to your site important? They can can…

• bring potential customers to your site when they click on the link

• boost the number of visitors to your web site

• dramatically improve your search engine rankings

Even though there are software packages on the market that help automate the linking process, use them sparingly, if at all. The only way to succeed in linking strategies is (aside from creating useful content that will encourage inbound links) by manually creating the links. That’s a hard fact to swallow, given how I like to automate as much of my marketing as I can.

Here are the 10 most important inbound links you must have to your site:

1. Directory Links

Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized by category. Links back to your site from directories like Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are very valuable. DMOZ.org is edited by human editors, and while it’s free, it may take awhile for your site to be added. Getting added to Yahoo’s Directory costs $299/year.

2. Press Releases

If you’re writing press releases, make sure they are optimized for keywords that someone would use to find a business like yours and include links back to your site, as well. Once written, you can have your press release distributed through a service like PRWeb.com, which will create links from high traffic news sites back to your site.

3. Article Directories

Writing and distributing articles through high traffic article directories, like EzineArticles. com, is a great way to get valuable inbound links from a high traffic site. By crafting an effective resource box at the close of your article, you can drive traffic back to your site!

4. Social Bookmarking

Similar to web browser bookmarks, social bookmarking sites store individual pages (bookmarks) online and allows users to tag (with keywords), organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources as well as share them with others. If you bookmark your content on these sites (like Digg.com, Reddit.com, Del.icio.us. com), you get a link from the service. By producing content that your readers love and then bookmark to their friends, the link increases in SEO value.

5. Blog Comments

To find blog posts on which to comment, you can use blog-specific search engines like Google Blog Search. Make sure these are blogs read by your target market, not your colleagues. Brand yourself by always using the same name and remember to link back to your site. Always leave a comment that adds to the conversation that’s happening within the comments.

6. Social Media

Now, Google also indexes your Twitter updates and your social networking profiles. Add that to Web 2.0 hubsites like Scribd or HubPage and you’ve got the option of creating many, many inbound links in a very short period of time.

7. Blog/Podcast Syndication

Submitting the RSS feed of your blog and podcast to syndication services will give you a link back to your site. In some cases, each time you publish a new blog post, the post itself will also get a link.

8. Video Syndication

YouTube is one of the most visited sites online, and the number of sites that syndicate videos is growing each day. These sites often allow you to link to your site either in your video’s description or on your profile page, or both.

9. .EDU and .GOV Links

Search engines place a great deal of credibility in government and education web sites, and the links carry a great deal of weight. Frankly, it isn’t easy to get inbound links from these sites.

10. Internal Links

Remember, if you have more than one web site, or a web site and a blog, be sure and link one to the other. You can do this by linking one article to other related articles, or link to categories or archives of information.

Creating a sound inbound linking strategy is a key component of your search engine optimization efforts. Try a few of the strategies listed above and see how your traffic and rankings grow.

Author
Donna Gunter

It’s easy for businesses to get caught up in Google’s expectations for their sites, when trying to market through search. That’s certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google dominates the search market by a huge margin. Still, there are other search engines that people are using, and it is also wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too.

I’m obviously talking about Yahoo and Bing, but Yahoo’s share is declining, while Bing’s is gaining. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway.

We don’t hear as much about what Bing wants out of a site for rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for honoring Bing’s policy, does not differ too much from advice that Google would give you. It is, however, still always nice to see how they feel, just to clear up any possible confusion.

Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”

What Not To Do

DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:

1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time

2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites

3. Using hidden links in your pages

4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web

5. Linking out to known web spam sites
“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction,” says DeJarnette. “If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”

What To Do

DeJarnette also shared some tips for getting more quality links. Following are Bing’s tips for effective link building (paraphrased):

1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently

2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content

3. Publish concise, informative press releases online

4. Publish expert articles to online article directories
5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable

6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)

7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content

8. Launch a blog/forum on your site

9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums

10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site

Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any savvy search marketer is not already aware of. That said, there are clearly plenty of online (and offline for that matter) businesses out there that don’t have savvy search marketers on the payroll. It can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and what not to do to help webmasters get better rankings.

Posted By: Chris Crum | Staff Writer

These are some effective tips for link building..

SEO’s are always looking for new ways to build links. Here are few tips to getting quality back links for your site.
Find niche sites your competitors are using by typing this in to yahoo search engine, and get links from these sites aswell.
Do a search for niche related blogs using google search engine and the following will bring back a list of edu sites that are talking about your chosen keyword.