Link Building 101

Link Building 101 – The Basics on Building Links

Consider this your Link Building 101 article about what link building is and the basics on how to do it. When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), obtaining incoming links still plays one of the most important roles. Links from other sites to your site(s) represent one way for the search engines to determine that your information is reputable and trustworthy. If others are linking to your site, then it must be good, right?

So, how can you build good links to your own site? There are literally hundreds of ways to do this. But it all starts with quality. Whatever information or services you are offering on your website must be valuable to visitors. This will insure that you gain links organically because of your great content as you use other techniques to push the linking along a little bit. And quality includes being grammatically correct as well. One of the easiest ways to diminish your credibility is to fill up your site with spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. If you aren’t all that brushed up on your grammar, get the help of someone who is.

Make your site personal if it fits the look and feel you want to acheive. Most people like to know who they are dealing with, even if it’s on the web. It helps to put a picture and a relatively descriptive "About" or "Bio" page in your content.

Write some content with specific numbers in the titles like "10 quick ways to. . .", "20 tips on . . .". People love this kind of information and lists like these are great resources to link to from other types of articles.

Make a list of experts in your field. If you create a list and explanation along with each one, these people might actually link over to you from their well-establshed sites.

Use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This is great way to get very targeted links to your site. You choose what you want them to be because you choose the keywords that you are advertising.

Another tried and trued method of link building 101 is to submit your site to the web directories that allow free submissions. Of course you can submit your site to paid directories as well but again, you need to make sure that they are of high quality and updated.

And here are some of the easiest ways to get links to your website. Ask and answer questions on Yahoo Answers or Google Groups or post a free ad on Craigslist. Your comment will link to your website or blog. These are all free and all fairly quick and easy.

Be social. By commenting on other people’s blogs or websites, you get more attention drawn to your own.

One of the main things to avoid when building your links is spam. Don’t be over-promotional or over-self-centered in any of your strategies. This will only backfire.

Hopefully this Link Building 101 has served you as an introduction to getting more links to your site.