Link building although known as a sector within the SEO industry is still a massive task and probably one of the hardest. Link building can be referred to as many different things although the principals stay the same.

So if you are new to link building don’t worries there are something’s you could be doing yourself to help increase your rankings within the SERPS. As time goes on and you find all the basic links you will find it increasingly hard to find more valuable links which is where link building becomes hard.

The best way to find relevant and good links for your website is to ensure you keep the below statements in mind this will ensure when you do potentially find a possible link you know how to identify it to ensure it is relevant and will hold some weight.

• Ensure the site that will be linking is relevant
• Ensure it is has a good linkable strategy
• Try and ensure it is not a brand new site with minimal traffic

As well as ensuring all the below are things you have checked you could also see how social they are, social media is becoming more and more important a good way for brands to reach out to customers, you could also look to see if they have authority within your industry this will also help.

Finding out weather a company has a blog can also be a good indication to see how focussed they are at doing well on the web. Remember if you’re going to be placed on a links page try and ensure there are no more than say 10 links per page and ensure you are not going to be listed next to adult content websites selling products or other spam sites.

Directories

This is a really old technique but it can still work to some extent as long as you ensure all the sites you list on are again relevant and not full of spam, try to avoid adding your site to directories where they hold no value.

Times have changed and it is no longer beneficial to simply go out there and submit your site to 1000’s of directories. Google is looking for relevant links from trusted sites not sites which have being created for one purpose and one purpose only.

There are a few things to remember when you are submitting to directories which will ensure you only gain links which are going to help you.

• Relevancy
• Localness

Adding your site to some generic directories of course is ok as long as they are good directories and you feel they will carry some weight when it comes to your linking profile.  The below shows some of the best sites you could use to list your site in if you’re going down the generic route.

• Dmoz
• My Local Services
• UK Small Business Directory

I use the above all the time and they do seem to carry some weight which is always good.

Article Distribution

Again this is another tactic which has been done to death but if you can do it well then you can do it right and this will help with your link building strategy.  The idea behind this is to create great articles which will help people and in turn make them either link back to your website or mention you in passing.

Once you have made your article the idea is simple you go and submit them to article sites, try and remember some rules from the directory section, only use sites which you know are trusted and well used there is no point in using a site which only sees one visitor a month.

**If you’re not comfortable in writing articles yourself or simply don’t have time you can hire people do this for you just be sure you have seen previous examples. Use sites like PeoplePerHour for this sort of thing.

Social Media

This one of me is going to keep growing and becoming more and more important but for some people it doesn’t work, however if you can create a good presence on the social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even Pinerest then you will not go far wrong.

To ensure you get good followers or likes depending on the website you will need to again ensure all the content or information you push out onto these sites is relevant and will get people reading and coming to your website. If you can’t think of anything worthwhile then don’t update anything it will more than likely annoy people. Social media is all about engaging with your audience.

Blog Comments

This one was almost killed a few years back by people taking advantage of the fact they could get free easy links. However I do think this technique can still work as long as you are careful and ensure you keep everything relevant and don’t spam then you should be ok.

Find industry related blogs and make interesting and gauging comments which will likely to cause a conversation this will help increase your linking profile as each comment allows a link which is the key for your website.

Try using social bookmarking websites to help you find good trending sites which have good related content from there find the website and make a comment, be sure to keep it related.

Forums

Forums can be a great place not only to gain links but to engage in interesting conversation which might be happening and some forums even has tenders section which could be useful. The idea of a forum is to build a community and if you can’t spare time to do this then stay away, to many people fall in the trap of making a forum profile for the link.

There is more to it than simply making a profile and then never coming back to it you need to be active and you need to post useful content or questions for your users. If you have a questions then ask it the beauty of it is that it doesn’t even have to be related to your industry.

These techniques are the very tip of the iceberg and no means are these alone going to see you at the top of Google for your keyword, however building a strong Link building strategy will in turn help with your overall SEO goals. Link building is a huge area and takes time but if you are willing to put in the time then you will be able to see the rewards.

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch or make a comment below and I will do my best to make a good response.