131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies . . . "The Definitive Source of Link Building Strategies on Internet"

Co-authored by Robin Nobles, Eric Ward, and John Alexander

In search engine optimization, "off page" factors have become more and more important as they relate to rankings. In particular, solid link popularity can literally make or break a site with search engines.

Before we go any further, what is "link popularity"? In very simplistic terms, link popularity refers to number and quality of incoming links that are pointing to your site. These other sites consider your site important enough to link to. So, in engine's view, your site is considered important as well. What is meant by "link popularity" can get much more complex, which is discussed further in this article.

However, one of most difficult areas of SEO is building link popularity. Why? Because engines don't want "artificially created" (or useless) links, so there are no easy ways to build link popularity. The days of link farms and huge link exchange programs are over. Try those strategies now and you can easily find yourself booted out of an engine.

Rather, engines want links from authoritative sites, or links from sites that share same focus as your site.

But besides link popularity you gain by getting an authoritative site to link to you, you also gain additional visibility for your Web site. So, when working on building link popularity, don't forget those two basic reasons for requesting links.

The Purpose of this Article

Because building link popularity is one of most difficult and time consuming aspects of search engine marketing, we decided to join forces with each other and with other search engine optimizers to create a list of legitimate ways you can build link popularity for your site.

When looking through this list, you may find strategies that are subject to abuse. If you use them as recommended in this article, you will have no problems. Abuse them, and you're treading in potentially dangerous waters.

Stephen Baker with Fast said one of most memorable statements I've heard as it relates to what engines like or don't like to see. He said:

"Our position is pretty straight forward...it's not technique that we are concerned about, it's intention."

So, always keep that statement in mind when you consider linking or any other strategies for your Web site. Analyze your intentions, and if you wouldn't mind an engine knowing what you're doing, your intentions are okay.

This realization hit me between eyes recently when I read a comment in a search engine forum from an SEO who claimed he used his ethical SEO methods as a Unique Selling Point. Look what we've been reduced to - differentiating ourselves from masses because we DON'T break rules. What other industry could boast such a thing? Apart from used car industry, I can't really think of any.

So where did this nasty reputation come from and why has it been allowed to propogate? Well, it's mainly care of hundreds of cowboys out there who decide one day they are online marketing experts, announce themselves as SEO's and set up a backyard biz, deciding (naively) that fastest way to achieve high rankings is to break rules, "crack" search engine algorithms and undermine search indexes by generating pages and pages of search engine spam. They do this by creating doorway pages designed for search engine spiders rather than humans, complete with hidden text, hidden links, cloaking and lots of other "tricks" they come across as they surf Internet.

Problem is these self-proclaimed experts don't bother to do their research and learn that such spamming techniques have long been ineffective. Nearly all search engines these days have sophisticated methods of detecting and removing spam within days of receiving submissions. Penalties for spamming search engines differ from engine to engine, but can range from being "red flagged" and put on a watch list, to being hit with a ranking penalty, to having your site permanently banned from their index (in severe cases). The type of scumbag SEO's that would play Russian Roulette with their client's web sites in this fashion are well-deserving of scorn. It can take months for search engines to lift such penalties, if they decide to at all.