Getting others link to your website ie, link building is the second most important task in Search Engine Optimization. Incoming links to a website help it to outrank its competitors while bringing referral visitors. Different link building methods we use are given below.

1. Directory Submissions:

You can list your website in hundreds of web directories to get backlinks. However these links are not much valued by popular search engines as according to them most of these directories are link farms. Though this will not adversely affect your rankings it is better to use quality directories for submission. Also since these directories receive good traffic you will get many visitors as referrals. This method is not particularly useful for older websites with links from other sources but if it is a new one this can help you in search engines.

2. Article Submission:

This is a popular method of link building. Here people write informational articles with one or two links pointing to their website for more details and submit them to article directories. As this helps the reader to get more information on the topic she is looking for, search engines value these links. In addition to increase in search traffic you will get visitors directly from these articles. However there are hundreds of useless article directories which approve low quality contents. So be selective while submitting your articles.

3. Guest Blogging:

Popular blogs like problogger and Shoutmeloud allow people to post articles in them with a link to their website. These links are very much valued by search engines as they are from reputed websites. (Make sure the links you get is ‘do follow’).

4. Participating in Discussions:

You can build links by participating in discussions in forums and blogs. Participate in a discussion of your website’s niche and leave your link for reference.

5. Blog Commenting:

This is also a widely used link building method which often adds not much value in search engines because it is ‘widely used’. This is done by adding comments to an article of similar niche and leaving a link to your website there.

6. Writing attractive contents in your website and blog (Link Baiting)

This is one of the most useful methods of link building. When you write attractive content in your blog or website other people will link to you. This method of link building is not an easy one as it takes longer time to acquire backlinks but this brings you long term benefit. These links are valued highly by Search Engines. They are also strong sources of referral traffic. Examples of this type of contents are controversies, lists (like top 10 websites in the world), reviews, videos and even images.

7. Social Bookmarking:

A website can get links by getting bookmarked in popular bookmarking directories like digg, mixx etc. This is an easy way of link building but it doesn’t count much like in the case of directory submission. However for blogs if you can bookmark every posts it can benefit you.

8. Press Release:

Write news worthy articles and send them to bloggers and journalists. If the news is interesting enough it will get published all over the web. This is actually a far more difficult link building method than it sounds.

9. Get listed in a Business Directory:

Get your website listed in a local yellow pages directory. This will help you to rank better for local searches.

10. Request Other Webmasters to link to your website:

If you find a post or website of your niche and if the readers of that website would benefit if they had your link, request the author of that article to link to you. And be sure, this works only if it adds any value to the reader. These links are valued by the search engines.