Link building has constantly been a hot topic. In the early days of the web when search engines were in their early stages it was hyperlinks that brought in most traffic to a site. Even though search engines replaced the latter as the major provider of traffic, links retained their status as a dominant SEO element. As search engines started using advanced algorithms to evaluate sites it is the quantity and quality of the incoming links that will decide the rankings. With the growing significance of the new Web 2.0 social networks, links have now become an ever so important factor to achieve rankings.
Links rule the Internet. From what was once a routine task of a Webmaster, link building has now grown itself into a multi million dollar industry. Ranking algorithms perceive links as an alternative for a human judgment, a positive endorsement of a page. The idea here is when a user finds a page, likes its content and links to that page it will boost that page’s ranking. This is what is considered as the 'natural way' of acquiring links. Acquiring links as said above is an extremely slow process and can also be pretty unfair. Why it is so is because web users discover new pages on long established websites more often than otherwise. The new pages of old websites will also attract a major chunk of the new links (about 90%) while leaving only the scraps for the new pages of fresh sites. This is a serious flaw of the link ranking system. Since getting links naturally for a new website can take forever, some extra boost is required. There are many link-building strategies that will ensure you some initial ranking and exposure. All of these strategies will not help you equally in the long run. Some of these can be very tricky and cause your website a lot more harm than good. It is essential that you keep in mind the following tips of link building.
Be a user when building links. Make your link exchanges appear as naturally acquired. Ensure your links are placed in places where search engines anticipate them to be such as on pages with relevant content. If possible place all third party links aimed at relevant pages together either in the page copy or in a side bar. Anchor text should also be naturally written without any keyword stuffing. Consider what makes you create links to the sites you like. What makes you refer a web resource? Is it an assortment of online pictures or handy tutorials, or was it that tempting title? Apply this in reverse; write interesting and unique content that most likely will attract links. Avoid getting in to situations that can damage your reputation in the eyes of search engines. Avoid links farms and poor quality links from suspicious looking websites. Reciprocal links are no longer given any important weight. Any attempts to disguise reciprocal linking using three-way or similar linking schemes will easily be detected. It is foolish to think you can trick Google into believing link triangles are legitimate with its advanced computing resources at its disposal.
Google discourages this practice because it ridicules the idea of being an alternative for human judgment. You have to know what kind of sites you are buying the links from. You should keep away from link trading sites or any other site publicly selling links. The latter is not the same as buying links with paid advertising to increase traffic NOT link popularity. Do not be obsessed with link building. There should be a simultaneous approach to building Links and improving the quality of your website’s content. It makes sense that many would want to link to an attractive and informative site but keep away from the bad.
You have no control over who links to your site. All search engines assure that you won’t get punished for this. However thousands of such links from undesirable websites can attract some unwelcome attention and get your site barred from a search engine if they see you as artificially boosting your rankings. Avoid implementing recognized patterns of artificial link building and don’t get obsessive with your links at the expense of your content. Create an interesting and informative site that will captivate visitors and pretty soon good links will follow.