• Write a 400-700 word article. Remember that quality counts. Your articles need to be interesting and informative, so when a Webmaster reads it they are impressed enough to link to it.

• Include a resource box that encourages the viewer to visit your site and include links to internal pages they may find useful.

• Submit to the article directories. I suggest you find the ones with the highest traffic volume and PageRank and begin with those.

Other Hidden Gems – Other areas you may not have thought of that can bring valuable links:

• Sponsor or Advertise on Blogs

• Charity Groups

• “Dot Orgs” carry a lot of weight, seek them out with search:

keyword sponsors site:.org

• Local Job Fairs. Volunteer to speak at the local college or business school. You will get on their site (.edu) and their Webmasters are generally lazy and won’t take the link down. So the result is a permanent link on an .edu site for an hour of your time.

Step Seven: Make the Most of What You Have. Analyze your backlinks to ensure you are making the most of what you already have.

To accomplish this, I use SEO Elite and run a report using both Yahoo! and Google.

Once you have the results back, find the articles that reference you and make a note of them. Then complete a link/marketing campaign to increase their authority and possibly their PageRank.

Also, link to directories you have submitted to and who currently list you. Don’t like to the home page of the directory, link to the page where your listing appears.

In doing the above, you help to boost the PageRank of the article or directory page as well as your PR.

Step Eight: Manage Your Links Page Effectively. It isn’t enough to just get a link, it has to be in the right place to be seen by a visitor and be counted properly by Google. Footer and sidebar links are not as good as content links.

I don’t recommend you have a “Links Page”. If you choose to, don’t create a long list of links on a page and call it “links” or “recommended links”. Few Webmasters are going to want to have to share link space and PageRank with 100’s of other irrelevant links. Also, visitors often ignore these pages and I have seen evidence in my testing that search engines are beginning to identify and discount these pages.

Get links that are permanent as the longer the link is “alive” the more link juice it will pass. Paid links are nothing more than a short-term boost.

Step Nine: Complete a Link Audit Once a Quarter. At least once a quarter you must do a full audit of your incoming links and outgoing links to ensure they still meet your standards or you may face lower revenue. Here are the areas you want to analyze:

• How many incoming links does the page currently have?

• Are you providing a link back to that site?

• Where on the page does the link exist?

• What anchor text is being used for the incoming link?

• What is the PageRank of the page providing the incoming link?

• What is the traffic estimation of the incoming link site?

• Does the site meet your quality guidelines?

• Are a large percentage of your link partners coming from a similar block of IPs?

• Is there Link Rot (404 or broken links) that you need to clear up?

• Are you still referencing the information that you intend to?

Here is what you do:

• Search for “Xenu” in Google. (It should be the first site listed.)

• Click the link to go to the site and download to install the program.

• Run a complete internal and external link check.

• View the report for each page.

• Fix all the dead links (both internal and external).

• If you had ten or more internal pages with problems, rerun your Google XML Sitemap.

That’s it. It should take you about 1-2 hours to run the report and fix the main broken links.

Step Ten: Optimize Your Internal Links. Internal linking the right way is essential to maximizing the power or your site. Here’s how:

1) Verify the keyword converts via PPC. This was discussed at the start of this guide.

2) Search Google for your current organic ranking. Write down your current ranking. You may also want to run it through my Keyword Competition Tool to check on the allinanchor competition.

3) Ask Google which pages on your site are relevant for the keyword you are optimizing for.

site:domain.com keyword

You are looking for “relevant pages” and not “exact pages.” This is generally helpful when your site contains less than 500 pages.

The first page listed in the results is the page you should be optimizing and it should be a sub page of your site. Don’t use HTML site maps or any other page that a customer will not convert from. We’re after buyers here and improving our sales funnel.

Step Four: Place your targeted keyword phrase as anchor text on the relevant pages listed by Google and links to the page you are optimizing. Make sure this is done within the BODY of the page – not anywhere else.

Another Use: Let’s say you have a Webmaster who wants to exchange links with you. Do the search for their site with the keyword you want to target and Google will tell you what pages are the best to have your site linked on.

And there you have it. With this quick guide, you should be able to see results rather quickly.

This is one of the most widely practiced linking strategies, but most

Webmasters go about it incorrectly: sending SPAM emails to irrelevant sites and gaining garbage because very little or no PageRank and qualified traffic is passed. Think about it… the only Webmasters who will respond are those with new or struggling sites. Not good.

To find potential reciprocal link partners, use the following methods:

• Search for your targeted keyword phrases in Google. Review the results. Don’t waste time and energy on the first 100. They are most likely to be your largest competitors and least likely wanting to link to you. Go deeper to the 300-500 ranges. This is where sites not in direct competition with you can be found. There are many tools available that can help automate this process, and one I highly recommend is SEO Elite.

• Review the Google Directory and Yahoo! Directory to find sites related to yours. Go to the category that best fits your business and start reviewing the sites that are related to yours, have good PageRank and preferably not in direct competition with you.

• Again, you can use Yahoo! Site Explorer, Search Status, or SEO Elite to find out who is linking to your competitors. Hit all the quality sites that are linking to the top ten sites.

In your business journal, write down the URLs for the ones that are potential link partners. They may be those who are in the same general market but don’t necessarily compete with you or those who link to your competition and could link to you as well.

Paid Links – Some options for Paid/Sponsored links are:

Be Your Own Link Broker - Find sites to buy from by using the following searches:

• “advertise with us” keyword -cpm

• “rate card” keyword -cpm

• “advertising” keyword –cpm

Purchasing Links in Newsletters - Before you think about purchasing links in a newsletter, check to see if the newsletters are archived on the site and if the links are “clickable” and pass link popularity. To find opportunities, search:

• newsletter “keyword” advertise

• newsletter “keyword” sponsor

• newsletter “keyword” advertising rates

Because paid links can be found and discounted in Google, you should follow these guidelines when paying for links:

Stay in Control - When you find a site to purchase from, find the text on the page, preferably in the body text, and request it be your link. Links in the body text generally have solid click through rates.

Avoid Penalties – You can use paid links as a way to successfully compete for ‘money phrases’, you just need to be smart about it. To avoid possible penalties, follow these rules:

• Only buy single page links, not ROS (Run of Site) links.

• Vary your anchor text.

• Ensure the anchor text you are targeting either matches, or is in the same ‘theme’ as your Title Tag.

• Verify the body text of the page you are buying incoming links for is themed towards the anchor text.

Go Natural Too – Work to get natural links as well as paid links. If you have a lot of natural links it is easier to sneak in a few paid links.

Follow the 60/40 Split – Send paid links to your sub pages too.

According to testing, doing a 60/40 split (sub page – home page) with 5-7 variations of anchor text (including the business name, site URL) gives a strong boost.

When you boil it down, it isn’t that you are buying links, but what types of links are you buying? Focus on quality for you and your customers.

Look for sites that compliment or supplement your site and provide a potential of referral traffic. PageRank should be a bonus if it occurs.

Step Five: Contacting Your Potential Partners. Now that you have your list of potential link partners, you are ready to begin contacting the site owners to request a link exchange.

Call the Webmaster. It is more personal and allows you to form a better relationship. You may even get a one-way link instead. Ask for what you want in a way that is perceived as non-threatening and does not sound like a “sales call”.

If you must email, send it to the right person. Usually this is the Webmaster or the online marketing director. Make it personal and try to address the person by name. Review their site thoroughly and make factual comments about it in your message.

Whether you call or email, briefly describe why it will benefit them.

Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver – including higher rankings.

In the initial email or follow-up email, include the link code you want them to utilize. Make it easier for them to cut and paste the code to their page. NEVER pre-format the text. How the link is displayed and in what font and/or color is their decision, not yours.

If it is a reciprocal link exchange, tell them exactly where you will place their link and ask for the code or wording they would like you to use.

Let them know if they find the exchange agreeable that you are willing to link to them first as a sign of good faith. Add the link within 24 hours of receiving the OK. If for some reason they don’t get your link up in a timely manner, leave the link up until the next time you do an audit.

Step Six: Other Linking Possibilities. Look for unknown directories,

press release areas, forum postings, articles distribution areas, “hidden gems”, etc. These can all be valuable links to your site.

Directories – Aside from the major directories like DMOZ, Yahoo!, and Best of the Web, very few get any real pedestrian traffic today.

I have seen a HUGE drop off in the quality of directories that are currently available. Many directories are being sold to marketing firms and the current listings are either being dropped or the links are “nofollowed”. Refer to my Definitive Directory Submission List in the member’s area for my recommendations.

Tips when Submitting Your Site:

• Follow all guidelines and terms put forth by the directory.

• Your site should be professionally designed.

• Submit to a relevant category, if you don’t you may be rejected.

• Be honest and thorough in the description and category choice.

Be sure you can deliver what you promise. If something changes in your business, update your description.

• Do not make up a name to get to the top of their directory (i.e. A1 Hobby Shop). It doesn’t work anymore.

• Use keywords as naturally as possible. Keyword stuffed or hyped up titles and descriptions often get a rejection.

• Your Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Return Policy, Shipping

Information, Guarantee, etc. should be linked on your home page.

• All images should load. Test your site to verify that there are no broken images anywhere on your site.

• Verify all of your links. Any bad links may get your site disqualified.

• Provide a current copyright notice at the bottom of at least your main page – preferably on every page.

• Regional submissions have the best acceptance ratio. If your site fits into a region, submit it there.

Press Releases – Press releases are probably the fastest way to gain quality one-way links and volume traffic for your site. The strength of Press Release Marketing comes from those who pick up on the release.

• A quick way to create a press release is to take an existing article from your site and re-author it to make it sound “newsworthy”.

• Write in third person and with an unbiased point of view. A human editor reviews almost all press releases, and advertisements or editorial type releases will not pass by them.

• Direct the reader to you as the main contact and your site for more information. Include your full contact details, as other opportunities may arise.

• Submit your release. Be careful with free services, because they will often times not allow links in the article or will “nofollow” the link. Meaning no link popularity will be passed, which defeats half the reason you submitted the release in the first place. Two good paid resources for distributing your press releases are PRWeb and PRLeap.

Forums –It is a great method to get referral traffic. The forum would have to allow links. There are many that don’t. For example, Webmaster World does not allow links to be posted. Yahoo! Answers and YouTube allow links, but they designate the “nofollow” tag. I have been testing this and the traffic flow is, in a word, killer.

Article Exchanges – Articles, used as link bait or submitted to article directories, are excellent sources for one-way text links to your site.

Also because your anchor text remains intact in the author box, it is a great way to specifically target the keywords you want to rank for – be sure not to use the dreaded “click here” as anchor text.

There are typically three basic reasons:

1. You have great content or are a resource that would be of benefit to their visitors. Solid content is what drives visitors, increases conversions and ultimately, assists in your link campaigns.

2. If they link to you, you will link to them. Reciprocal linking is still a good foundation of any link building. Be sure you request links the correct way: Forge a relationship with the website owner without the use of SPAM emails.

3. You pay them to post a text link to your site. Paid links should be looked at as advertising. Buy links from quality, high PageRank and well-indexed sites or directories with targeted anchor text to the pages that are earning you the most revenue. What this will do is drive your rankings higher, bring in more traffic and more revenue.

Search engine spokespeople like Matt Cutts will tell you buying links can get you banned or penalized; while the link may be discounted, I’ve never seen a site banned throughout my testing by buying links.

Step Two: Keyword Research and Anchor Text. All the major search engines index anchor text and Google gives high priority to the text listed here. Google gives high priority to the page the link is pointing towards.

Deciding what you will use as your anchor text is more involved than pulling a keyword off your list and slapping it down in the code. You don’t want to go after generic keywords, that are on the wrong end of the buying cycle.

How do you know which are on the right keywords which are at the end of the buying cycle? PPC testing.

Why? Let’s say your keyword gets 100 clicks per day and you pay £2.00/per click. Your conversion ratio is 3% equaling 3 sales per day.

For those sales, you earn £70.00 each. Revenue is £210.00 but you spent $200.00, leaving you with a profit of $10.00. Not an effective PPC campaign, but if you use SEO, you make the full £210.00/day.

Once you are done with your test, here’s what to do:

Step 1: Analyze and rank the keywords by sales (total revenue).

Step 2: Match the Cost Per Click to every converting keyword phrase.

Step 3: Rank them in categories:

A: best keywords are £4.00+ per click (Note: Start at the top and work your way down.)

B: good keywords are £1.50 – £3.99 per click

C: above average keywords are £0.90 – £1.49 per click

D: average keywords are £0.50 – £0.89 per click

E: below average keywords are £0.49 or below per click (just pay)

The high converting, high cost keywords are ones that you will want to optimize for and use as your anchor text in your linking campaign.

Notice I said keywords, plural. Meaning you will want to have multiple so you can vary your anchor text.

Step Three: Analyze the Top Ten in Google. Complete a search for the top keyword phrase on your list and review the top ten organic sites. Click on them and complete a quick review of the site. How did they get a top ranking? Use my Keyword Competition Tool for an overview of what you need to do to get into the top ten organic results.

The more stacked the three columns are, the harder it will be to compete and dethrone those above you.

Step Four: Find Potential Link Partners. This section will discuss the different ways to find potential partners for one-way links, reciprocal links and paid links. They will all be slightly different. Regardless of what type of links you work to gain to your site, here are some general guidelines I suggest you follow:

Target Pages with 25 or Less External Links – Remember, PageRank is distributed amongst all of the outgoing links on a given page. The more links, the less PR distributed per link. Targeting pages with 25 external links will allow for the page to grow.

The Page Must be Indexed by Google – It doesn’t have to have PageRank yet, but it must exist in the index. This should go without saying, but no link popularity or reputation can be passed if the page (including directory pages) where your link appears is not found in the Google index. Check the cache, it must be within the last three weeks.

Vary your Anchor Text and Focus on Sub-Pages – Doing these will help you avoid the -5 penalty, which seems to affect pages with their anchor text “too tight”. For directories, vary your Title and Description.

Avoid Disreputable Sites - No gambling, prescriptions, sex, hate, SPAM, link farm, etc. sites; unless, of course, your site matches one of those.

Ignore all “SPAM” Reciprocal Linking Requests – They will only give you garbage links. You will know SPAM messages, because they sound canned and impersonal.

One-Way Links – This is where one site A will link to site B without Site B linking back. Use Site Explorer in Yahoo! to review each competitor’s site in the organic top ten.

Search in Yahoo!: link:http://www.some-site.com

If you want to automate the process use SEO Elite. SEO Elite gives you the PageRank, Alexa Ranking, the anchor text being used to link to your competitor and the stats of the link, in particular if it is “nofollowed” (not shown in the snapshot below) all at one time.

Either way, Yahoo! or SEO Elite, you will review a list of websites.

Schedule to contact those who don’t nofollow their links and have a decent PageRank, fresh cache date and Alexa rating first.

Another way to get a one-way link is to create link bait. Be sure to be ethical and honest in the information you submit to others, as you want to be linked to for the right reasons, not to be “called out.” If they are not willing to give you a one-way link, try requesting a reciprocal link or sponsoring a link on their page.

Every site needs highly targeted, high quality links, placed in the right spot on the page, with the right anchor text to be successful in Google.

To accomplish this, see below:

Don’t outsource your link building project unless you verify those you outsource to understand your methods and are qualified.

• Don’t search for “keyword phrase” and “submit site” in Google. Most, if not all, of the results will be garbage sites.

• Avoid three-way linking schemes. They are exactly that: schemes.

Search engines are getting better at detecting and discounting these links. Google in particular has aggressively begun to target and discount three way links.

• Don’t just get links to your home page; get deep links to any page you want to rank well in Google.

• Don’t use link building software or send mass emails for links.

• Don’t give up your editorial discretion. Don’t hire services that ”guarantee” links or allow links added through automation.

Services that guarantee links often have a network of sites they own and it is essentially a sophisticated link farm. Manually approve every link before it is posted on your site.

• Don’t raise Google’s red flag by gaining “high volume” of links too quickly and then stop. You want to make sure the number of links matches the amount of traffic you are receiving. Until your site is getting 500 unique visitors per day, I would stick to 5-10 acquired links per day max.

• Don’t make linking decisions based on PageRank. Instead, make them based on your visitor’s needs.

• Verify the page has a current cache date in Google.

• Don’t approve a link request until you ensure the site has not ”faked” their PageRank. Check it with this Fake PageRank Detection Tool.

New websites need links to develop any sort of search engine visibility. Links pointing to a new website can get it indexed and help it to start ranking for low to medium competition long tail keywords.

These keywords will send visitors searching for information on a specific topic to your website and allows you gain a new reader or make some money from whatever affiliate program or ad scheme you are running.

I’ve recently set up several websites for some friends and link building was my main concern because I needed links for the webpages to be indexed and start showing up in the search engine.

I’ve previously written about the best way to get traffic for new websites and this article complements that by focusing on ways you can use to quickly acquire some links that will help your website.

15 Link Building Strategies for New Websites

This collection of link building tips are likely to guarantee that you will receive free links from already established websites. This differs from content-oriented development strategies which hope to gradually attract natural editorial links.

These link building tips focus more on targeted link placement or link insertion, whereby you are likely to control the specific anchor text used. Some of them include agreements made with others and others involve one-way action on your part.

1. Submit your site to Web Directories. This is a pretty monotonous process that can get you several hundred backlinks if you have the time. An alternative would be to hire a manual directory submitter. Here’s a list of web directories you can use. You can also find some blog directories here.

2. Submit Press Releases to PR sites. A basic press release about your website’s launch can be released to several PR websites, who will distribute it to various online news outlets. A good way to get a free link. I recommend using PRWeb and PRLeap.

3. Reciprocal Links with Similar Websites. Its important to pick sites that are of high relevance so you’ll not only get links but traffic. Reciprocal linking can be useful from the beginning but don’t overdo it. You can find link partners by emailing them directly or searching through webmaster forums.

4. Squidoo Lenses. A Squidoo lens is fairly easy to create. It only takes around 15 minutes to set up one fully and you’ll be able to insert a bunch of anchor text links to your website along with your feed content. Hubpages is another similar site you can use.

5. Article Submissions. Create a short article on your niche topic and submit it to article directories for a backlink and some traffic. You might get more links if your article is picked up and published on other websites. Here is a list of article directories, sorted by Alexa and PageRank.

6. Social Media Profiles. There a whole bunch of social websites online which allow you to insert a link to your website on the profile page. Sign up for some of them, preferably using a username and avatar that brands your business or you as a person. This might come in useful when you decide to promote your site via the social website in the future.

7. Social Bookmarking/Voting Websites. Certain social voting websites like Netscape or Digg are often crawled by search engines and their links do help to get a website indexed. 3spots has the biggest list of social voting and bookmarking websites I’ve seen so far.

8. Forum Signatures. Sign up for some forums in your niche and start contributing to ongoing discussions. Insert a link to the homepage or some inner pages of your site.

9. Create a Tool, Theme or Widget. Pay a designer to come up with an add-on application or template that is related to a specific social network, popular website or platform. Include a credit link that points back to your designated website.

10. Blogs on Other Blog Platforms. Use existing blogs you have on other blog networks. Or set up different versions of your blog on different blog networks like Wordpress.com, Blogger and Xanga. Link to specific webpages on your website.

11. Comment on Other Blogs. Start commenting on relevant and popular sites in your niche. Don’t just spam for links but focus on building a relationship with other bloggers as well. Write a relevant comment and try to avoid using keyword names or signature links.

12. Guest posting on other blogs. Like article and press releases, this one involves having readily available content you can send out to certain blogs in your niche. This is great for getting relevant links and traffic.

13. Hold Contests. Some websites often offer contests in a bid to attract anchor text links from bloggers. Contests allow you to determine the specific anchor text but its possible that too many links using the designated keyword may harm your domain instead.

14. Collaborative Projects. You may need to develop an article specifically for a writing project, blog carnival or meme but it will usually get you a couple of backlinks, depending on the number and generosity of the participants involved.

15. Offer your Expertise. This will apply if you have a specific skill set such as web design, copywriting, translation or SEO. Write to an established website and offer to revamp/optimize their website in return for a mention or credit link on a webpage. This offers excellent branding, particularly if your offer is picked up by a website with a decent audience.