Building Links: Moving up the chain on Web 2.0
Building links to your site has been one of the most important ways of increasing your page rank over the years. But it is also important to note that over the years the methods of acquiring links from various sites has undergone a sea change. There was a time when link building meant submitting our sites to hundreds of directories. So, what should your link building strategy consist of in the Web 2.0 age?
Directory Submissions
This is the oldest and still the best method for gaining traffic. Submit your website link to sites like Yahoo, JoeAnt, Business.com, BOTW, The good Web Guide, Elib etc. There are some directories that are niche directories and they are the best ones by far. But you must also remember that some directories are also black listed in Google and you must take care to avoid these.
Internal Links
Footer links are not useful anymore. So the best thing for you to do is to try and make the most of all the internal navigation links on your web pages. You can also try and include your keywords wherever it is possible.
Internal In Content Links
You must also link all your keywords to the targeted pages in your website. These links help a lot too.
Online PR
Make a list of all the sites where you would like to see your links. Start contacting them, one after another. Form a relationship with them. Try and convince them to allow you to write an editorial for them, give you a mention on the site or even just offer to review your products.
Offline PR
These days, offline PR is not done at all and not given any consideration at all too. But getting a good review in some technology or beauty and fashion magazine can also help get you a lot of visits.
3rd Party Hosted Pages
You must try and have a presence on all the various social networking sites like Facebook, Squidoo, Flickr, About.org etc.
Link Bait
The most important thing is content. You need to create content that attracts people and is good enough for people to get linked to. This will help increase links to your site. All you have to do is to think like a tabloid publisher and create eye catching, interesting content.
You must also remember to contact all industry associations, suppliers, retailers and other business contacts to get your link onto their websites. They usually have specific pages dedicated to such links.
Tags: 3rd Party Hosted Pages, Directory Submissions, Internal In Content Links, Internal Links, Link Bait, Offline PR, Online PR
