The Best Ways To Generate Incoming Links

Time and time again I see this scenario unfold on SEO and internet marketing forums. A newcomer asks the question “How do I build incoming links to my site?” or “What’s the best way to generate links?” and a few replies later there are a collection of good answers, usually they will be the methods given below. Then the newcomer wanders back, reads the answers and completely disregards them and either furthers the topic with “What about This, That and The Next Thing? I’ve heard they can get you lots of links really quick”. People, especially new comers, tend to ignore the common answers and look for what they think will be a quick solutions to their problem. When faced with the tried and tested industry standard methods, they think “That’s boring, it takes too much time and effort”, and so they ditch it and go off trying new fangled grey-hat techniques.

You reap what you sow, and if you put in a good amount of hard work and effort, you will see results. This means taking the industry standard methods for link building and making a commitment to giving them a genuine shot. Yes, there are lots of unique quirky ways to generate links and some of them work well, but without starting from the ground up and using the methods that you know work because they’ve been done to death the internet over, you’ll run out of steam very quickly.

So, to answer the question “What are the best ways to generate incoming links?”, the answers are as follows. Those which I’ve provided tips and best practices for are linked.

Article Marketing – Writing articles on your websites topic and publishing them on sites like Ezinearticles.com. By including a link to your site in the bio box or About The Author section your article will generate an incoming link to your site with your anchor text each time someone publishes it on their site. Over time you will generate more links and while Google gives less weight to duplicate content these days, you can easily submit the same post a few times with the words and sentences changed enough to warrant a new article. The better your article is and the more directories you post it to, the more links you will receive.

Directory Submission – Submitting your articles to directory sites for a free link back. Again, Google weighs this less than it used to, but this is a free service and can be done a few hundred times in very little time. By changing the text slightly for each directory you submit to and spend 10 minutes each day submitting to 10 directories, you increase your exposure while staying in Googles good books.

Reciprocal Linking – Sending out comments and emails asking other websites in your niche or genre to link you back. Once again, Google doesn’t value reciprocal links as much as it used to but they are still worth something and by linking with sites with higher PR than your own you increase the worth of your site for free.

Create Consistent Good Quality Content – This is the fundamental core upon which link building exists. ‘If you build it they will come’ doesn’t just apply to Kevin Costner, it’s an absolute certainty on the internet. If you have good quality content people will automatically link to you without you taking any other action. If you have 1,000 articles and not one is good, you will receive no links and no exposure while by contrast if you have a single good article you will receive at least some interest and likely some incoming links. Every successful webmaster should spend time and effort on every article or web page he creates before trying other ways to market and expose that content.

Get Involved With The Community – Another method which crops up in almost every answer to the ‘How do I create incoming links’ question – posting comments on other blogs and questions and answers on forums. These touted methods still remain effective- including links to your site in well made and relevant comments on articles which relate to your site and doing the same or including your link in your signature on forums. As long as you’re providing useful content on these sites then you will see a trickle of traffic and more importantly a trickle of incoming links as a result.

Social Bookmarking – This method hasn’t been around for as long as the others but it’s now widely used and is definately an industry standard. Using a site like SocialMarker – http://www.socialmarker.com – you sign up for several Social Bookmark sites and submit some of your articles, taking a few minutes to give it an eye catching title. This is a very good method for new sites and blogs and can help you To Get Indexed On Google In Half An Hour.

There are rarely short cuts, and anyone offering a fast-track solution is usually out to make a buck. By spending a few hours or a few days on each of the conventional and recognized methods above you give yourself a bit of experience in the standard link building steps and are guarenteed to slowly elevate the rank and value of your site. Anything worth doing takes time and effort to do right, and the internet is no exception. By all means experiment with quirky new ideas and approaches to link building, but understand that they must be built on a bedrock of the accepted and proven ways.

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