This is a guest post by Alia Haley.

Link building is perhaps one of the most important factors to improve search engine rankings whether it is a blog or a website. In fact, if wisely built, links alone can make a lot of difference in the search engine listing. On the other hand, improper link building can cause irreparable damage to the reputation of a blog in the eyes of the search engine. So, if you have blog and want to optimize it for the search engine, you must know how to build proper links.

Why are the links important?

Links are like the veins and arteries of the web world. The very concept and name of internet suggests importance of link building. Few people thought that the Google Panda is going to put an end to link building. However, in reality, it has opened new ways to build and modify the links. At the same time, it has made link building more delicate and meaningful. The old ways of random link building have become obsolete. Each of the links you have must make sense now.

Tips to build links in your blog

Build quality links:
Gone are the days when link directories would do the job. Thanks to the new algorithms, the search engines can check out the links that you have built in a page and give priority accordingly. That means you really have to find out quality links to be a good guy for Google or any other search engine. Avoid directory submission as it only focuses on quantity and not quality.

Identify your niche:
What kind of followers do you want? Your niche is that class of people for whom you write. So, if you are writing a blog of travel destinations, first identify the blogs that deal with similar subjects. Maybe, you will find a blog that deals with travel tips. Now, you can get a link to your blog from that site. This will help you in two ways. First, it will create a quality link and lend authenticity to your blog. Secondly, you will find targeted traffic coming from that link.

Article marketing:
Article marketing can be a good way to create links to your blog. Basically, in this type of marketing, you submit your articles to different directories. In these articles, you discuss subjects relevant to your blog and add link to your blog. This too is a great way to get dedicated traffic.

Remember, the best links are those that come naturally in your content. For example, you can discuss different services from different companies in your blog and link to them naturally. Another great way to create link is to post comments on other blogs. However, make sure that you are posting interesting comments that will create a positive image about you and your blog.

Think before you link

It is important that you think the pros and cons before you link your blog to any other site. Make sure that the site is regularly updated and popular. Initially, you may not get link backs from all these sites. However, the more you link to such sites, the more is the chance to get responses and rank higher in the search list.

About the author:

Alia Haley is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and autos. Beside this she is fond of cars and watches. Recently an article on amazon cloud drive attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on wooden headsets.

Photo by paul (dex)

In the past I’ve talked about how people worry far too much about getting links only from high PR (PageRank) sites.

With that said, if I see a way to get a link from a high PR site, I’ll take the link every time.

And Ana Hoffman has just posted an easy way to get a PR7 backlink and you should check it out if you’re looking to build backlinks.

Take a poll

My Directory of DoFollow Blogs is one of my most popular posts.

And Today I come across another DoFollow Directory: YouDoFollow.com.

Check it out!

This is a guest post by Adam Snyder from dormroomcash.com.

Getting backlinks is very important to the overall reputation of a website but the problem is – they don’t build themselves. It doesn’t matter if you have the best content on the internet, if nobody is reading it then it is for nothing. This is why getting backlinks matters.

As a website owner it is your job to get as many quality backlinks as you possibly can because that ultimately is what will help you rise in the search engines and get your brand in front of other people.

Now I know link building is not the most fun thing in the world and the reason it is not is because website owners are doing the same things over and over again instead of diversifying their link building portfolio.

40 Ways To Get Quality Backlinks On Demand

If you do not have a pen and a piece of paper handy then you should go and get them because in this post I am going to tell you 40 ways to get quality backlinks on demand. (This list is not in any order)

1. Write articles for article directories
2. Submit guest posts to different blogs in your niche
3. Answers questions on Yahoo answers
4. Submit your site to Digg because it offers a do-follow backlink
5. Comment on topic related blogs
6. Create a free theme for WordPress and place your link in the footer
7. Write a very controversial post in order to get outsiders attention
8. Participate on forums related to your niche
9. Ask another blogger to interview you
10. Write articles for Squidoo, Hubpages, and Weebly
11. Write a Wikipedia page for yourself and provide all the information needed along with a link to your site
12. Donate to a site in exchange for a link
13. Write a “How To” post since people love those
14. Comment on .edu and .gov blogs since their links count for more
15. Submit your website to a local business website
16. Join your local commerce
17. Create thin websites and interlink them to each other
18. Do half price freelance pieces in exchange for a link
19. Review a new product or service
20. Create a post with many pictures – each picture can get you more links
21. Create profile links on sites you are a member of
22. Do something crazy and get the media to write about it
23. Donate to a school under your website name – Your website will get a link because of it
24. Get listed on Yahoo Directory (Paid)
25. Start a Podcast and link to your website from the Itunes website
26. Write an article for a online magazine
27. Send out proposals to speak at events
28. Write an article on about.com and link to your site in it
29. Get entered into different blogging contests
30. Sponsor a WordPress plugin in exchange for your link
31. Write a pillar post/link bait
32. Ask your friends to link to your website
33. Interview the biggest bloggers – They will almost always link back to that post
34. Submit your RSS feed to feed sites
35. Participate in a link exchange
36. Create a blog on Blogger.com
37. Give away a quality ebook in exchange for a link
38. Become a top commentator – this will result in a lot of links
39. Submit your website to a few different blog carnivals
40. Write irresistible posts on your own- website with a reminder to link to it

When it comes to getting backlinks there are a lot of different places to get them – As you can see. My advice if you are wanting to dominate your niche is to build backlinks from as many different places as you can because in the end variety will always help out. Now that you have a good sized list of where and how to get backlinks I highly recommend that you get out there right now and build the ultimate backlink portfolio.

About The Author

Adam Snyder is a blogger who spends a lot of time showing people different ways to make cash online and offline. If you want to learn more from him then make sure you follow DormRoomCash on Facebook.
If you have a question on any of these or want to know the best way to get started then make sure you ask me in the comments below, I am more than happy to help you out.

I Want To Link To Your Site

I want to do you a favor and give you a free back link.

What’s The Catch?

There is no catch.

No strings attached.

No orangutans to wrestle.

How To Get Your Free Backlink

Leave a comment like this:

After your comment is approved

Please Be Patient After Posting A Comment

After posting a comment it will be held for moderation before it is shows up (I get a lot of spam). So please be patient.

Will You Do Me A Favor?

If you found this helpful, would you mind stumbling this page?

Would you mind saying something on Twitter?

Other Sites Offering Free Back Links:

• Promote Yourself: More About You & Your Business

This guest post is by Pedro Cardoso of Computer Too Slow.

Link Building is a task with no end. As long as you have a website whose rankings you’d like to see improve, you should keep building links to it.

However, it’s not just about running around haphazardly across the Internet and snagging as many back-links as you possibly can. There are many ways to get link building done wrong, which can back-fire on you and harm your website.

If you don’t want to get caught up in this kind of scenario, the following list may be of use.

#1: Too much, too soon.

Effective link building works best as a gradual process; slowly and surely does the trick. Getting too many links on a recent domain will surely work against you.

#2: From randomness to chaos.

You want to make your link building look natural. As such, you don’t want to get the same exact amount of links each day. But that’s just as wrong as getting a hundred links in a day, and then nothing for a month. Try to keep it gradual and even out the pace.

#3: Link farming.

There was a time when people created websites just for the sake of serving links to other websites and improving their rankings. This is called link farming, and these days anyone who gets involved with such practice will likely get adverse results.

#4: Low quality websites.

Have you noticed those blogs full of sponsored posts and thin content? Those are bad neighborhoods, and you will do better to avoid them.

#5: Low relevance links.

As much as possible, try to keep your link building activities locked within your niche. All links will benefit your rankings, but relevant links even more so.

#6: Too many no-follow links.

If you aren’t attentive while building links, you may realize that all your links come from websites using the no-follow tag, which means they will pass little link juice to your website.

#7: Too few no-follow links.

Just because a website no-follows its links, it doesn’t mean the link will be absolutely useless, though! Sometimes those links are clicked by actual people, you know?

#8: Low domain diversity.

Are all your links coming from .com websites? Doesn’t that look a bit fishy to you? Try mixing it up and run the gamut of top level domains, for best results… look up .org, .net, .info, and especially a bunch of .gov and .edu links, whenever possible.

#9: Unnatural link portfolio.

Look at the collection of links pointing to your website, and try to imagine you were a Google search engineer. Would you find something suspicious about this collection of links? Is there something unnatural about it? If so, fix it!

#10: Over-reliance on paid links.

If you have a good budget, you may be tempted to buy your way to top rankings, since ultimately you realize that it takes money to make money. Not a good move! Google does not look kindly on paid links, and if all your links are paid, it will be so much easier for them to spot a pattern.

#11: Anchor text redundancy.

Most of your links should use one of your main keywords as anchor text. That’s link building 101 and you probably know it. However, you should also know that getting a limited palette of anchor texts across hundreds of links will negatively impact your rankings! Mix up those anchor texts for best results.

#12: Superficial linking.

So you’ve got thousands of links pointing to the homepage on your website, and just a half dozen links across your multitude of posts? Does that not strike you as odd? You need to link to all pages of your website, to make the linking look natural, as well as helping some of those pages rank for their intended keywords.

#13: Links with no links.

Links are comparable to votes from other websites… but not all votes count the same. If all your votes come from pages with no links to them, it’s hardly an influential vote, is it? You may want to start building links to selected pages in other websites, or otherwise find creative ways to arrange links in pages that also attract links (hint: such as this post, or other posts in this blog)

This is a guest post by the handy folks over at the slow computer website. Anytime your sluggish computer is getting in the way of your link building practices, come see us for advice!

Building backlinks is a pain and you always wonder if if your strategy will actually work.

Which is why you need to read Pat Flynn’s post:
THE Backlinking Strategy That Works

Today I’m going to show you a fast way to build one-way backlinks which is part of my Back Link Bible and one of many backlink tricks you’ll learn from this Secret SEO Guide.

(Note this post was originally published in May, 2010.)

The Recipe

There are many ways to get backlinks to your site. A few methods are worth your time. And many are not worth your time.

I am going to give you a recipe for getting massive amounts of backlinks in a very short amount of time. This is a recipe that is used by the gurus to get tons of traffic.

It is vitally important that you complete each step of the recipe.

Here is the recipe to follow:

1. Quick & Dirty Search Engine Optimization
2. Social Bookmarking Made Easy
3. Become A Top Commenter On Blogs
4. Social Bookmark The Blogs
5. More Ideas
6. Consider Outsourcing

Each step of the recipe has its own section.

Quick & Dirty Search Engine Optimization

Before I get into building backlinks I want to say a quick word about search engine optimization. Optimizing your site will greatly increase the effectiveness of your backlink building efforts.

Keywords in domain

You must make sure that your keywords are in your domain.
For example if your site is about poodle manicures then ideally your site would be PoodleMaincures.com or Poodle-Maincures.com

Keywords in title tags

You must make sure that your keywords are in your title tags.

For example if your site is about poodle manicures then your title tags would look something like:
<title>Poodle Manicures</h3>

Keywords in h1 tags

You must make sure that your keywords are in your h1 tags.
For example if your site is about poodle manicures then your h1 tags would look something like:
<h1>Poodle Manicures</h1>

These are the basic things I recommend. To learn more about search engine optimization go to:
http://nickstraffictricks.com/329_search-engine-optimization-and-keywords/

Social Bookmarking Made Easy

This is the hardest step in the whole process but it well worth your time.

Get Firefox

First you need to use the Firefox web browser. We’ll be using some of the plugins for Firefox to get traffic.

Download Firefox:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

The Power of OnlyWire

Onlywire is a free service that allows you submit your site to 30 social bookmarking sites with a click of a button.

Right now the social bookmarking sites OnlyWire will submit to are:

1. Ask
2. Bebo
3. Bibsonomy
4. Blinklist
5. BookmarkSync
6. Connotea
7. del.icio.us
8. Digg
9. Diigo
10. Facebook
11. Faves
12. Google Bookmarks
13. Jumptags
14. Linkatopia
15. Mister Wong
16. Mixx
17. Multiply
18. MySpace
19. Newsvine
20. Plaxo
21. Propeller
22. Reddit
23. Simpy
24. Slashdot
25. Spurl
26. Stumbleupon
27. Technorati
28. Tumblr
29. Twitter
30. Yahoo Bookmarks

I made a quick video covering OnlyWire:
http://nickstraffictricks.com/1570_video-social-bookmarking-made-easy/

Signup for OnlyWire:
http://www.onlywire.com

Become A Top Commenter On Blogs

The basic idea

The basic idea is to find blogs that have the “Top Commentator” widget installed.

For example the blog QuickSprout ( http://www.quicksprout.com ) has this widget installed and you can see it on the right side of the main page:

The people with the most comments on the blog are rewarded with a link back to their own site.
Looking at the list above you can see that Prostate Problems (8) has placed 8 comments and gets a free backlink.

The best part is this widget is shown on every page of the blog. So every page of this blog has a backlink to Prostate Problems.

But many pages does this blog have?

We can get a count by going to Google and searching for:

site:quicksprout.com

This blog has 193 pages!

If you’re one of the top commenters of this site then your backlink appears on 193 pages. How cool is that?

A Quick Word About NoFollow

There has recently been a lot of discussion about NoFollow and if it really matters.

(For an explanation of NoFollow and why it is important to go to:
http://nickstraffictricks.com/1168_why-nofollow-matters-and-how-to-find-blogs-that-dont-use-it/ )

Personally, I think the jury is still out on this. At this point I recommend becoming the top commentator only on blogs that do not use NoFollow. It certainly will not hurt you.

How to find these blogs

The toughest part of all of this is finding blogs with the top commentator widget and that are DoFollow.

I spent several hours doing this and created a list of 30+blogs that have the top commentator widget and that are DoFollow and put the list at the bottom of this blog post.

Social Bookmark The Blogs

Once you are one of the top commentators on a blog your backlink will be on every one of their pages.

Now you want the search engines to take notice.

To do this you simply submit the blog’s home page or newest blog post to social bookmarking sites using OnlyWire. This should take about a minute of your time.

More Ideas

Another way to get a blog noticed by the search engine is to make a blogspot blog and on it link to all the blogs that now have backlinks to your site.

Next submit the BlogSpot blog to OnlyWire.

Example

Let’s say you have a site called PoodleManicures.com and you have become the top commentator on blogs alpha.com and beta.com.

You go to BlogSpot and signup for a free blog.

To help the search engines index blogs alpha.com and beta.com (and see your backlinks) you place links to alpha.com and beta.com on your BlogSpot blog.

Next you submit your BlogSpot blog to OnlyWire.

You can use this same strategy with Squidoo lenses too.

To do this you simply go to squidoo.com and make a free Squidoo lens.

Next you link to blogs alpha.com and beta.com on your Squidoo lens.

Next you submit your Squidoo lens to OnlyWire.

Doing this will help ensure that the search engines come index blogs alpha.com and beta.com and see the backlinks to your site.

Consider Outsourcing

As time goes on you and you make money I recommend you invest some of your profits and hire someone to help you with your work.

A lot of people suggest using elance or guru.com. I recommend first tying to hire a friend or family member you trust.

Before You Begin Commenting…

Before you begin there are several things you need to be aware of:

1. Leave good comments
   You must leave good & thoughtful comments on a blog.  If you leave spammy comments then the blog owner will delete them and they may ban you from making future comments.  Join the community and contribute something.
2. Be patient
   Some blogs require all comments to be approved by the blog owner before the comment shows up.  If this is the case then bookmark the page where you expect the comment to show up and revisit the page a day later.
3. PageRank Changes
   I have sorted the blogs below according to PageRank.  PageRank does change periodically change and if one of the blogs below has a different PageRank then leave a comment at the bottom of this page.
4. Consider Low PageRank Sites
   There is a lot more competition for the top commentator spots on blogs that have a high PageRank.  So you may want to start with blogs where it’s easy to become a top commentator.
5. You may have to search
   The list of “Top Commentators” is usually on the right side of the blog, but once in a while it’s at the very bottom of the blog.  You may have to spend a minute searching for it.

Here a bunch of blogs that have the Top Commentator Widget and are DoFollow

(Note:  Sometimes blogs change the widget to nofollow or they’ll remove the widget completely.)

PageRank 7

• http://www.quicksprout.com

PageRank 5

• http://www.kongtechnology.com

PageRank 4

• http://www.pureblogging.com/
• http://www.jonathanvolk.com/
• http://www.affiliateconfession.com

PageRank 3

• http://createdcash.com/
• http://www.infectedbybugs.com/
• http://blogaboutyourblog.com/
• http://uberaffiliate.com/
• http://www.marketing-business-review.com
• http://www.tylercruz.com
• http://myblog2day.com
• http://cashtactics.net
• http://www.youthonlinedegree.com
• http://www.insightwriter.com
• http://www.fromzerotoseo.com
• http://www.internetbusinesspath.com
• http://www.blogtrepreneur.com

PageRank 2

• http://ultimatetattookits.com/blog/
• http://www.ecobloke.co.uk/
• http://www.imbloggingthat.com/
• http://allisonreynolds.com/blog/
• http://www.datmoney.com
• http://letssermo.com
• http://ahwee.com
• http://sargentmarketing.com/blog/

PageRank 1

• http://stophairbreakage.org
• http://www.savvyaffiliate.com/Blog/
• http://www.techcounter.com

PageRank 0

• http://www.blog.joblified.com/
• http://www.ededition.com/
• http://mcmunny.blogspot.com/

Photo by ChR!s H@rR!0t

My Directory of DoFollow blogs is one of my most popular posts.

And today I came across two more directories of 2 DoFollow Blog Directories:

• List Of 51 Dofollow Blogs to Comment On
• DoFollow Blog Directory – 300+ DoFollow Blogs Listed