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In several of my previous posts, I have written about various link building techniques. Some of these techniques are more risky (Coop-Advertising) than others (Writing Articles), but they have all worked for me. Every link builder has methods that they prefer based on what they are good at. Some individuals are really tech savvy and figure out ways to out smart the search engines while others are proficient writers and prefer to use articles.

The following is a list of my favorite methods (old and new school) for getting link juice. These are proven to be effective and whether you are a writer, hacker, or salesman you should find at least one that you are comfortable with.

• Friends and family offer a great opportunity for easy and often time’s valuable links. Think of how many friends and family members that you know of who happen to have blogs, websites, and personal networking pages. Simply send out a mass email asking them for a link to your site. This technique has a very high success rate because friends and family are obligated to help you out.
• After you have exhausted your friendly resources, it is time to move on to hired guns. Search sites such as Technorati to find bloggers in your industry and use flattery to build a relationship and persuade them to link to you from one of their posts or articles.
• Find errors (broken links, etc) in other websites and report them to the owner. Often not, if the error is significant enough, they will usually give you a link in exchange for your help.
• Use Yahoo and MSN backlink search results (site:www.domain.com) to locate valuable link partners, then just make them an offer they can’t refuse. The trick to this is to study each website that you want a link from and use your judgment to determine whether to use either flattery or bribery to get what you want.
• Post comments on blogs even if it is using no follow tags. Testing has shown that certain search engines (i.e. Yahoo!) still count links that have the nofollow tag. Also, this technique will generate some extra traffic from avid bloggers.
• If you are a web designer/host, you should link your websites together. However, there are some rules for this. Only link sites that are in the same industry and keep all of your sites on different C-class IP addresses. This is also a good time to verify that your server is SEO friendly. For a list of SEO friendly server features visit SEO Certified Servers.
• Make a resource (directory, tool, etc..) that requires reciprocal linking to a site of your choice, and offer login access in exchange for links.
• Reciprocal linking is still viable with search engines like MSN and Yahoo! but only in moderation (i.e. less than 40% of your links). Go ahead and trade links with some high ranking relevant websites. The recent “Big Daddy” update with Google shows that Google now likes who you link to as much as who links to you.
• When designing a small-medium sized website create a unique sub domain for each of your products and services and link them to each other. Search Engines recognize sub domains as different websites. This is an effective way to get instant links to your new site.
• Write an article with easy to follow bullet points and a catchy title, and submit it to Digg, Reddit, NewsVine, etc. The title will catch the traffic and readers love lists of tips.

There’s always a lot of talk about link building and what truly works, and as the web evolves, so do the techniques that we use to build links. What works today probably will not work as well tomorrow. Creativity is the only way to stay ahead in this game.

Many SEO’s are quite certain that search engines consider the age of backlinks when they are determining link relevancy. I agree with this idea because it is only logical that they would consider older links more trustworthy since they are less likely to be from greyhat sources like Link Vault (which, according to RustyBrick, apparently has been banned by Google) and Digital Point.

This age factor has even been suspected as a key factor in determining the amount of time that a new website spends in the sandbox. If this is true, and you are certain that your site is sandboxed, rather than wait for it to naturally pull itself out, use your time to build permanent links. Obviously, you should go for the low hanging fruit first (directories that pass on page rank and are human reviewed) then focus on higher value permanent links. Get the links early so that they can age and increase their value, and this should shorten your stay in the sand box.

Also, I suggest that if you must pay for a link, you should only agree to long term links. Either purchase a permanent link or rent for an extended period of time. As these links get older they will look more natural, and as I’ve mentioned a dozen times, search engines love natural links.

Good Luck

Have you ever considered using a co-op advertising network to build links?

Co-op ad networks provide free advertising that can’t be disabled on the client’s side and drive real user traffic that converts into actual sales, and it just so happens that they are also an easy way to get links.

One of the better networks I’ve used is offered by Digital Point Solutions. All of their ads are human reviewed and it’s free to sign up, but your website must support server-side processing (PHP, ASP, PERL, Coldfusion, etc.). Also, it’s interesting to note that DP coop ad network should be the exclusive ad network used for that site.

This can be a very effective method of boosting your serp ranking, especially when you have relatively low competition, but be warned, however, that this is not a white hat practice and the rapid link development may get your website banned from the search engines.

Like any other technique of this nature, the trick is to use it in moderation. Because you are focusing on getting link juice, advertising page weight (DP uses weight to classify pages) is not important. Stick to low weight ads and you will not build links too quickly. This will in turn help you to avoid too much unwanted attention. The more natural your links appear the better.

Good Luck
Controller

Evidently, the AP feels that much of their information is being diluted as it is disseminated throughout the web, and the original content creators are not getting the credit that they deserve for their work. So, in an effort to solve this problem, they have struck deals with both Technorati and Topix.net that will influence more writers/bloggers to cite AP stories in their work.

By simply citing AP stories in your posts, Technorati will link to you and any other blogs which cite AP stories, and if you’re a blogger looking for some link love, this is a golden opportunity.

The AP hopes that this will allow them to tap into the growing blogosphere and drive more traffic to the websites of the newspapers who contributed the stories.

Check out Peter Svensson’s report for all the details.

Does every one of your websites have a link at the bottom of the page that says “this site created by yourbusiness inc?” If so, you may want to consider using different text around your links or maybe even an image from time to time to make these links appear more natural to the spiders.

This same concept can also be applied to the text links located at the bottom of each page. Your goal should always be to squeeze the most value out of every link that you have. Being creative and changing things up a bit from page to page will give your links a more natural appearance, thus making them more valuable.

Every little bit of link juice counts.