Do you want to know how your website compares to the big players in your industry? Do you want to learn how to compéte with these sites? This month, SEO analysis provider SEOprofiler.com has published a list of the websites with the most backlinks in November 2011.

Comparing the backlinks of these websites with your backlinks can help you to improve the position of your website. The necessary three steps are explained below.

Backlinks are the cornerstone of successful search engine optimization. The more high quality backlinks a web page has, the higher it will rank in the search results of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Which Websites Do Have the Most Backlinks?

The published backlink statistics are grouped by country and the top 10 websites in the USA come as no surprise: Facebook and Twitter lead the group, followed by WordPress, YouTube, Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia, Digg, Amazon and Flickr.

All of these websites are major players in their category and it’s no wonder that many websites link to them. The websites with more backlinks in other countries often show unexpected results.

For example, Orkut.com.br is in position 2 in Brazil and the website of a company from the chemical industry comes in position 4. The website with the most links in Israel is a news site and the second most linked website in Poland is a website statistics provider.

The top 100 websites with the most backlinks are available for 34 different countries on the website. The top lists are sorted by number of unique backlinks by Link Influence Score. The Link Influence Score shows the impact of links from the domain on the search engine rankings of other web pages.

The higher the Link Influence Score, the more valuable the link from that website for other websites. In other words, 10 links from websites with a high Link Influence Score have a higher impact on the Google rankings of your website than 100 links from websites with a very low Link Influence Score.

How to Improve the Backlinks of Your Website

It’s nice to know that other websites have thousands of backlinks. However, this won’t help your website much. If your website does not belong to the big players that dominate the press then it is much more difficult to get good backlinks.

Fortunately, it’s not only the amount of backlinks that makes the difference. It is also important to get the right backlinks. If you manage to get the right kind of backlinks to your site, you can outrank other pages in the search results, even if they have many more backlinks than your site.

Step 1: Check the Number of Backlinks That Point to Your Website

The first step to improve your backlinks is to get an overview of the current links that point to your website. To get an overview of the backlinks that point to your website, search for “link:yourdomain.com” on Google and Yahoo (remóve the quotation marks, replace yourdomain.com with your domain and make sure that there is no space in the search query).

Google and Yahoo will show you some of the links that point to your website as well as the total number of links that they found for your site. In general, Yahoo shows many more backlinks than Google. Google has confirmed that they show only a small selection of the backlinks to make sure that you don’t reverse-engineer the rankings of a site by analyzing the backlinks. That Google statement confirms how important backlinks are.

You can also search for your backlinks on SEOprofiler.com. Go to their home page and enter the URL of your website in the search box. For most domains, you will get many more results than Google will show you.

Compare the total number of backlinks with the number of backlinks of the websites that currently have top rankings for your keywords. That will give you an idea of how difficult it will be to get high rankings for these keywords.

Step 2: Check the Anchor Texts of the Links That Point to Your Website

The anchor text of a link is the text that composes a link to another web page. The anchor texts that are used in the links to your website have a major impact on the position of your web pages on Google. If many other websites link to your site with the anchor text “green widgets” then it is likely that Google will show your website on the first result page for the search term “green widgets.”

To check the anchor texts that point to your website, visit the pages that Google and Yahoo show for a link: query and search for the link to your site. If you searched for your domain on Soporiferous, you will automatically see the most popular anchor texts of links that point to your website in a table with a chart.

If the most popular anchor texts of your website do not contain your targeted keywords, you should work on the links. For example, contact the webmasters of the websites that link to your site and ask them to change the anchor text. You can do this manually or you can use the tools in Soporiferous to do this more quickly.

Step 3: Check the Linked Pages of Your Website

The pages of your website that have the most backlinks are the pages of your site that get the highest rankings on Google, Yahoo and Bing. The home pages usually is the most linked page of most websites.

To find the most linked pages of your website, analyze the pages that Google and Yahoo show for a backlink search and follow their links.

Alternatively, you can view the most linked pages of your website on the result page on SEOprofiler. Their result page shows the most linked pages of your site as well as the percentage of links that go to the different pages on your site.

If the most linked page of your website is not your home page, you have a good indicator of what content on your website other people find interesting.

Optimizing the backlinks of your website is the most important thing that you have to do to improve the position of your web pages on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most tedious tasks.

If you use link analysis and link building tools then you can find the best links for your website more quickly. Focus on the right kind of links and you will achieve great results in less time. For that reason, it often makes sense to invest in professional link building tools if you want to invest your time and money wisely.

About The Author
Johannes Selbach is CEO of Axandra, the company behind iBusinessPromoter.com, one of the most popular SEO software tools. Axandra continually improves IBP to make sure that you get tools that work with the latest ranking algorithms of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

CEN Apparently Thinks So

This isn’t about paid links in relation to search. This is about paying publications to link to their content as if you were paying to republish it.

Central European News (CEN) is a media organization that provides various services like news, images, research, and more to various media outlets, for money.

PressGazette’s Andrew Pugh ran an interesting story about the Huffington Post linking to sources like The Daily Mail, which had paid for content from CEN. CEN decided to send payment invoices to The Huffington Post, and the Huffington Post paid them. So then, CEN encouraged other content providers to follow their lead, and send the Huffington Post invoices as well. The thinking here is that other publications would be compensated for The Huffington Post linking to them.

Interesting position, but as it turns out, the Huffington Post didn’t mean to pay, as was revealed in an update to Pugh’s original post. They use CEN as one of their photo providers, and do pay for those services, and mistook these invoices as being related to that. So anyone who wishes to bill the Huffington Post for linking to their content might think twice about the probability that they’ll actually receive payment.

The real question here is: should The Huffington Post (or any site/blog) have to pay an original content creator to link to their content? Now, keep in mind: The Huffington Post LINKED to that content. It did not publish that content. It’s a link, referencing the content, not a copy of the full article.

According to the logic expressed by CEN, as conveyed in Pugh’s piece, it’s a violation of copyright if a publication even uses the original content as a starting point. So, by this logic, for example, if Publication A was the first to report on the death of Gaddafi, it would be a violation for publications B, C, D, E, and F, to report that Publication A was in fact reporting this news. Publication B could not say, “Publication A is reporting that Gaddafi is dead, but we have yet to confirm this.”

So, if one publication was able to get a source of their own with that information, but nobody else was able to, publications B, C, D, E, F, etc. would not even be able to mention that one publication was reporting on the death. The world would have to already be reading publication A to even know about the death, or at least reading publication G, H, I, J or K, which are paying Publication A for the rights to reprint.

Nevermind that it’s entirely possible that Publication A is not even a service that charges publications for reprints, because it’s entirely possible that publication A could be just a blog, or even somebody’s Google+ account. News is not only reported by traditional means anymore. That’s just the way it is.

You can see that while the piece is not an incredibly lengthy, in depth piece, it does link to five different pages to pull together its story. This is in and of itself an indication that the piece is not a total rewrite of one article, but is drawing on references from various sources (including the Huffington Post’s own content). If you actually click through to those other articles, you can also see that this is not a straight re-write of any one piece.

As often as the law (as least in this country) has ruled on the side of fair use, I have a hard time believing Huffington Post would be legally in the wrong here, though I am not a lawyer by any means, and CEN is obviously not based in the U.S.

It seems like CEN wants people to pay to link to their content, but if you’re paying, why wouldn’t you just post the whole article. Impeding linking would be a dangerous precedent to set on the web. If sites are required to pay every time they want to reference a piece of information, it’s bound to not only create more situations where content providers just go uncredited, but it’s also likely to stifle a lot of valuable content from being created in the first place.

If one publication has information that is indeed new, or shares some insight that has not been expressed previously, but only makes sense in the context of another piece of information that has already been published by a different publication, they need to reference that piece. It simply doesn’t make sense to have to pay to point to freely available information, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree. That’s the way the web works. The web is based on links. Without links, it’s not a web.

While the HuffPost piece in question may not be some hugely important piece of content, who decides where the line is?

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 StumbleUpon: Crum Google: +Chris Crum

Finding effective and sustainable methods of building links to your website can prove challenging. However, with some effort or investment on your part, it is possible to enjoy an boost in direct traffic as well as a boost to your link profile and search engine rankings through an ongoing link building strategy. There are tried and tested techniques that have been used for years that help build links in volume, as well as techniques that aim to build a smaller number of links but of much higher value – the perfect combination for a natural looking and effective search engine link profile.

1 – Directory Submissions

Directory submissions should be considered a staple part of your link building campaign. While directory links provide less value than they did several years ago, they do still provide benefit. What’s more, while there is a finite number of directories online the number is massive and you can submít to one or two hundred directoríes a month for at least the first year or so of your link building strategy.

There are location and topic specific directories as well as general category ones. There are also those that will only accept home page links and those that will take deep links to other pages of your site. Combining these and using them accordingly will help generate the best results.

2 – Article Marketing

Article marketing is another age old link building technique and while directory submissions provide finite, albeit extensive, opportunities, article marketing offers infinite possibilities. There are hundreds of article directories, including a good number that can be considered search engine friendly.

Write appealing and relevant articles, include an author bio with one or two keyword optimized links to your pages and submit them. Some marketers prefer to stick to a handful of the best directories while others opt for mass submissions to hundreds of article repositories at a time.

3 – Press Release Submissions

Press releases can provide good links and a great sense of authority for your website. Readers will be more inclined to trust a press release than they will a blog post or article, but the number of press release directories that accept HTML links, with keywords in the anchor text, is limited so you will have to look around.

Ensure that the press release is properly formatted, not written in the first person, and is not simply a thinly veiled advertisement for your website or business. Sticking to the rules and best practices of press release submission will help ensure that your release has a greater chance of being accepted by a good number of websites.

4 – Guest Posts

Blogs continue to be one of the most popular forms of website. Individuals, companies, and organizations, as well as marketers, maintain their own blogs with regular, good quality content. They also link to one another and this helps blogs to attain high rankings in relevant search engines, but it also means that blog owners have a major requirement for regular content.

Some blogs fulfill this requirement for content by opening up their blog to guest posters. Find blogs in your industry and on a topic relevant to that of your site and then determine those that actively seek guest posts. If you’re building links to aid in your SEO then do ensure that the blogs you post to are search engine friendly – primarily, this means ensuring that links do not use the nofollow attribute.

5 – Link To Authority Blogs

Another great thing about blogs is the sense of community that they attract. Blogs within the same industry will regularly link to other blogs on a similar or related topic. This offers the blogger a great opportuníty to essentially acquire advertising from competitor websites; something that simply doesn’t happen with standard business related websites.

Link out to other blogs in your industry that carry a lot of authority and have a lot of readers. Encourage your readers to click the link and visit that site. When the blogger checks their site statistics and notices a lot of traffic all emanating from your blog then they may well provide a link back on a topic that you have covered yourself. Repeat regularly to get links from a number of the most authoritative blogs in your topic.

6 – Full Social Media Marketing

Social bookmarking, social networking, video and content sharing; these are all a part of a social media marketing (SMM) campaign. They can be very time consuming but effective SMM can generate a lot of viral interest in your blog, website, forum, or other online publication. Get involved in the networks you join in order to create a real community around your website.

Post your content to your social network profiles and encourage your readers to follow you, fan you, and bookmark you. This will help you gain even more followers and it will boost the traffic to your web pages.

Link building is an essential part of SEO and it should be considered an ongoing process if you want to enjoy the best results. Find other methods to build links and try to get links from a good variety of website types in order to enjoy the best results. The above are just a few methods of building links that you can benefit from.

About The Author
Matt Jackson is founder of Ethical Link Building, which provides a range of link building campaigns to websites and businesses. Improve your search rankings and grow traffic with press release submissions and article marketing services.

Let’s face it, if you’ve read as many link building posts as I have, you’re getting pretty sick of ‘em. They all say the same things, and half of them don’t even apply to you, such as viral link building. Honestly, if your blog had the exposure to start building links virally just as easily as the posts say, chances are you wouldn’t be spending your time reading those posts on that half-mediocre SEO blog. So, for the rest of you who struggle with link building, wanting not to hear the same crap over & over again, this is for you (note: I’m saving my best for last).

Ranker.com

Ranker.com is a content hub where you create a list and rank all the items on it. It’s not exactly like Suite101 or Associated Content because all that is expected of you is a title, opening paragraph, and a list of items, give or take a description of each. So, what’s the difference in terms of link building? Time. It could take you 15-20 minutes to create a quality post on this site whereas it would take you upwards of 45 minutes on the two examples previously mentioned. You not only get a quality anchor text link at the top of the page right under the title, but you also start building authority in your niche. In reality, it’s a win-win.

Empirical Article Linking

Essentially, this technique is article marketing but with a twist. WHAT? I thought you said these were ‘unorthodox’ linking strategies? Yes, this is one, but hold on before you get skeptical. In a nutshell, this strategy involves interlinking all of your different submitted articles. For example, if I submit an article to The Free Library, instead of using all four backlinks to point back to my site, I might use one or two to point to other articles I’ve submitted, such as on Ezine Articles or GoArticles. What this does is increase the quality of your links on those sites. Here’s the best way to do it – use your best keywords on Ezines & GoArticles, and try and build up 10 links to each article. You’ll see some serious results if you do it right.

Dofollow Blog Commenting (the right way)

Skeptics – hold on before you start criticizing again. This tactic involves commenting on blogs that don’t have a nofollow attribute on their comment links, so what you get in return for a comment is a quality link (not super high-quality, but it’s better than most comment links). First, you need a list to start off (My blog has a list of solely SEO & Internet marketing dofollow blogs). Then once you find a couple high page ranked & high quality blogs, you need the SEO Quake add-on for Mozilla Firefox. Once downloaded, you will be able to sort your search results in Google by different metrics. For this strategy, you will be sorting results based on page rank.

So, here’s what you do – type into Google “site:exampleblog.com” (replace ‘exampleblog.com’ with the blog you want to comment on). Then sort your results by Page Rank. I know it’s not a flawless tool, so you will still have to go page by page to find high PR posts, but you get the idea. Now what you have in front of you is gold – a list of high page rank blog posts you can easily comment on & get in on some of that link juice. Obviously, go for the high page ranked posts first, and move your way down. REMEMBER: contribute to the conversation; no one wants just another “great post!” comment, and chances are it won’t get approved.

.Edu Blog Commenting

Another form of blog commenting, but this time the strategy will net you a few .edu links. Yes, they will be nofollow links, but they will help build some trust. Here’s how to find the blogs to comment on:

Type this into Google: inurl:.edu inurl:comments/feed

What this query will do is get a list of results that have WordPress on a .edu domain. You will get around 2,000 results, so you’ll first have to find which blogs are approving comments on a regular basis, and which ones are higher authority. Since the results you are finding are comment feeds, by clicking on the results and looking for the date of the last accepted comment, you can get a good feel for which ones are currently approving.

Using LinkChecker to Build High-quality Links

This is one of my top link building strategies in my arsenal. Let’s just say I’ve netted a few PR 5 blogroll links over the past couple weeks. Here’s how to do it – First download LinkChecker for Mozilla Firefox (another add-on?!). This tool will help you check pages for broken links by right clicking and choosing “Check Page Links”. Next, you will have to find medium-sized industry-related blogs that have large blogrolls. The easiest way to do this is to just find one, and then check all the blogs in their blogroll, which leads to more, and so on. Now, I say medium sized for a couple reasons. The first is that large-sized blogs rarely have broken links and probably don’t want to link to you for any reason, and the second is that smaller blogs are still good, but medium-sized blogs are obviously more valuable.

So here’s what you’ll be doing: Find these blogs, check their page links for broken links, and once you find a couple, you’re in. Find a contact email, create an email titled “Broken Links” or “Broken Links on Blog”, and say something like this:

Hi!

I was on your blog when I came across a few broken links that I thought you should check out. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate with the blog and all, so I listed them:

*Broken Link
*Broken Link
*Broken Link

Broken links are never a positive sign for a blog, so I hope this helps. Also, do you think you could replace one of the broken links with a link to my blog? It’s myblog.com.

Cheers

*Your name*

Bam. Doing this ten times will usually get you 2-3 responses, and usually one or two say yes. Notice that the broken links are usually found in their blogroll (hence finding blogs with large blogrolls), so they’re more willing to replace a bad link with a link to you if it’s already external. And yeah – I got some serious link value from this strategy.

I know I went over some of these strategies briefly, so if you’d like, my blog features posts on each of these topics that are more in depth. I’m not trying to be promotional, just helpful!

So, what do you think? Did you find any possible faults in any of these strategies? Please let me know in the comments! I’m dying to hear what you guys have to say. And remember – don’t forget to share/tweet this article! It makes a huge difference :).

About The Author
Jon Cooper is an SEO consultant who specializes in link building. Jon has over 2 years of experience as a link builder, and has been blogging about his daily linking strategies since March of this year. Check out his Link Building Blog with posts such as his dofollow blogs list and don’t be afraid to send him an email at jcooper@pointblankseo.com or subscribe to his RSS.

As part of a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, gaining inbound links to your website is critical. But what exactly does this entail, and how should you most effectively go about gaining these types of valuable links? When an arduous task presents itself, it is human nature to try to find a shortcut. Sometimes, these shortcuts work and the quality of the end result is not sacrificed. But often, the shortcut either turns out to be a short-term fix or worse, it backfires leaving you worse off than you were before. And, in my experience, such is the case in regard to building quality inbound links to your website as part of your search engine optimization campaign.

After many years of trying to find shortcuts myself, I finally recognized that the best, highest impact, longest lasting links that point to a website are EARNED – not bought, begged for, or stolen. And how does one go about earning quality inbound links? By actually offering something of value – whether it is value found on your website or value you provide to other websites. Below are a few simple ideas that take a good deal of work, but when applied appropriately, almost always pay off for your long-term search engine optimization efforts.

1. Building an Educational or Resource Section

As I have written about many times before, an educational section of your website serves a variety of purposes. It adds additional pages to your website that can be optimized for critical keyphrases. It can shorten your sales cycle by educating your prospects online rather than over the phone. It can also garner a large number of quality inbound links, simply because you are offering content that doesn’t just scream “buy here” – you are instead offering intellectual capital that helps the visitor to make informed decisions, stay on top of industry trends, etc. These are all ideal outcomes of a search engine optimization strategy. People will often link to this valuable content without even being asked, but if you do initiate an effort to reach out to webmasters in your industry asking for inbound links, they are much more likely to comply if you are offering something of value in exchange.

2. Writing and Submitting Expert Articles

Chances are that your company has a few in-house experts in your industry on staff. But did you know that by promoting these hotshots’ ideas, you can help your search engine optimization efforts by getting inbound links? More than likely, these staff members have important things to say about your industry – where it has been, where it is heading, and what issues it currently faces. By having these experts write articles (or having them ghostwritten by a professional writer after he or she interviews your expert), you can then submit this material to popular industry websites, and thereby share that insider wisdom.

The upside to this approach and benefit to your search engine optimization goals is obvious – getting inbound links (generally provided in the author bio). In addition, people who may not have heard of your company, but are knowledgeable about your industry can find out about you from visiting a popular industry portal rather than by only finding your website. Again, the basic premise of expert article submission is that you are trading something of value for multiple benefits, one of those benefits being inbound links to support search engine optimization.

3. Creating and Updating a Blog

Much like submitting expert articles to industry publications or providing a general educational section on your site, a blog is a very specific, popular way to show off your expert knowledge of your industry, albeit in a more informal manner.

Blogs are a great part of search engine optimization, as they give your site a boost by offering fresh content (and gain inbound links from interested readers). They also help you to show off your current knowledge of industry trends and events by serving as a publishing platform for these newsworthy items as they unfold – sending a clear sign to your visitors that you are staying on top of all current issues relevant to your industry.

Over time, others in your industry will recognize the value of the information that you are providing, and many will share it with others via a link from their own site. Once again, you are providing something of value for multiple gains.

4. Offering Free, Informational, Industry-Related Tools

In almost every industry, there are tools that people might rely on as part of their decision making process, and by utilizing a valuable tool, you can actually promote inbound links. Mortgáge sites provide free, online calculators. Car dealers provide similar tools such as payment calculators. This principle can also extend to most industries.

Do you sell consulting services? If so, consider offering a spreadsheet that allows people to evaluate a certain aspect of their business. Do you provide remodeling services? Then consider creating a tool where a visitor can provide room dimensions and then add the features of the room that they desire, allowing them to see what it might look like. Use your imagination.

What tools do you use internally that might be of benefit to your visitors (tools that you don’t mind sharing, of course)? If it is a fresh and useful idea, you might be surprised at the number of websites that will provide you with inbound links. But again, there are other benefits for this value that you are offering, including more visitors, more brand recognition, and potentially a sense of gratitude from prospects who found your offering invaluable.

These are only a few ideas on how you can trade value for links as part of your search engine optimization strategy. We haven’t touched on opportunities that exist with video, interactive games, and a variety of emerging technologies. But the main idea here is very simple – you earn inbound links by providing value. Moreover, these efforts are not geared simply or specifically for the express purpose of building links. Each of the previously mentioned examples has multiple benefits apart from link building. Of course, it may seem like a lot of work, but your efforts are sure to pay dividends in the long run.

About The Author
Scott Buresh is the founder and CEO of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company, which was awarded a prestigious American Marketing Association award in both 2008 and 2010. Buresh has been featured in respected publications such as Entrepreneur, Success, Direct Marketíng News, Business to Business, Search Marketing Standard, Public Relations Tactics and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. His articles have appeared in numerous online publications, including ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to How to Build Yóur Own Web Site with Little or No Money: The Complete Guide for Business and Personal Use (Brown, 2010), The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google for Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue is an Atlanta search engine optimization company with local and international clients.

A good website builder knows that solid links mean solid rankings, but it’s an ever changing challenge to get them. Learn how to avoid a loss of link juice now.

Links are incredibly important in getting relevant traffic and good position in search results, but links are like any other relationship… they can go sour. Here’s a list of ten reasons why otherwise knowledgeable link builders blow their efforts. Pay attention and don’t fall into any of these traps. As a website builder you have got to get this part right or you are heading for disaster.

1. One Hit Wonder

The worse thing that can happen to websites that stumble onto a source of links or who only rely on one method of building links is for that accident or that plan to actually work. That sounds counter intuitive, but if you convince yourself that only one method is needed, you’re heading for a fall. You need to diversify your efforts and not have all your eggs in one basket.

2. Quantity Not Quality

The link builder who writes an article, spins it and then uses article submission software can easily develop 1,000 links to a web page in no time at all. The only problem is those links will be worth next to nothing. Building links is not just a numbers game. Links gain their value from the value of their source. A single link from a PR 4 is worth 1,000 links from PR 0 websites.

3. Forgetting that the Webmaster is a Human

Email requests for a link that are addressed to “Dear Webmaster” are the first to be deleted. If you want to pitch a website for a backlink take the time to find a name to address the request to.

4. Staying Strictly Digital

If you are an expert in your field don’t be afraid to tell the world… face to face. Volunteer for speaking engagements for your professional organization or even your local chamber. The story on their website will inevitably carry a link to yours.

5. Reliance on Black Hat

Black hat tactics will work. Time after time somebody has found a way to manipulate the system and anyone who has used it has experienced short term success. But the success is short term and sometimes comes with penalties that get your web pages de-indexed. Black hat isn’t worth the loss of listing.

6. Failure to Keep Up with the Industry

Link building, like so many aspects of internet marketing is constantly changing. Don’t allow yourself to get complacent. Don’t rely on a strategy that could become ineffective tomorrow. Take an interest in the industry and stay current.

7. No Support Network

This is a real risk for the small business website in more ways than one. You’re not working in a big SEO shop and you can’t stroll over to a colleague and bounce an idea off them. Try to develop a network of talented website builders that you can call on for help and be ready to help them when they call you.

8. Loss of Creative Spark

There’s more than one way to skin this link cat. Keep your mind open to creative ways to get other quality websites to link to yours. Doing something that is newsworthy for your industry is a sure way to get relevant links back.

9. Building the Perfect Link that Doesn’t Get Implemented

Action and consistency are more important than perfection. If you’re one of those people who are afraid to click on the submit button because you think your link request isn’t absolutely perfect, then just get over it. Live wild and click that button. An imperfect link request has more value in building relationships than a perfect request that isn’t ever sent.

10. Becoming Lazy

OK you could change lazy with complacent, but it’s the same thing. Link building is a tough skill and not nearly as much fun as website design or even creating content. If you have built a few successful links don’t count on those being around forever. Continue your efforts and you’ll continue to enjoy quality traffic.

Link building is a task that every website builder has to have at least a working knowledge of. If you see yourself slipping into one of these ten common symptoms of link trouble, snap yourself out of it and double up on the building efforts. The leads and conversions that you gain from the relevant links are your reward for diligently performing this important function.

About The Author
Maria Nemenman – Frée Website Builder. I have been in the onlíne marketing industry for over two years and love all things related to e-marketing, writing for the web, SEO and SEM. I’ve been working for a large company that specializes in web design, and love how dynamic this field is – I am constantly learning new strategies and concepts as the world of marketing online evolves.

Link building is an extremely important part of SEO. The more websites you have linking into your site, the more credible your site appears to the search engines. Credible websites get awarded with higher search engine page result rankings which will allow more potential customers to see your Website, therefore increasing sales.

There are many ways to boost your link popularity. Here are some tips and trends from Search Engine Land to help you with link building this year.

• In 2011, Bing and Blekko will become great places to build links. Last year, many link builders relied heavily on Google and Google’s search listings. However, although Google isn’t going away, other search engines will step out of the shadows and bring great link building opportunities to marketers.

• Start to concentrate on creating well-rounded link popularity. Make sure your links are coming from a variety of places such as social media networks, link directories, blogs, older sites, newer sites, articles, social bookmarking sites and more. Generating links from many different platforms will allow you to create a larger list. It also makes your site look more credible to search engines than if all your links were coming from just link directories or just social media networks alone.
• Link builders should begin to focus more on how to secure links rather than just ways to generate lists of link building sites and opportunities. Without the right link building technique, a list isn’t worth much in the long run anyway.

• The rise of apps is beginning to take people away from actual Websites. In order to combat this, it’s important to develop a loyal following to use for link building as well as product announcements. Try to gain opt-ín email addresses and split your Internet marketing campaign into two parts, one to focus on link building and one to focus on driving traffic to your site, email marketing and social media. Building your following leaves you with a back-up plan if apps do end up totally driving people away from Websites, because you’ll be able to get links from your fans/followers.

• In 2011, expect to see smaller brands ranking better based on customer service reviews and social media interaction. In previous years, big brands have had the most power when it comes to marketing online. However, smaller brands tend to provide better customer service and now social media and customer review sites have allowed that quality to shine.

• Start using social media networks Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for link building. Here’s how:

Facebook: Post links to your Website on your wall, in discussion and on other people’s walls (when appropriate, don’t spam). Also search for Groups that are associated with your keywords. Join these groups and start to respond to discussions. Make sure to leave a link to your site at the end of each response. You can also use Facebook ads to purchase links and target them by region, gender, keywords and more.

LinkedIn: Not only can you post links to your “wall” but also participate in LinkedIn Answers using keywords. By answering multiple questions posted by other members each week, you’ll establish credibility and attract links and sales leads. You can also leave the link to your Website as a reference which will help with your link building efforts. When you’re done answering a question you can also ask the person who asked it for a link back to your site.

Twitter: Make sure to use keywords in every tweet and include a short link back to a relevant page on your Website. Since tweets are now being indexed in Google this will greatly help your link building efforts and drive additional traffic to your website.

• Look for fresh sources and sites when it comes to traditional link directories. Ask your social media followers if they would like to host articles or blogs you’ve written on their sites. You’ll be surprised how many respond which will get you a few valuable links.

• Participate on forums and review sites. Leave your link with your signature.

• Try to gain .gov and .edu links. These credible sources will have a positive impact on your search engine rankings and are also relatively easy to gain if your site is relevant to the subject of the organization.

• Remember that quality over quantity is important when it comes to link building. Do not conduct any link exchanges with websites that are irrelevant to your industry or topic. Google and other search engines frown upon this. This year, concentrate on building quality links that will last and on gaining loyal followers/fans/customers who will help drive traffic to your website.

About The Author
Wendy Suto, President and CEO of Search Circus, which is a full service certified and ethical search engine optimization and marketing firm that offers Internet marketing, corporate blogging, PR distribution, PPC consulting, link building and other marketing solutíons with proven results.