Professional Link Building Tips

1. Submit your site to Web Directories. This is a pretty monotonous process that can get you several hundred backlinks if you have the time. An alternative would be to hire a manual directory submitter. Here’s a list of web directories you can use. You can also find some blog directories here.

2. Submit Press Releases to PR sites. A basic press release about your website’s launch can be released to several PR websites, who will distribute it to various online news outlets. A good way to get a free link. I recommend using PRWeb and PRLeap.

3. Reciprocal Links with Similar Websites. Its important to pick sites that are of high relevance so you’ll not only get links but traffic. Reciprocal linking can be useful from the beginning but don’t overdo it. You can find link partners by emailing them directly or searching through webmaster forums.

4. Squidoo Lenses. A Squidoo lens is fairly easy to create. It only takes around 15 minutes to set up one fully and you’ll be able to insert a bunch of anchor text links to your website along with your feed content. Hubpages is another similar site you can use.

5. Article Submissions. Create a short article on your niche topic and submit it to article directories for a backlink and some traffic. You might get more links if your article is picked up and published on other websites. Here is a list of article directories, sorted by Alexa and PageRank.

6. Social Media Profiles. There a whole bunch of social websites online which allow you to insert a link to your website on the profile page. Sign up for some of them, preferably using a username and avatar that brands your business or you as a person. This might come in useful when you decide to promote your site via the social website in the future.

7. Social Bookmarking/Voting Websites. Certain social voting websites like Netscape or Digg are often crawled by search engines and their links do help to get a website indexed. 3spots has the biggest list of social voting and bookmarking websites I’ve seen so far.

8. Blogs on Other Blog Platforms. Use existing blogs you have on other blog networks. Or set up different versions of your blog on different blog networks like Wordpress.com, Blogger and Xanga. Link to specific webpages on your website.

9. Comment on Other Blogs. Start commenting on relevant and popular sites in your niche. Don’t just spam for links but focus on building a relationship with other bloggers as well. Write a relevant comment and try to avoid using keyword names or signature links.

10. Guest posting on other blogs. Like article and press releases, this one involves having readily available content you can send out to certain blogs in your niche. This is great for getting relevant links and traffic.