4. Link Building
a. Make sure your link on another site is your domain name, not a tracking url that has their domain name instead
b. Make use of customer sites and affiliate programs
c. Seek industry directories for link trading or article/release submission
i. DMOZ Directory
1. If your site is listed here, go directly to its category and research. If not, locate the category in which it’s most likely to be listed.
ii. Yahoo! Directory
iii. Google Directory
1. Google lists from highest page rank to lowest, hence the sites at the top of the list would be better for link exchange.
iv. Beware of Link Farms: Sites that have tons of links with no specific affinity.
v. Requesting a Link
1. Look for webmaster’s contact info within site
2. Link to their site from yours already
3. Provide commentary on an interesting part of their site
4. Don’t threaten to remove if no reciprocation
5. Only link to sites that provide value to your users
d. Use Google GARBO to find similar sites for link exchange
i. Related:
http://www.yoursitename.com
e. Write articles that contain your keywords
i. Post on your own site with a pre-licensing statement that allows others to grab the articles and post on their site. Make sure that you give them a specified url to use
ii. Post your articles on other sites
1. ezinehub.com
2. ezine-dir.com
3. 1st-in-articles.com
4. ideamarketers.com/
iii. Acquire content for your own site that increases your # of pages, keywords for indexing/spiders (subscribe to RSS feeds). Do a search for “reprint articles”
1. Ezinearticle.com
2. Goarticles.com
3. Webpronews.com
4. 1st-in-articles.com
5. ideamarketers.com/
f. If applicable, create your own Blog/RSS for auto-feed to subscribers
g. Check the number of links coming to your site with “link:yourdomainname.com”