Getting one-way, incoming links into your site serves two main purposes:
1. These backlinks can improve your search engine rankings. That’s because search engines like Google consider a backlink to be a “vote” for your site. The more “votes” you have, the higher you can rank for your keywords. (Although other factors are involved, of course.)
However, these links ideally need to be from high-quality sites that are related to your site, considered authority sites (or at least have a high Page Rank) and they should be one-way links.
2. These backlinks can send you direct traffic. If you place links on busy sites, then some of this traffic will click on your link to visit your site.
So how do you get these backlinks?
Exchange links with other webmasters and bloggers. This is one of the most common ways to get backlinks. Since Google prefers one-way links, however, you should “triangulate” your links if you or your link partner has more than one related site.
EXAMPLE: You link your Site #1 to his website, and then he links his website to your Site #2.
Submit articles to article directories. The most popular directories include EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, IdeaMarketers.com, Buzzle.com and ArticleAlley.com.
Set up Squidoo.com and HubPages.com pages. You can take part in these sites’ social networks to further boost your traffic.
Drop your link on social networking sites. You can create profiles and drop your link on sites like Twitter.com, Facebook.com, MySpace.com and other niche networking sites.
Bookmark your content using social bookmarking sites. You can bookmark your content on sites like Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, Del.icio.us and similar sites.
Get your site listed in other relevant directories. Depending on what type of features you have on your site, you may be able to submit your site to blog directories, forum directories, ezine directories, niche directories and local directories.
Post your link on niche forums. Be sure to include your link both in your profile as well as in your signature file. For best results, become an active, participating member of the forum community.
Buy links. Run a search for “text links” or “buy links” in Google. Or visit sites like http://www.textlinks.com and http://www.backlinks.com
Sponsor or advertise on a site. Finally, you can get a backlink simply by purchasing advertising on a busy site. Or, you can “sponsor” a site (especially a charity) to get a backlink.
If use just a few of the above methods, you can easily pull in dozens or even hundreds of backlinks. But once you incorporate and fully use all these methods, you can see thousands of backlinks coming to your site, along with all the benefits of a higher Page Rank and more traffic!
