More to come in the near future!

We have used a number of techniques for building links including:
1. Search Google for websites that offer free links
2. Reciprocal linking
3. Asking suppliers and customers
4. look at websites that allow you to write about your particular niche
5. Free article sites such as Hub Pages
6. Comments on relevant blog sites
7. Guest blog contributions
8. Directory submissions

Here is a short video that explains how to go about your link building project. It also focuses on link quality. Remember that link volume is all very well but link quality is the key to higher page rankings
http://www.interleado.com/link-building-video-tutorial.php

A great list: comprehensive and thorough. I like all the suggestions, but I particularly appreciate the vlogs tip – that is one area I have not yet worked on developing and I KNOW I must!

Thanks for adding this list to this topic thread.

GT :)

MichelleJ

I thought I would add to this post with my own philosophy on link building. Most of my search engine marketing efforts start with building a foundation of reputable “content” and then continue adding logs to that fire once started. People will naturally link to good information and that is when your advice from monitoring who is linking to you from Google Webmaster Tools is great.
I know these methods are common by now and I have talked about these before, but they are important so I will discuss them again:

Blogs: If you don’t have a blog today it is as bad as your company not having a website. The easiest way to generate backlinks is to get a wordpress or blogger blog started, write a blog once a week, submit your blog to some blog directories, and connect with other bloggers to build backlinks. There are 906 free wordpress themes you can download and it should take a programmer 1-3 to get it installed, configured, and test to make sure everything is working properly.

Vlogs: Buy Camtasia Studios or use Cam Studio which is free or Windows Movie Maker and start creating videos. People like to watch videos. People like to link to videos. If you build a good video people will naturally link to it.

Case Studies: Do some research in your industry, type up a good case study, promote it instead of your company. Case studies are great “link bait” for researchers. It only takes one college student, professor, librarian, or other researcher to link to your case study to make it worth your while.

Tutorials: People like learning online. Website owners & bloggers like linking to tutorials. I have seen competitors link to other competitors tutorials out of respect. If you know how to do something very well why not teach others; it will benefit you.

White Papers: Download Nitro .PDF Converter, take an article you typed up, throw some images in it, change around the formatting, and now you have a white paper, sales copy, .PDF document, or whatever you want to call it. This gives you one more thing for people to link to; careful not to run into duplicate content here though.

Webinars: An online webinar does not need to be hard. GoToWebinar makes it affordable. Online webinars is a non-intrusive marketing tactic you can promote. Webinars don’t need to be complicated, you can use a .PDF document, power point presentation, or even a pre-made video presenation. People like to link to free webinars.

Events: People like to link to free events; especially locally. Events are easy to promote online and easy to build back links for.

Read full article & more advice: http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/3200/Link-Development–Why-Would-Someone-Link-To-You.html

I agree with your comments. Developing links the natural way by working at creating relationships makes so much sense if a person is in business for the long term.

There seem to be a lot of automated programs for link-building, but it is so much better for your reputation if people simply add your link to their site because they see that you are offering value that their visitors might appreciate. Chances are, they will also promote you to their friends, too.

Every once in a while I include links for marketing friends in my blogs, not because I am hoping to get something in return, but because I truly appreciate something they did, or something about their website or services.

GT :)

I think your post gives great advice on how to naturally build links. I couldn’t agree more that building relationships online is a basic principal that is often overlooked online. So many people get confused with the “link building tactics” they read about online they forget to take care of the basics; which usually works the best.

I will have to admit it has been a while since I have done this for some of our clients; thanks for the great reminder.

Jeff