You’ve probably heard of the benefits of getting one way links in to your site; but that is like telling someone to get more money and they will be rich. We all know links are a primary factor to dominating search engine rankings, but how do you get quality websites to link to your site? In this tutorial, we will go over the basics of how to get more links to your site. As a bonus, I will even show you how to get a FREE, one way, .edu link to your site

• Do a Google search for the keywords that you want to rank for.

a. For example, if you want to rank for the phrase “Link Building” then search for the keyword phrase “link building” in Google.

• Examine the back links of the top 10 sites – you can do this several different ways. I would recommend downloading SEO Book’s “SEO for Firefox” plug in for Firefox but if this is too much work for you – you can always type in Link: www.YourCompetitors.com

a. Remember not to search every link for every site that shows up in Google’s SERPs. The best ones will float to the top so just research the first 2 pages or so.

• This will show you all the others site’s linking to your competitor’s website.

a. Technically this won’t show every link but it will show a good number of links that Google indexes and considers to be high quality.

• Now this is where the tough part comes in and separates the budget SEO companies from the real deal. You must analyze the links going to your competitor and see if any of those sites will potentially link to you.

Here’s an example of a good links that you may be able to grab easily:

- A list of resources on a page that links out to sites with more information about your industry

- Award sites giving awards for design or quality information

- Educational sites looking to provide resources for their students

- Free Directories (especially niche directories related to your industry)

Examples of bad links that you would be wasting your time going after:

- Sites that the competitor obviously has a strong connection with (like a sister company)

- News articles about the competitor

- Paid links or advertising

When trying to determine which sites are quality and which are not - try to think as if you were an agent of the site that is providing the link.. Why should they link to your site? Do you provide quality content or services? Is your site just sales hype? Would you link to your site?

• Now that you have a list of potential sites that you think may link to you it is time to start where most link building campaigns fail; Contact the webmasters of the sites that you want a link from.

Before we discuss specific strategies, let’s talk about this a little more

a. You are not trying to sell something, so don’t try selling. You are simply offering them a solution to better inform their visitors. Since they are already linking to a competitor site in your industry, they will not feel broad sided when someone contacts them for a link.

b. You ARE NOT linking for reciprocal links. If the webmaster will only give a link if you link back, then that choice is up to you. However, they should want to link to your site because it benefits their visitors.

c. Email should just be a secondary mode of contact. People get swamped everyday with reciprocal link requests and you do not want to be affiliated with that crowd so why not make the 2 minute phone call and talk to their tech person. For bonus points you can mention something that techies usually enjoy such as Halo, Red Bull, or Blogging… (snicker)

• Example of how you can gain the trust of the stereotypical techie and / or webmaster:

“I’m sorry if I seem out of it, I was playing Halo last night until 3 and it took me like 5 red bulls just to get into work today… My blog subscribers won’t believe everything that happened in the last 24 hours… unless they have been following my Twitter posts”

d. Do not act like you are a business. Try to act like you do whatever you do for the thrill of it.

• So now we have the attitude down let’s discuss exactly what you need to do.

a. Find the number on the website, if it is hard to find, download the alexa toolbar and try the information button.

b. Call the number and ask for the webmaster or person who handles the website

c. Compliment the webmaster on a great site and tell them you found the page you want to get your link on very interesting.

d. Ask if they wrote the content – if they did compliment them.

e. Now causally mention that you think a link to your site would benefit them greatly. This works even better if you have educational articles on your site.

• That’s it! All you need to do is follow these steps and you should be able to build many quality back links to your site in a matter of weeks.

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