Quality Linking Pays Dividends

If you’re new to blogging or for that matter Internet marketing you may have learned how important backlinks are in building your site. Backlinks are links from other sites that link to your site. Ideally, these backlinks are placed by other webmasters on their sites because they are impressed by what you’ve created. Because linking is one of the most important strategies in search engine optimization some webmasters are tempted to take what may seem like the easy route.
One example of this is by using programs to find and leave comments or trackback links on blogs. These programs sell for over $100.00 per month. If you are tempted to try it I would caution you against it. Not only is the cost high, but you will look like a spammer which will ultimately hurt your site. I’m not mentioning any programs because I don’t want to direct traffic to their sites, even by accident.
If your goal is to drive traffic to your site quality always pays over quantity. It is more work and may take more time to develop quality links to your site, but quality links bring quality traffic, quality traffic translates into more sales.
Links pointing back to your site will never hurt you, but random postings and trackback spam don’t help enough to justify the expense or the loss of reputation. Building quality links is a strategy that every web master should use to promote their site. Here are some tips to help you and your effort to build quality links to your site.
First, you must provide quality original content. What that means is simply to get noticed in the very crowded Internet marketplace, you have to create value. If you’re using a cookie Cutter web site to market some affiliate program, then you will need to either pay someone or learn how to customize your website on your own. Today’s web surfers are more sophisticated and less patient, so to keep their attention new quality content is key.
Second, plan a link building strategy. You can do this by getting involved in whatever niche community you happen to be in. If you’re selling vitamins, search for vitamin blogs, forums and user groups relating to vitamins. When you find them, and whatever you sell there is a group, starter reading other posts and commenting to the group. This will build a reputation and ultimately drive traffic here site. This does take time and a commitment but the results will be well worth the effort.
Third, start a blog on your topic. There are many places where you can blog for free, or you could add a block to your existing web site. Because of the nature of, blogs constantly being updated, this can also take care of step one. But constantly creating new focused content you will draw the attention of the search engines and more traffic.
Fourth, become an expert in your niche. This may sound like a no brainer, but if you are new to your niche, or Internet marketing in general it may sound difficult. Even if you are a total newbie, there is a ton of information available on any subject online. By spending some time researching your niche and learning everything you can about it, you’ll be an expert in no time. Keep in mind as you do this research that you’ll find conflicting information on the Internet. It will become your job to sort through this information to determine what good information is and what it isn’t. Again this all takes effort and time.
When you make the time and effort to take these four steps the benefits will be many. Every comment and every post you make will become a backlink to your site. This will of course tie in with your link building strategy. If you take the time to become an expert in your niche, you can apply your expertise to your blog. In no time other webmasters and Internet surfers will link to your pages to come back for your quality content and recommend you to their visitors.
This won’t build backlinks overnight, well actually it will, but not thousands of links. More and more webmasters and bloggers are implementing strategies to counteract spammers, so in the long run you will undoubtedly get more links without using spamming software.

Robert Emmerson is a freelance writer and Internet
entrepreneur, specializing in SEO, information products and Blogging.

Mr. Emmerson makes a full time income from writing and
selling on the Internet. He has published several eBooks related to internet
marketing techniques, and he has written numerous articles on a variety of
subjects.

If you found this article helpful, you may read all of his
articles, and his top recommendations for making money online at

Rob Emmerson’s SEO Blog, http://www.robemmerson.com.