1. Leave a comment on a blog that you read. That seems obvious, but recent trends seem to have people tweeting and “liking” instead of leaving actual comments. Bloggers appreciate comments and if your link is relevant then all the better.
2. Build a Squidoo lens. This is super easy to do and I think you’ll be surprised at how much targeted traffic even a very simple Squidoo lens can get itself and how much it can bring to your website.
3. Answer questions about your topic on Yahoo Answers. I’m not saying you have to be the top expert in the world on your subject, but if you know anything at all about it (and I’m guessing you do) then chances are you know more than 90% of people in regards to the subject and you can knowledgeably answer a handful of questions. Add a link to your resource as long as it is relevant to the question and it will be very appreciated by the person who asked.
4. Add something to Wikipedia. Tread carefully here and only add the link if it is a very relevant resource for the Wiki page. This is a great authority link to have to point to your website.
5. Have a giveaway on your blog. Links will spread like wildfire when you host a giveaway. People enjoy the fun of a giveaway and they like free stuff. They’ll tweet, Facebook, and blog about your offering to tell their friends. You can boost the incentive to link to you by offering extra entries into the drawing for those who do a blog post linking to you. Tools like Rafflecopter can help you keep things organised.
6. Just ask for it. Never underestimate the power of simply asking politely if the webmaster of a site will link to you as a resource. You’ll be surprised how often people in your niche will respond with a yes. They may ask you to do something for them in return, or they might not. Either way, do something nice for them in return, tweet a blog post of theirs that you enjoyed, share something they did with your audience, like their Facebook page, etcetera.
7. Submit a press release to make an announcement. Of course, for this instance of a link you need to have something worth announcing. You might have released a new product, maybe a report you wrote, or you might announce your upcoming guest appearance on a podcast.
8. Speaking of guest appearances, submit a guest blog post on a relevant blog in your niche. We all have times that we’re busy and in need of content. If you have a well-written article that you send to a fellow blogger and ask them to be a guest chances are they will welcome you with open arms. Be polite when you send your guest posting request, include at least a summary of the article if you don’t include the full article. After they post the article, thank them and ask if they need any additional content.
9. Get social. Social media is factored into the search engine algorithms these days, so all those tweets, likes, shares, and thumbs up can come in handy and count toward your link building efforts. My advice here is to actually be socially, don’t just share your own things but share the things you read, comment on people, and don’t be afraid to share tidbits that have nothing to do with “business,” share a joke, share something funny, share a photo, just share.
10. Write an article and submit it to an article directory. It only takes a little bit of your time to do this, the link is still counted by the search engines even in a post-Panda world, and it may just get picked up and reprinted for an e-newsletter.
11. Create a short video and post it to YouTube, linking back to your website in the description. This is something a lot of people forget to do. Don’t just throw up any old video – make it relevant and useful information about your niche or subject. Give a short demonstration or answer a frequently asked question. You don’t have to appear on camera if you don’t want to, you can do a Power Point presentation and record it with a program like Jing instead.
12. Make a donation to a cause that you support or an online tool that you frequently use. Often times donation buttons are accompanied by links to contributors, it’s an easy link to get and you’ll feel good about it at the end of the day.
13. Give yourself a link. An often overlooked link is the type that you build internally. A good internal link structure helps the search engines out when they crawl your site and it just makes sense from a reader’s perspective when you link to something relevant on your website from something else on your website.
Over all make sure that you publish content for people, not for search engines. If you consistently write good content for actual people that are relevant and useful, they’re naturally going to share it when appropriate. Whether that’s in the form of social media or a link to you from their blog, it’s all good.
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