Inbound links are now so important in the constant battle to achieve top search engine rankings, that tons of people are using every tactic under the sun to gain that one additional link. You must be careful when it comes to linking though. You could jeopardize your whole linking plan by getting links in a shady manner which could have an adverse affect on your search rankings. These inbound links are seen by search engines as votes for your site within a particular community of sites.

Anytime you’re being voted for, you want to have as many votes as possible. However you want to be using tactics which are going to pay dividends in your linking strategy, not do more harm then good. Below I líst some of the best and safest methods around for generating inbound links for your website.

Some can be more effective than others:
* Requesting Links: The oldest method of gaining inbound links
is to request them. This requires that you study your market
to find out who the players involved in the market are. Then,
you contact each one of the sites and ask them to link to
your site. In most cases, the person you contact receives
your request, but providing links to other sites is the least
of their worries, so you may never hear from them. If you do,
it can sometimes be months later. So, you put a lot of time
into requesting links from other sites for a relatively small
return on your efforts. For more on requesting links, I
recommend you checkout The Do’s & Dont’s of Requesting Links

(http://www.marketings.info/traffic/the-dos-and-donts-of-requesting-links.html).

* Writing Articles: One of the most effective methods of
gaining inbound links is to offer an article for other
companies to use as long as they include a paragraph at the
bottom that includes credits for you as well as a link back
to your site. This method of gaining inbound links works
well, because web sites are always looking for good content
to include on their pages. The catch here is that the article
you write should be well written, accurate, and useful to
other sites in your industry. Once you’ve produced an article
that meets these requirements, you can begin to let others
know you have content available for them to use for free;
you can do this by having a ‘free articles’ page on your
site or submit the content to article directories. For more
on article marketing, view Bill Platt’s in-depth article,
Article Marketing for Links

(http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/article-marketing-for-links/2008/02/26/).

* Blogs: Another way to get links back to your site is from
bloggers. What started as a strange phenomenon that was
mostly personal has now become a powerful business tool;
many businesses rely on links back to their sites from the
various industry bloggers out there. In most cases, though,
bloggers aren’t just going to stumble onto your web site.
It’s far better for you to contact the blogger with
information about your organization, some product that you
offer, or with news that would interest them. This information
then gives the blogger something to use in his or her regular
posts. Keep in mind, however, that you can’t control what a
blogger might say, so it’s possible that the review you get
won’t be favorable. Its possible to get reviews from small
to mid-sized blogs without too much of a problem, but when
it comes to getting reviews from the most popular blogger in
your niche, it may cost you a few hundred $$$. For example,
John Chow (http://www.johnchow.com/) charges a whopping $500
for a review, which he doesn’t even write himself.

* Press Releases: Press releases are one of the mainstays of
any marketing program. It can be so effective that many
organizations hire companies to do nothing but distribute
their press releases. What’s so powerful about a press
release? It’s just the facts, including benefits, sent out
to publications and organizations that might publish all
or part of the press release. Use press release marketing

(http://www.searchenginejournal.com/new-tools-for-press-release-marketing/2974/)
to send out new items of all types, and send them as widely
as you can. New organizations, publications, newsletters,
even some forums will post press releases. When you write
it, make sure a link back to your site is included.

* Affiliate Programs: Affiliate programs are a type of paid
advertising. You provide a link to people who want to link
back to your web site. They place the link on their site
and when someone clicks through that link and makes a
purchase (or converts any other goal you have arranged),
the affiliate - the person who placed your link on their
site - gets paid a small percentage. Usually the payment
for affiliate programs is very low ($.01 to $.05 per click
or a small percentage of the sale). But some people make a
good living being affiliates, and many organizations receive
additional traffic because of their affiliate programs. The
trick with affiliate programs is to not allow them to be
your sole source of incoming links.

* PPC and Paid Links: Pay-per-click advertisements are an
acceptable business practice. There is no problem with using
PPC advertisements to achieve inbound links to your site.
Remember that, like affiliate links, PPC links are not
direct links to your site. Paid links, on the other hand,
are different from affiliate links - you pay to have a
direct, or flat link, placed on a page. Some search engines
frown on the practice of using these types of links. Using
paid links (especially those that land on link farms) is a
practice that carries some business risk.

* Link to Yourself: Linking to yourself is a technique that
sits right on the line between ethical and unethical.
Linking to yourself from other sites that you might own is
an acceptable practice. But if you set up other sites simply
to be able to link back to your own site and create the
illusion of popularity, you’re going to do more damage than
it’s probably worth to you. If you are linking to yourself
and you suspect that you might be doing something that would
adversely affect your search engine ranking, then you
shouldn’t do it. There are plenty of links to be had without
linking back to your own web sites; you just have to work a
little harder for the higher quality links.