Link building plays an important role in search engine optimisation. However, web owners and online marketers should be extra careful in performing link building as Google frowns upon automatically-generated links, spamming, and other black hat techniques in acquiring links from suspicious websites. There are two primary objectives why one engages in link building: for traffic and for search engine ranking. Link building for traffic aims to generate high volume of traffic and high number of visitors to a particular website. With this type of link building strategy, it doesn’t matter whether do-follow or a no-follow links are used. Link building for search engine ranking and visibility, on the other hand, helps a particular web page gain high ranking on Search Engine Results Page (SERP). To make this strategy successful, do-follow links must be used.

Link building for traffic

Because your goal is to attract people to your website, you must spread your site’s name, description, and URL to as many relevant authority websites out there as possible. These include the following:

1. Social media and social bookmarking sites: When promoting your link to these websites, make sure to use a catchy title that would attract their readers, and visitors. Make use of words like discover, awesome, or amazing. A list of top things also helps, like “101 Things”, “10 Most”, or “7 Best”.
2. Yahoo! Answers: Powered by Yahoo, this is where Yahoo users post questions about anything under the sun, while other users try to answer these posted questions. It works like an information-sharing community. When you answer a question, you will be asked about the source of your response. This is where you can put a link back to your website.
3. Pay per click or online paid advertisements: Engage in online paid campaigns such as Google AdWords or Yahoo Ads and get your website title, description, and URL on top of search results or ad spaces on content network websites. Although this requires payment, it will definitely give a lot of exposure to your website that will drive tons and tons of traffic.
4. YouTube: Take advantage of your favorite video portal in promoting your website and linking back to it. As you upload a video, use the description field in discreetly mentioning your brand name and URL. Make sure your video is related to your website.
5. Forum signature: Do you know that interacting with forum members about a particular topic that interests you can also be a great help in building links that point to your website? Use the forum signature in promoting your website. Remember to make use of proper anchor text and hyperlink.
6. Twitter: Take advantage of the popularity of Twitter and the millions of its members. Create an account for your brand and tweet about updates, news, and announcements that include a link back to your website. Make sure you have enough significant followers who will most likely click on your links.

Link building for high search rankings

If your goal is to increase the search rank, PageRank (PR), and authority of your website, you have to tap these websites and create a link that will add power to your site:

1. Online directories: These are websites that are designed to present listings of other websites. Often, websites are arranged by category. Look for the best category in which your website fits in and submit the URL and other info of your website. There are 3 types of directory submission sites: free directory, paid directory, and reciprocal-linking directory. It’s up to you about which type of directory will you take advantage of.
2. Press releases: Write worthy news feature about your brand or you business and publish it as a press release. Insert proper links in the body of your write-up. Links coming from a press release often is influential and brings high authority.
3. Free and paid article sites: Hire article writers who can write about something that is related to what your website is about or what it offers to the market. You may also buy private label rights articles and rewrite these before submitting them to article directories. Make sure that the topic of your articles is closely related to your target keyword.
4. Blog reviews: If, by any chance, you couldn’t make yourself a blog or create write ups about your website, you can always hire people to do the writing and the blogging for you. Hire bloggers to review your website and instruct them that it is important to include links back to your site. In return, you can pay them a small amount, give non-cash incentives (gift certificates, food vouchers, etc.), or link back to their site, too.

There are many ways to engage in link building. However, you should always be mindful of the tactics that you do to ensure that it won’t do more harm than good to your website.