Web site link building is the most important aspect of off page optimization for achieving top ranking at the search engines. Off page optimization is anything done off your website to boost your search engine ranking. Infact, one can safely say that Google algorithm is largely based on web page incoming and outgoing links. This is also same with the other major search engines. Realistically, this is the most reliable way to judge an authority site. Because a link act as a vote for a site on a particular issue. That said, how do we actively build our links so that the search engines recognize our sites as authority sites. There are 6 ways to web site link building that allow you to dominate the search engines.
These are;

a) Reciprocal linking
b) Directory linking
c) One way linking
d) Multi-site linking
e) Internal linking.
f) Outgoing linking.

Let us look at these web site link building strategies one by one and the ultimate strategy for using them.

RECIPROCAL LINKING;

This kind of web site link building arose as a result of the need to build link popularity fast after recognizing that search engines love links. This is, basically, two or more sites exchanging links with one another. Site A link to site B and site B link to site A. Because of this, there arose many link exchange sites on the web. Where webmasters can either register for free, for a small monthly fee or a one time fee and exchange links with other webmasters automatically instead of manually. Doing link exchanges manually takes time hence the need for these link exchange sites.

Ultimate strategy for reciprocal linking;
When doing reciprocal linking as a web site link building strategy, use your keywords in the anchor text properly. The anchor text is the text in the link that point to your site. Use different keywords for your link building. Search engines have realized that webmasters use link popularity to artificially gain top positions in search rankings. So the value of these reciprocal links are being greatly discounted. That is, given less and less value. And one way they detect reciprocal links is if you have hundreds of these links with the same keywords in the text as anchor text. So vary your anchor text links using different keywords.

Another way to really make your anchor text count is to exchange articles with other webmasters. Write a keyword rich article based on your keyword and exchange with other webmasters. This you can do easily if you subscribe to http://www.linkmetro.com . There is free and paid subscription. The advantage in writing articles is that it gives a more natural incoming link to your site . Better than ordinary link exchange where your text link is placed in a link directory. Another point to take note of when doing reciprocal link exchange is making sure your link is placed in a page that is one click away from your link partner's home page. By doing this your link is spidered faster by the search engines and some of the home page Page Rank (PR) is reflected on to your link. This ensures that the link appears faster in your backlinks. Maybe in the very next Google update.

DIRECTORY LINKING;

This type of web site link building is time consuming and can be expensive too. There are free directories and paid directories. The free submission directories will most likely require a reciprocal link. For the paid directories you are required to pay a yearly fee to maintain a link in their directory. Though they tell you it is a yearly fee, I have discovered that they rarely remove your link after the expiration of the yearly fee. You can find a list of these free and paid directories at http://www.ebizstartups.com/add-url-to-directories.html. The importance of submission to directories is subject of debate in the webmaster community. My experience is that while some direcories are still relevant to the major search engines others are not. The relevant ones are the ones that are hard to get into. For example dmoz.com ( free ) and yahoo directory which requires a $299 non refundable fee.

Ultimate strategy for directory linking;
To attain a page rank of PR5 and above you need a couple of good links from authority sites. You may do all the link exchanges you want you may not go past PR4. But a few links from authority sites will propel your site past PR4 and beyond. Therefore, some investments in listing in some of the major directories is essential for high Page rank. Or if you know how to get into dmoz.com good for you. A link from Dmoz.com is highly regarded by the major search engines.

ONE WAY LINKING;

This is the ultimate in web site link building. If you can build one way links to your site you are on your way to dominating the search engines. One article that dealt comprehensively with how to acquire one way inbound links is at
http://www.ebizstartups.com/one-way-inbound-links.html

Ultimate strategy for one way linking;
There is one web site link building strategy that is not discussed in that article. That is how to buy links and utilize them to obtain a high PR and high search engine ranking. To succeed in this strategy you will have to search for not too costly PR6 and PR7 text links for sale. This you can do at http://www.linkadage.com. There you can take part in an auction for text links or buy it now (BIN) when you come across a reasonably priced text link. But beware, this strategy can be expensive if not properly managed.

Here is how it is done. We are thinking of Google here. So you will wait for Google update if Google had updated 2 months ago. Google normally does it's updates every 3 months on average. If Google had just updated, you can start using this strategy. Buy PR6 and PR7 text links . This means your text link is placed on a PR6 or PR7 page. Run it for about six months. Note that you can also buy for 3 months period. But to be certain of achieving your goal, a 6 months period is ideal. After purchase of these links, you wait for Google update. These links will surely appear in your backlinks after the update (remember these are high PR sites) if the links are not buried deep in the seller's site.

After the update , and the links appear in your backlinks you now start aggressive reciprocal web site link building with PR6 and PR7 sites. Now remember that these high PR6 ad PR7 sites are very choosey when they are exchanging links so an email to the webmaster concerned is better than using a link exchange site. An aggressive link exchange with these sites will yield several PR6 and PR7 links to your site so that by the time you stopped paying for text links Google must have updated again and given you a high pr based on your PR6 and PR7 link partners. This means that even after you have stopped paying for text links you will still have PR6 or PR7 as you page rank.

MULTI-SITE LINKING;

Multi-site web site link building is basically setting up a network of sites and linking them strategically to obtain a high link popularity and high PR. The link structure in multi-site linking should be one way. That is, site A links to site B and site B to site C and then site C to Site A again. All one way incoming links. This is what I call a "ring linking strategy". So if you are using, for example 10 links, all the sites in the network will have 10 incoming links. But you will have to put these sites on different IP addressses and hosting accounts. If not a red flag might be raised with the search engines.

The ultimate strategy for multi-site linking;
When using multi-site web site link building you could have one web site that all sites will link to without the site giving out any outgoing link. This will raise the value of the page rank of this site. For example you have A,B.C and D sites in a network. you can have the A,B,C sites in a ring linking structure. Then link to site D from from A, B, and C. Without site D linking back. Also if you are into adsense, you could make sure that site D is the site with the high demand keywords, with high cost per click (CPC).

INTERNAL LINKING;

This method of web site link building is being neglected by most webmasters. But it plays an important part of any site's pagerank and back links. Backlinks are the links that appear for a site when you do a link site search on Google. For example, link:http://www.yoursite.com . You can structure your internal links in such a way that they appear in your backlinks and also aid your page rank substantially.

The Ultimate strategy for internal linking;
Optimize your web pages in such a way that your keywords are in your link text pointing to your home page. While it is a recommended practice to link to inner pages of your website from your home page, you can also link back to your home page from your inner pages. This is reciprocal linking within your site. But, instead of using the link text "home" as most websites do, you should put the actual keyword you are optimizing your home page for.

There you go. My 2 cents on web site link building strategy for your web sites. On a final note, what about outgoing links? This is the least wanted links for any webmaster. Everyone wants incoming links and nobody wants outgoing links. Because of the perception that this type of link decreases overall page rank of a web page. However, outgoing links to quality sites could boost a page's popularity and search engine ranking. Why this is so beats me. Except for the fact that your website will be associated with quality authority sites. This I have seen with some of my webpages where the only difference they have with other pages is the outgoing links to some authority sites.

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