This is by far the oldest and best-known method of improving link popularity. Basically you email or contact the Webmaster of a site that is complementary but generally not competitive to your own. You ask them to link to your site while outlining the benefits of doing so. You would generally offer to link back to them in exchange for this courtesy. Be sure you have developed genuine content on your Web site of interest to the trading partner. Explain the advantages to them and to their visitors by providing a link to your content. Tell them where the link on your site will be or set the link up in advance with the stipulation that you'll be glad to leave it there if they'll add a link to you in kind. Take the time to look over their site and then suggest where a link to you might be appropriate. Most importantly, personalize your emails! You must distinguish yourself from all the spam they receive daily. If the link is particularly important to you, call them personally or write them a letter or send a fax to show them you're serious.

Here's the simple means to find those good links. Go to the major search engines. Search for your target keywords. Look at the pages that appear in the top results. Now visit those pages and ask the site owners if they will link to you. Not everyone will, especially sites that are extremely competitive with you. However, there will be non-competitive sites that will link to you -- especially if you offer to link back. Why is this system good? By searching for your target keywords, you'll find the pages which the search engines themselves are telling you are good, as evidenced by the fact that they rank well. Hence, links from these pages are more important -- and important for the terms you are interested in -- than links from other pages.

When asking for a link:
•    ALWAYS have a link already put on your own site BEFORE you ask for a link in return and give the location of the link. It's harder to say no if you can provide the URL of where their link is.
•    ALWAYS give them the exact link text to use, even going so far as to put it in HTML so they can just cut/paste it onto their page.
•    MAKE SURE they actually have a links page!
•    GIVE THEM as much information as needed in order to make it easy for them to link to you. If they have a big site that's divided into sections, give them the exact URL of where your site would fit in. Then, provide the HTML for the link to your site.

Use voice instead of email to reciprocate and try contacting people by voice instead of email. More people are inclined to respond to your request when you introduce yourself by phone and let them know that you were visiting their site. Ask permission to link to their site. In return, you might state that a link back is appreciated but not required. Assuming they say yes, then you simply link up to them and confirm by email once you have confirmed. Warm personal voice contact goes a lot further than a cold email or even a warm email letter.

Pre-qualify the people you solicit for reciprocal links. They must have links from other sites like yours, and they must have the ability to make changes to their own site. If they don't respond to your solicitation, at most send ONE second request. Otherwise move on and take their site off of yours. Send a thank you note if they give you a reciprocal link.

Search for sites that rank high for search terms that are important to you, and then look through the search results for sites that do not compete with you. These sites should be high on your list of link targets. Piggy back on their high ranking.

Check the link popularity of your competitors, and find out who are linking to them. Contact those Web sites, and ask them to link to you in return for a reciprocal link.

Search the sites of the people who have linked to you for other possible link partners.
Find URLs that are currently linking to one or more of your pages and ask the appropriate Webmaster if they might also find value in other pages on your site (that you might suggest).

Manually search for Web sites that have the same theme as your Web site. When requesting a link, make sure to highlight what your site has to offer their visitors and why they should link to it. A compelling case will increase your success.

Review any Web site to which you want to link *before* writing to its Webmaster asking for a link. Like all SEO, do it manually. Automating the task is asking for trouble, especially if you haven't reviewed the site before asking for the link.

If someone says they cannot or do not wish to link to your site, I would still ask their permission to link to them. Instead of sending them a confirmation, try sending them a pleasant thank you for permission to link to their Web site. Don't be surprised if they DO link back.

If you've moved your site and you're asking those who have linked to you to change to your new URL, give them as much information as possible. I have over 300 pages on my personal site, but I still have people who will write and tell me to change their link to: http://www.mynewwebsite.com. Yet, they don't tell me their old URL (so I can easily do a search), and they don't tell me which of those 300 pages their link exists on. Do I have the time to dig through those 300 pages to find their old link?

Be very clear with your request for reciprocal linking. After you have thoroughly researched a potential site to ensure they are appropriate and actually do have links to other sites, consider the following:

•    Start with a very brief description of your site's content and how it relates to their site.
•    Provide the exact URL of their page you think the link would be most beneficial. Show them that you've actually visited the site and given some thought to the link.
•    Finally, give the HTML code for the link so the Webmaster can cut and paste it directly into his page code. That gives you some control over the link placement and lets you include your keywords into the link text.

Take care in crafting your reciprocal links letter. Make sure it's the best it can be before sending it out. Remember, you're asking for a favour (a mutually beneficial favour, but a favour nonetheless), so be polite and respectful in your letter. Otherwise, you'll get nowhere fast.
Create a "Link Exchange Letter," requesting a link exchange with your site, to each of the sites you have noted in your list. Make sure you've come up with at least 50 good quality content, non-competitive sites with a decent PageRank score of their own to email.
Example of a Link Exchange Letter from Eric Ward:

Hi <name>, my name is Eric Ward.
Regarding your AdoptionSolutions.com site at http://www.adoptionsolutions.com/
This month I'm helping the Hallmark Channel (cable TV) announce their new Web site about adoption. The site is the companion site for their real-life TV series "Adoption Stories," which premieres this month (June).

Details about the site are below. Please feel free to feature or link to this new content in any way you feel appropriate.

By chance is your adoption news section at http://www.adoptionsolutions.com/general/adopt_topics.htm a good fit for it?
Also, if you have any questions or need anything feel free to contact me at eric@ericward.com or (865) 637-2438.

I'm a real person, not a link request bot :) :)
Best wishes,

Eric Ward on behalf of The Hallmark Channel Hallmark Channel Site Announcement ---------------------------------- Hallmark Channel Adoption Stories http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/adoption/

Launched in conjunction with this month's premier of the original series about adoption on The Hallmark cable TV Channel. The Web version of Hallmark Channel's series about adoption seeks user input to help end the myths surrounding the adoption process. Share your experiences of an adoption and help others understand the process, the pitfalls and the rewards. Every week, follow the stories of real people as they seek to enrich their lives and fulfil their dreams through adoption. Go online and you can help end the myths surrounding the adoption process.

(End of sample letter)

The above example is for a non-reciprocal link request, and it resulted in a link being obtained for my client. It could be changed easily to make it a reciprocal link request by adding one sentence that says where you gave them a link.

Web directories are collections of web pages with similar subjects and similar content. These directories help in many ways as they are extremely popular with Internet users as they are considered a source of valuable information. Listings in directories improve your
chances of page ranking as well. If your site is listed in a directory, the search engines are more likely to find it and add it in their listings for free. Also submitting a site on directories helps in getting one way links which are that we have not linked the other person‟s site but they have linked us.

 There are three kinds of traffic that you can get from the directories where you are listed. The first is click-through traffic, meaning that anyone who ends up on the directory page will be able to see your web site and information, and there is a good chance that they will visit. The second is indexing your site.

Directories will begin to index the pages of your web site once they find the links to it. After that they can come back again and again, bringing you traffic as they do. The last way that the directories will increase your traffic is increasing your ranking on the search engines themselves as they find the volume of links and references to your web site.

Overall link building is one of the most important steps in building a site; getting quality links improves your PR and espouser to search engines.

Also the possibility of gaining traffic to your site. Many people say link building is dying out but the facts are simple, you build a site and build links and traffic will come.

Also link building also increase your Page Rank thus getting more traffic via Google.

So here are some Link Building Tips for Blog owners:
1. Exchange links with other bloggers
2. Use BlogRush (but sadly they have closed)
3. Submit to RSS directories
4. Submit to blog directories
5. Submit to general directories
6. Start a 2nd blog and link to yourself
7. Create and give away blog themes (with a link to your blog in the footer)
8. Create free plug-ins
9. Create link bait
10. Participate in blog carnivals
11. Comment on DoFollow blogs
12. WordPress Backlinks Plug-in

The bottom line is the easiest most obvious answer. It's also the toughest to do. Give people a reason to link to you. Think about it. Sites get linked to for a reason: usually if they provide the most information or the best resources on a particular topic. Is there any reason WHY people should link to your site? How is your content? Even if you are not a writer, ask the writers if you can use their stuff. The answer is usually yes. The writer gets a link from you. And you get great content. Now people will start linking to you. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

We all want to get on the top ranking sites listed in Google with few, if any outbound links. But what if they don't have a links program in place? Here's one way to get yourself linked from these choice sites. The top sites in a keyword category often don't have a links program, but they do have an e-zine or content library on their site. So... Write a 300-500 word article on a topic of real interest to their target market and submit it to the Webmaster, as well as to other e-zines reaching the same target audience. Include in your article sig file (or credit box) your site link and an enticing description. In other words, give the site owner something they can use that delivers real value to their constituents. By providing them with an asset, you're reaching them in a new way that goes beyond a simple link request. A couple of notes:

Don't market in your article. Deliver real value instead.
Before writing anything, subscribe to their e-zine first or go through their site content. Fill any gap you see - create something new that they don't already have on file

Market in your sig file only – and be sure to include your full site URL!

Become an "expert" in your particular field and write related articles. Market those articles to online content providers. Be sure to include your byline at the end of your article, including your name, company name, and URL's, and make sure to use appropriate keyword-containing link text.

I am hopeful that http://www.marketing-strategy.info is a good idea for link building – giving up "brand" in favour of white labelling. How does white labelling work? If you have a good product or content but a weak brand, then why not give up the brand altogether and concentrate on your content? Focus on why a human would follow the link that the other site has made for you – a compelling reason. That will usually come down to superior content. MarketLeap.com allows you to "brand" their stuff with your logo, but it involves a link to do it.

Write a testimonial for a product or service that you particularly like in your topic area. Many companies will put testimonials throughout their site, with links back to the company providing the testimonial.

A very effective strategy to gain quality links as well as traffic is to license content from your site for free in exchange for a link back to you. For example, we encourage anyone to post individual articles or the entire MarketPosition newsletter on their own Web sites so long as they properly credit us for the material and link back to http://www.webposition.com/ or http://www.marketposition.com/.

If you're asking someone for a testimonial, tell the Webmaster to whom you're writing that you're willing to put a link to their site under their testimonial if they're willing to reciprocate. That way, everyone wins. Actually you win twice! First, because you have a good testimonial for your product/service and second, you've increased your link popularity -- all with one link! Make sure that the link under the testimonial opens in a new browser window so that you don't lose that visitor to the linked site.

Create teaser articles. See if you can get the first third of the article listed on their site with a keyword rich text link leading back to your site where they can find the rest of the article. Be sure you get the bio with an additional link to your homepage as well.

Offer something for free (such as a downloadable report), and then ask for a link back to your site if the person finds value in the free item. This works because you're giving away something of value, and when people find it valuable, they're likely to reciprocate.

Spend time building valuable content on your site through different keyword windows. As you do, more and more people will begin linking to your site, as they're linking to your valuable content.
Offer yourself as an expert. Contact editors and writers and let them know you are available to be used as a source in exchange for a link and always push for the bio.

Have an easy way for people to link back to an article or content if they like it. Example: an icon that generates the HTML code they can copy and insert into their own HTML pages.

A sure fire way to increase link popularity is to have a high quality newsletter or article section on your site. If you have good content on your site, people will want to link to you to provide their visitors useful information. You can take this approach a step further by offering your article or newsletter to other sites with the condition that they link back to your site. This is especially good when you can get a high quality site to use your linked story on their site.

Use emotional content to give people a reason to link to you. A site built on a single theme may often benefit from using content which employs:
•    unique theme-related information which appeals to the emotions
•    original and appropriate humour
•    content of extremely useful nature (references materials)
•    original cartoon work
•    animation that appeals to the senses or tells a short story
•    something with an uncommon emotional element

Web sites that employ emotional elements often find that other sites with a similar theme will automatically link up to them just because of that emotional appeal.

Inktomi's link analysis program policy is that sites that link to its relevant topic category page on Yahoo receive improved hub factor rankings because of Yahoo's popularity. A reciprocal link with Yahoo is even more beneficial. Get your site listed with Yahoo; it is easier today than before with the Business Express option.

While you're at it, link back to the search engines. Does it help? I don't know. But what if it does? What if the search engines check if your site leads back to them? What if they give 1% boost if you do? Would 1% matter if everyone else had 99% relevancy and you got an extra 1%? Hmmm, something to ponder. I always link every important site back to the major search engines and directories as a little thank you gesture.

Get a link in an appropriate category from an About.com Guidesite. The popularity of About and the extent of their quality links positions the network as a mandatory stop in a marketing campaign. Also, make sure to thoroughly annotate links on your Web site with targeted keyword phrases. This will aid Google and other engines in their partial indexing.

Your homepage is not the only part of your site that you can get links for. If you offer an online newsletter, there are directories just for newsletters you can get links from. If your site has multimedia files, there are multimedia search engines you can submit to. If you have other files, like .pdf files or even image files, there are search engines you can get links from.
Go to Google and search for "submit a link" AND "put your keyword phrase here." You'll be shown a list of sites that have link pages on them in your keyword area, and some of them may be worth writing to. "Submit a URL," "add a URL," etc., will work too.

Think in terms of related fields as opposed to actual competition. Are there any organizations or associations connected with your industry? What about educational establishments? Publications? News sites?

How many links do you need pointing to your site? More than your competition. :)
Find as many themed directories to submit to as possible. Make sure the directory is already in Google, has a good PR, and doesn't use dynamic script in the address. Think about your theme. If you are a marketing firm, look for marketing directories/hubs/portals/vortals, do the same for business to business or b2b. If you are niched or focused on one aspect of marketing, then also look to that for your directories. You can probably stretch it to advertising directories. Be creative but stick with your theme. Once you are listed, it's good to have a page on your site that you use to feed the spiders: a "Where we can be found on the Web" page. Link directly to the page you can be found on.

Ask your upstream or downstream suppliers to link to you and you to them. If you are a wholesaler, you don't sell to the public, only to retailers. List your top 10 retailers as a reward to them. Same with retailers, link to your main wholesalers, unless they have to remain a secret for some reason. Advertising agencies and printing shops can link to their customers and vice versa. Same deal with your friends. You could each provide three links and put up a "my friends" page or "suggested sites" page. A word of advice though, don't everyone call it the same thing and don't call it a "links" page. Also don't request links on a public bulletin board. Yes, the search engines have many employees, and some of them have the job of maintaining the integrity of their search results. They read the popular search engine boards.... so be very careful about how you recruit a gang of cross linkers.
Paying for a link at Overture.com (formerly GoTo.com) that is not in the top five in the search results is, in most cases, a waste. Results of six and lower are not made available to the Overture partner sites, which collectively have millions more users than Overture does alone. Like AOL, for example. If the cost increase is just a few cents, get in the top five, and your site could be found across all of Overture's partner sites rather than only at Overture.com.

Download Google's Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) to ensure that inbound links are from decent sites, with a minimum of 3 out of 10 on the toolbar.

Link quality simply means how well positioned are the pages that link to you. There are also boosts and penalties involved. If you are linked to by a spammy link farm, you get a penalty. If you are linked to by a directory like Yahoo, LookSmart, or Dmoz you get a boost. What about the hundreds of free directories? Yes, they all help. In my Vault, I list about 80 search resources. Dozens of them are directories. Take a few days and MANUALLY submit your site to every directory that will take it. I was surprised to find several directories for my own city. Regional directories can often supply plenty of incoming links. Every relevant link helps.

Go after authoritative sites. Look for vertical engines and directories in your topic areas. Look for popular sites. One or two authoritative sites linking back to you will do you more good than a 1,000 irrelevant links. Visit Search Engine Guide and Beaucoup for a listing of vertical engines and directories.

Work on building rapport with other Webmasters. By building up a "working rapport" with other local Webmasters or affiliates, there are lots of ways that you can mutually benefit by trading links with several similarly themed sites, which are non-competing. Once you start working with other Webmasters, it's surprising what synergies may develop. Remember to give your very best to your fellow Webmasters as these relationships are win/win.

I am not a fan of reciprocal links unless they are complimentary. Portals and directories will naturally work better. My logic with outbound links is, "You have already lost the client for today, Dixon, so get a better product tomorrow.")

Host your own affiliate program on your own server. Sure it takes more work: you have to set it up, administer it and pay out the affiliate checks. However, if you use an affiliate service, such as Commission Junction, the links point to the affiliate service and get redirected to your site. If you host your own affiliate program, all those affiliate links point directly to you. You can find affiliate programs, some of which may be free at The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/ Website_Promotion/Affiliate_Programs/).

Look for linking opportunities within discussion lists related to your site's topic, but do so carefully. Try Yahoo Groups, which has thousands of topical discussion groups on almost any topic. I often send short posts to appropriate lists with links for my clients' sites, and if you do so properly, it is very effective.

Anywhere you can leave your link, do it: in chat rooms, guest books, etc. You would be surprised at where your link turns up on search engines when you start doing this. And if the SE has found it, then it adds to your link popularity.

Now that Google indexes the content of newsgroups, if you post to related newsgroups, be sure to use a signature line with your link and appropriate link text.

Ask a question (FAQ) and include a link. Post questions on forums that allow links. Post into the newsgroups. Include an email tail tag. Put it on your T-shirt. Include it as a sticker with each shipped order. Tattoo it on your forehead. Tell your mom. Get a vanity license plate...etc etc etc :-

The number one way I've built link popularity is by offering a good information product or service, establishing a good conversion on the site, and then getting super affiliates. I've found that getting super affiliates multiplies the number of regular affiliates I'm able to get. All of this leads to hundreds of inbound links. It takes a very disciplined approach, but one I've found very effective.

The last remaining major free directory is The Netscape Open Directory. What most folks don't realize is that you can have multiple links to your site's content as long as that content is a match for the category you are submitting to.

I'm surprised at how many people don't have their link in their signature line of their email.