The Right Way to Build Inbound Links

Link building is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. In my humble opinion this is the most abused part of SEO and perhaps the least understood part. Building links is less about you going out and getting links than about others giving you links. Let me explain by example:

Example One: Marvin Moneygrabber has built himself a web site filled with some very basic information about how to get out of debt, nothing deep mind you, just a few basic ideas, some links to a few more resources and a bunch of strategically placed Google ads for people to click on and help Marvin make some money – what we in the web business call an MFA site (Made for Adsense). You see, Marvin knows nothing about debt relief. He just wants to make money on the web and this is one fast way to do it (so he thinks). So Marvin sets up a “Links” page and starts exchanging links with every web site he can find. After about six months he has over 2,000 incoming links and he still hasn’t shown up in the top 100 for “debt relief” in Google and his traffic hasn’t even hit 100 unique visitors per day. His Google income is running maybe $5.00 per month and Marvin is not a happy camper. So passes another short-term thinker into the sunset.

Example Two: Priscilla Practical loves making homemade jam and she has about 100 jam recipes handed down from generation to generation starting with her great-great grandma. She decides it’s time to share these recipes with the world via a web site. She builds a cute little web site and has step by step instructions on how to make over 100 different jams. She offers a simple PDF cookbook her visitors can download for a small $5 fee. She gives $1 of the profit from each book to a local Charity. The Charity in her town mentions her on their web site and she starts getting traffic. She adds the URL of her web site into her email signature so everyone she emails can visit her site. She does the same thing to her Forum signatures. The local newspaper prints an article about her Jams and her charity work.  The townsfolk start to visit her site. People who visit her site and buy her wonderful jams start sending emails to their own family members around the country bragging about her products. Word spreads about how tasty her jams are and how generous she is. She puts a simple little “link to me” gif and some text on her “About Our Recipes” page. Over the next year or so hundreds of web sites spread the word about her and link to her site resulting in tens of thousands of visitors. Eventually she is able to offer her own line of Jams for sale along with a properly printed Jam recipe book. These revenue streams combined with her Google ad income push her total gross income to 6 figures and she never had to push hard for a single link from another web site – the links found her. The reason? She offered a quality product that people felt good about buying and recommending to others.

The second example illustrates the right way to get links. A web business is no different from any other – if you have a quality product, word of mouth will sell it. If you have a quality web site with quality information, word of link will sell it. Other Netizens will talk about your site and will promote it because they believe in it. Build something great – something worth reading and let nature take it’s course.

Nuff said. Now get busy building your quality web site!