7 Ways to Build Natural Links - The Most Important SEO Step

Without any shadow of doubt, natural linking is by far the most thing to do to catapult your Google ranking.

The term 'natural linking' refers to incoming links that are seen by the Search Engines as having been created naturally - they don't have to actually have been created naturally - they just need to look that way.

The opposite term is 'artifical links'. A common example of artifical linking is what is called 'triangular linking' where 3 or more businesses (usually hundreds or more) swop links with one another simply to boost their SEO rankings. (You wil often recognise this by way of a Resource page on a company's site that has many links to seemingly unrelated businesses.) The search engines are slowly but surely uncovering such situations and penalising the participants.

So, how do you develop natural links?

Here are 7 ways to do so.

1. Online Press Release

Another way to generate some inbound links is to submit a press release about your site to PRWeb. This site distributes press releases to major news outlets and syndicates it's feed to thousands of websites. http://www.PRWeb.com

2. Forums

Many forums allow you to register, add a relevant comment or thread and sign your comment with a website. Again, another way to generate a link. Some forums are so popular that search engines visit them often and can find your link in a new post.

Here are couple places to find forums
http://www.itch.com
http://forumhaven.com

3. Online Articles

Writing and distributing articles to online article directories is another very good way to create links to your site. These aren't always particularly high quality links but they can provide volume.

Here's a list of some the most popular article directories.

http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/
http://goarticles.com/
http://ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://amazines.com
http://www.articlecity.com/
http://bpubs.com/
http://businessknowhow.com/
http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.promotionworld.com/
http://promotenewz.com/

4. Blog Comments

Posting relevant comments on blogs is another way to create inbound links. I hope you know that I'm not talking about posting just for links. Adding commentary where you can is a great online networking strategy and can have the added benefit of creating links if done properly. (Media outlets are great for this.)

One of the best places to find blogs that are talking about your keywords is at a blog directory called Technorati - http://www.technorati.com

5. Testimonials

Sending testimonials to other website owners endorsing a product, book or service can be a great way to pick up a one way link. Many site owners love to post testimonials right there on the home page - prime real estate!

6. Create a free tool

Another great way to create a flood of inbound links is to create a free tool that other think is worth linking to.

7. Buy Links

There are lots of link brokers out there waiting to sell you a link from a high ranking site. These may have value but I like to look for well established, relevant newsletters that sell ads AND archive past issues on their website. If you can find a newsletter like this you can purchase an ad, get the value from advertising in the newsletter and then benefit from the link in the website archive.

Some newsletter directories:
HEzine-Universe.com - http://www.ezine-universe.com
Zinos.com - http://www.zinos.com
BestEzines.com - http://www.bestezines.com
The E-ZineZ Search Engine - http://www.e-zinez.com/
InfoBotTTH - http://www.infobot.net/
Echelon's Newsletter Exchange - http://www.bizx.com/newsletter.html
The Directory of Ezines from Lifestyles Publishing - http://www.lifestylespub.com/

This is 7 ways out of at least 14 that we know of for building inbound links. To find out more about the other ways, get our Plain English Guide to Catapulting Your Google Ranking and Driving Tons More Traffic to your Website.