A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A lot of knowledge can be explosive. You can take your pick here. There are two methods. Both methods work to identify the links that exist for other websites and allow you to target them. The first method will get you going and the next method will give you a mighty edge.

The first method is free and easy. Download and install the Google toolbar. Once installed, you will see a link called “Backward Links”. Now, go to an internet site that appeals to your target market and use the “Backwards Links” toolbar link. Google will show you a list of websites that link to the site you’re visiting. This is a great place to begin your link building campaign.

While you are working this list of websites you can begin another list. As you visit the websites look for a link directory on the website you’re visiting. Once from a while you will find a site with an industry directory or a resource page that has links to related websites. This is another nice list for you to work. This method will generate a lot of quality links and bring you visitors that are looking for what you have to offer. If you’re critical of the sites you send requests to, you will build a network of quality sites sending you targeted visitors.

The next method is to employ some competitive intelligence tools. Would you prefer to find out which sites are responsible for sending traffic for a competitor’s pages, including search engines and the search keywords that were used? Competitive Intelligence tools provide you with the means to monitor your competitor’s web pages and to identify their major traffic sources. By using these tools you maximize the use of your time by targeting quality websites. It is easy to see the value here. Knowing what sites to target is valuable knowledge indeed.

Enough said about competitive intelligence. I’m sure you’re more than just intrigued.

Link building using competitive intelligence should be considered an integral part of your ongoing marketing effort. It should not be a quick test which is shoved aside because it did not have an immediate return on investment. It works and it will grow with time. It is one of the best investments it is possible to make in marketing your website. Done in earnest, you just might consider it more effective and more deserving of your time and attention than google search optimization or any other internet website marketing method six months from now.

Link building should be done by a link building expert

There are lots of things involved in entire SEO packages including article directory submission as well. Apart from articles directory submission, it may also involve the link exchanging which is crucial for enhancing the website popularity. There6 are different kinds of packages and one can take any depending upon the choice and credentials. Most packages are included with over 30 to 40 articles submission per day. The submission of professional press release and keywords research may also include in the package. It is true that every business owner wants SEO for their business or website as they want to acquire a higher ranking for their website. The keywords selection is one of the major parts of SEO campaigning and it should be considered seriously.

The appropriate keywords and its perfect density can do wonders in making an SEO campaign successful. The keywords density should be accurate in order to acquire instant attention of visitors. Here SEO packages plays great role in providing intensive marketing campaigns. It is really beneficial in improving the flow of traffic and to retain the interest of customers. In the package, the keyword research is one of the crucial points which should be considered.

The keywords used in a website should be highly competitive and the content should be very professional. Professional content is a big requirement to make an SEO campaign successful. It is also an affordable option because purchasing articles in bulk or hiring a writer for articles may prove to be costly. Choose a package which involves more articles or content for website. The submission of those articles or blogs is also necessary and it is done by companies itself. So, from this point of view, a business owner can save huge amount of time and money as well but in short it can be said that choosing right SEO packages can help a business owner to get focused.

In this way, by focusing on local keywords, one can achieve better position even in less completion as compared to generic keywords. Less completion simply means to achieve lots of visitors. As these days, more people are turning to online businessmen as it is considered as one of the best ways to keep indulging in such activities. In fact, it is becoming a great way to earn handsome money. In order to achieve success, one should have complete understanding about the target audience. It is the best way to make most from local SEO. This service is even very cheap as compared to entire SEO and it is actually much more effective comparatively. A perfect variation in the keywords is also essential as it helps in retaining the interest of customers and creates great interest in the product.

It is true that if a website starts attracting local customers once, soon it starts gaining the attention of visitors from throughout a world. This new concept is very effective for the small business owners and can provide really effective results. If someone wants to hit a particular region or area, it is a best option to do so. In order to make this SEO campaigning successful, it is better to include long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are really beneficial in enhancing the efficacy of website or local business. So, local SEO should be a first priority for people who want to market their product only in a specific region or only in one country.

To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. So it must be about getting tons of links and you’re done right? Wrong. This is incorrect as …

Not All Votes Are Created Equal

Unlike your own vote in an election, some votes are worth more than others and some votes are worth SIGNIFICANTLY more than yours (unless of course you’re a content writer for the Google.com domain in which case you obviously have the top vote). The basic factors that affect a link’s value to your website are:

the site strength – the strength of the website that is pointing to yours is a significant (and historically abused) factor in the valuation of links. In the absence of other easily-visible criteria let’s look at PageRank as a key valuation of a site’s strength. If a site with a PageRank 8 links to your site, this vote is worth significantly more than a link from your PageRank 3 site. This is because a PageRank 8 site is, in Google’s eyes, a more important site than the PageRank 3 site.

Relevance – the relevance of a site linking to you is, if anything, more important than a site’s strength. If you run a bed a breakfast in Utah a link from a PageRank 3 bed and breakfast will be worth more than a link from a PageRank 5 web design site. This area is a bit grey in that it relies on the engine’s ability to determine what is relevant and what exactly is not however we’ve seen evidence that this area is strong at this stage in the game and is only becoming more important over time.

Anchor text – the actual text used to link for a site is extremely important. I’ve seen extremely strong sites get beaten out by weak ones simply due to the poor use of anchor test. If you’re building links to your site be sure to include your keywords in the text that links back and, if possible, the exact phrase you are trying to rank for. At the same time, you can’t make all your anchor text exactly the same – how can that possibly look natural?

Position – the position of a link on a page and the number of other links on that page impacts the value of a link. A link in the footer of a page is given less weight than a link near the top, a link in the content of a page is given more weight than a link in a list of links and a link on a page with 50 other links is given less weight than a link on a page with only a few other links. If we think about it – this makes sense. All of these things indicate whether the site with the outbound links actually intends for one of the visitors to click the link or not. From an engine’s perspective – the more apparently a site wants a link to be clicked on, the higher the weight that link (or vote) is given.

Admittedly there are a variety of other factors but this is a beginners guide. Following the considerations above will insure that as you make each link decision – you’re odds of making the right choices will be significantly higher than if you ignore them. Ignoring them may not get you penalized or banned but it will make your task far more time consuming as you secure less valuable links and thus need to create far more than following he right methods.

So far we’ve covered briefly the why of link building, now let’s get into the real-life, here’s-how-to-do-it side of things. Below I’m going to cover three of my favorite link building tactics. These are tactics that apply to virtually every scenario. The number of ways to create links is only limited by your imagination however and this should not be viewed as a comprehensive list. This is, after all, a beginners guide and I’m trying to list the tactics that apply to virtually every scenario.

Now first things first, what tools can you use for building links to your website? The link building tools can be various. They can range from a link building software to the online services, meant especially for building quality links for you. In fact one can also build links via ezines, link directories and search engines as well. Read on to know how you can use each of these tools judiciously to develop your link popularity.

Search Engine:

The first tool to look for links is to find out the websites with an excellent page rank. If you link up with the websites with an excellent page rank, your ranking can also be raised. it is possible to find out the sites by using a search engine. The software available in the market finds out the right websites with a good page rank for you.

Once you have the URLs and domains of the websites to be linked with, one can add them for a website and also send a link request to them. The websites take their time to reply you back.

Link Popularity Software:

Apart from making the search on the search engines, you can also use a special Link Popularity Software. The software is smart and finds out successfully the websites that are willing to have reciprocal link ventures with you. The advanced software is such, that it can find the links and then connects those links to your website automatically. They are adept at searching for the sites related to your website. They also help you to determine the existing competition for reciprocal linking in your business line.

Content Development:

Another link building tool is content development. It is the content of your website which is searched by the visitors. The google search matches the keywords to your content. The link building tools also help you to develop a good content with the help of great keyword searching software.

you can develop a good content with the help of the keywords searching software. The software is programmed to find the most popular keywords for you. one can make the use of keywords to write articles for your website. When the user finds relevant content in your website, your site becomes more popular. It will also encourage other websites to link for a website.

Article Publication:

one can get your articles published on any internet magazine or a news journal. Many sites look for articles to publish. Never forget to mention the resource link below your article. The link building tools are available with different features.

The price of each software differs on the basis of the features it incorporates. one can order the software online or can even download it for free.

So, now as you realize the essential tools for link building, you can certainly raise the number of good links in your website.

Some people waste several time seeking links in the wrong way and from the incorrect places. The “10 Commandments of Link Building” will help you avoid such time-wasters and achieve true linking success.

1. Thou shalt recognize the value of links.

For now, and for the foreseeable future, link building and SEO walk hand-in-hand. Linking profiles are one of Google’s top ranking factors, and the “other” engines use them as well. Once upon a time, you could possibly simply write plenty of keyword-rich content and rank well for it. While that may still be the case with MSN / Live Search, it no longer carries you very far with Yahoo or Google. That’s where links come in.

2. Thou shalt begin link-building on thine own website.

“What exactly is this heresy? Link-building starts on my website? Who ever heard of such a thing?” All too often, I see website owners present a new site and go out hunting for links before they have a site worth linking to. Link building always starts in your own website.

Think about it for a moment. Aside from directories and paid listings, few people will link to a bare-bones website that offers nothing unique, helpful or interesting. If you start hunting for links before your website has earned its place on the web, you’re going to have a long, hard time of it.

On the other hand, if you build the kind of website that makes others in your industry or niche say, “Wow, that’s really something! I know some folks who would like that,” then your link-building efforts will be a breeze. It all starts with what you put into your website.

3. Thou shalt pursue the right kinds of links.

Not all links are created equal. Sure, you wish a lot of links for a website … we all do. But you should always put link quality before link quantity. Jim Boykin, SEO expert and owner of WeBuildPages.com, said it well:

“It’s not always ‘He with the most links’ who wins the game … Really, very often, he with the right 10 links can beat the guy with 1,000 of the incorrect links. I see it all the time.”

What makes for a quality backlink? Generally speaking, the most valuable links for SEO purposes are those that come from older, well-established sites within your topic area.

4. Thou shalt alternate link text.

To gain visibility for more of your key phrases, and to make your linking profile seem more natural to google search algorithms, it’s a good ideas to mix up your link text. For instance, instead of having a thousand backlinks to my site using the phrase “real-estate marketing,” I strive to get a broad mix of link text. I shoot for “real estate marketing” and “Realtor marketing” and “property SEO” and … you get the picture.

5. Thou shalt find links everywhere.

Links are everywhere, and they’re what make the web, well … a web. So link opportunities are everywhere, as well. you can gain links by publishing articles online, syndicating press releases, submitting to directories, participating in forums, growing a blog or becoming an authority in your field. You are only limited by your imagination, and imagination is our next commandment.

6. Thou shalt be creative.

Quick story. I was doing some link building for a home buying website once, and I thought I had exhausted my options. I had submitted press releases online, submitted the website to directories, published articles with the big article directories, and even written a few link request letters (which I normally don’t bother with).

Then it dawned on me. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of websites out there looking for the kind of content I could provide, but not knowing where to look. So I began searching phrases like “home buying articles” and making a list of websites that provided this content.

Next, I emailed these sites one by one and invited them to use any of the 100+ articles I had written on the subject. All I asked was that they keep the author’s note with hyperlink. By being proactive with my article publishing, I earned more than 30 new and highly relevant links! When you combine quality content or a unique website with strong imagination, your link opportunities are limitless.

7. Thou shalt not waste time with silly link requests.

The higher your website ranks, the more link-request emails you are going to receive. It’s a law of the Internet. Let me save you some time and energy by saying it is possible to delete 90% of these emails. Why? Because 90% of the time they are from sites looking to “feed” off your good rankings, but offering nothing in exchange.

I have one website that’s ranked very well for its key phrases. It generates plenty of email requests from brand new sites that aren’t even indexed yet, much less ranked well. Is that a fair exchange for me? Hardly. What’s worse, most of these sites have nothing to do with my subject area. This is the 90% you shouldn’t waste time with.

Once in a while, however, you’ll receive an email that’s actually personalized and specific. It will be intelligent, it will be from a site similar to yours, and it will be worth considering. In other words, it will be part of the 10% club.

8. Thou shalt track thine own progress.

If you put plenty of energy into your SEO program, you need to be able to track your progress. There are business reasons for this. But more importantly, there are morale reasons for it. you would like to feel good about what you’re doing, right? you wish to see some positive results to justify your hard work, don’t you? Of course you do. So keep track of your link-building progress the same way you keep track of your traffic and rankings.

There are a number of tools online that can help you identify links from other websites to yours. Yahoo Site Explorer is my favorite. one can use Site Explorer (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com) to quickly and easily find out which websites are linking to yours. one can also export this information into a spreadsheet for further use. Nice, huh?

9. Thou shalt keep the big picture in mind.

Yes, links are a big part of your website’s visibility. But there’s a lot more to SEO than links. In fact, let’s look at the bigger picture and say there’s a lot more to online success than gaining links. If you tend to get carried away with certain tasks, like I do, then schedule your SEO efforts to avoid focusing only one thing. Set aside some time for link-building, article writing, website improvement, product development, etc.

In other words, don’t adopt “SEO tunnel vision” to the point you neglect your website’s primary offering (whether that be products, services, content, or a combination of the three).

10. Thou shalt enjoy aging well.

One of the things I live about SEO is that it gets easier as you go. When you put the right fundamentals in place up front, you’ll be able to increase and/or maintain your visibility with less effort over time. Most search engines — and especially Google — place plenty of emphasis on the age of your domain, your individual web pages, and the links coming into those web pages. Like a good wine, links get better with age.