by Brandon Cornett, 8/10/2007

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 site 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 you can 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 a lot 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.