by Greg Smithers, 1/13/2007
In this article I am coming back to the oldest Web marketing strategy - inbound links. The importance of inbound links to your Web site never diminishes. Search engines still value quality inbound links to a Web site for higher rankings. However, the emphasize is now on the quality, not the quantity of links. A dozen quality links to your site from useful sites are more valuable to a search engine than 700 links obtained through a link exchange program.
Before I discuss how to obtain quality inbound links to your site, I would like to mention some don'ts of inbound link strategy. Never participate in an automated or manual link exchange program. These programs are useless; they don't benefit you and sometimes the search engines may even penalize your site for such links. Also, stop soliciting link exchange from other sites where your links will be placed in a link farm on a page along with hundreds of other links. The two don'ts are - link exchange program and link farms.
Now I will talk about the new strategy. The number one strategy is to write articles with your resource box attached. Your resource box should mention your expertise in the subject and only one link to your site's home page. I know you have already started frowning on the idea of writing articles to promote your site. You are telling yourself that it is not a new strategy and it has been going for the past few years.
You know that thousands of articles are written everyday and distributed through article directories and submission services. You can still continue promoting your site using article directories and submission services. However, I will mention a few new twists to the old article publishing idea to distinguish you from the pack.
Write original articles. If you buy private level rights to an article, rewrite it to make it unique. You don't have to buy the rights to private level articles to create original article. Using the Internet, find good quality articles on the subject that interests you and read those articles. It requires a few hours of time commitment every week.
On the weekend, take an additional few hours and write in your own words what you have read in the preceding week. Voila, you have a good quality original article. Remember, you can always write in your own words the ideas that you have read in other articles. You cannot simply copy verbatim from other articles. That will be copyright violation.
If you are good at writing humorously, do exploit that skill while writing on any subject. Humor is very powerful and it attracts more readers. People love a bellyful of laughs. If possible, say something bold or controversial without being a hate monger. This will also attract others' attention.
Once you have your original article written, find a few quality content rich site (not article directories) and offer them your article for free with your resource box attached. You are not asking for any link exchange, you are just giving away your high quality articles for free to a few selected sites.