If your content is first-rate, then other websites will naturally start linking to your website. The search engines quickly pick up on this and slowly give your website more “authority.” Higher authority means more targeted free traffic coming your way.



But if you simply wait for other people to link to your site, you may be waiting for a long time. It makes sense to be proactive in your link-building program.

Here are five strategies for building momentum in actively acquiring links to your site.

Strategy #1: Submit to Quality Directories

This strategy involves submitting your site to quality web directories that manually review each website. In most cases, you will pay a fee for the review process.

Some people will tell you that the search engines do not like paid links and devalue them. According to Google engineer Matt Cutts, you should only submit your site to quality directories that use a manual submission process. In this way, a live person is actually reviewing your site for approval before it is included in the directory.

You can research quality directories on Google, but here are my top ten.

1. dmoz.org

2. dir.yahoo.com

3. lii.org

4. stpt.com/directory

5. business.com

6. joeant.com

7. chiff.com

8. skaffe.com

9. ezilon.com

10. botw.org

Strategy #2: Submit Articles

A very good strategy for building links is to rewrite some of your website content and submit it as a standalone article.

The key to this is to include links back to your website in either the article body or in the Author Bio area. These links will be discovered by the search engines and will help grow your link popularity.

The article sites I've listed below are considered some of the very best. I recommend you visit each one and set up a free author account.

1. ezinearticles

2. articlealley

3. articlebase

4. articlecity

5. articledashboard

6. goarticles

To get started, write an original article pertaining to your area of expertise and submit this same article to each of the above article sites.

If you want to use an existing article from your site, I recommend rewriting it in order to avoid possible duplicate content issues. Search engines try to filter out duplicate content in their search results in order to provide diverse results for any single search query. By making your article a bit different, you will help ensure the original content on your site doesn't get pushed down in the rankings.

Strategy #3: Anchor Text

Anchor text simply refers to the actual wording used in the link pointing back to your site. The search engines monitor this text so make sure it includes the main keyword for the content page it is pointing towards.

As an example, if you have a webpage that uses "Article Submission" as the main keyword, then a good anchor link text would be:

Click here for more information on article submission strategies

Strategy #4: Forums and Blogs

Another way way to get inbound links is by answering questions on forums and posting helpful thoughts on business related blogs. Be careful here. Your primary motivation must be to help people. If you simply make a short unhelpful comment so that you can leave your name and website URL in the posting, this idea will backfire.

As Internet marketing guru Ken Evoy has said - "Keep it real!"

Strategy #5: Establish Deep Links

As you work to establish a link building program, work to get links to pages other than your home page. Yes, you certainly want links to your homepage, but it is very important to also establish links deeper into your site.

One easy way to do this is with the links you develop through submitting articles. One strategy I recommended was to submit a shorter version of an article already contained on your site. If you do this, you can simply add a final sentence that points readers back to the larger version of teh article for more information.

So there you have it. Five simple strategies that will do wonders in growing high-quality inbound links that will make the search engines take notice. Start designing your inbound linking program today. It's one of the most important things you can do to grow your organic traffic.