In the past, the challenge has been to balance link quality against the prohibitive cost associated with link building. As the old cliche goes - "it's like being caught between a rock & a hard place"! - You either had to shell out a stack of cash for content relevant 1-way links or settle for those temptingly cheap links farms - which will bite you in the back later when you are sandboxed by Google for using link farms!

OK - granted there are a few economical methods of acquiring 1-way links - article marketing is probably the most effective of these.

Drum Roll Please

Perhaps the Most Affordable Strategy Ever for Grabbing Loads of Content Relevant, 1-Way Links

1. Identify what category your website is - ie. internet marketing, web development, real estate, day trading, business startups, etc.

2. Google your category(s) followed by the word 'forum' or 'forums'. In other words if you have a real estate website, search for 'real estate forums', 'real estate investors forum' etc.

3. Register as a user on the forums that have a high level of activity.

4. In the correct category, post a thread something like this:

Hi All,
I am looking to buy 1 link in your signature on this forum as well as 1 link in your signature in any other real estate forums. Please pm me details for each forum that you have a link for sale in. Please send details in this format:

Url of Forum
Your Screen Name
Post per day
Price per month

My site is: mydomain. com
Thanks!
My Name

5. Buy from users with at least one post per day. In most forums you can determine how many posts per day a user makes by clicking on his or her screenname to get to his/her profile.

6. Expect to pay about $1 per month for each post a user averages each day. For example, if a user averages 5.14 post per day - expect to pay $5 for a link in his/her signature for a month. In other words, you just bought 150 content relevant, 1-way links for $5! Generally Paypal. com is the best way to pay.

7. Ask the individual to make a post so you can see that your url & anchor text have been correctly added to his/her signature.

I repeated this simple process, with 14 forum users(1 in each forum) - now I have 14 people making posts on a daily basis with links back to my website.

This has resulted in over 2,035 links for me in just 2 short weeks. You don't believe me do you?

Keep in mind that some forums will have a 'no-follow' attribute on the links which means Google will disregard links in these forums. However an added benefit of using content relevant forums, is click-throughs! Since your real estate link is in real estate investors forums - some real estate investors will actually click-through to your site. So not only do these links help your seo efforts they also double as text ads!