Webmasters are constantly looking more effective ways to link bait or build incoming links to their websites. As building links is the most important Search Engine Optimization technique in today's context, most link builders charge a hefty amount just for a couple of links. I will discuss some of the effective link building strategies that will help most Webmasters in boosting their pages' ranking by building links that work.

The most common method employed by the Webmasters is placing their links in forums as their signatures. This is a very cost effective technique as it does not require the poster to pay anything. Signature links do helps in attracting traffic especially if the poster contributes significantly to the community. Although these links are not valued highly in the search engine index, they do count as backlinks.

Writing articles is another great way to build incoming links. Most articles have a section known as 'About Author' at the end of the body and this is where the writers put in valuable links to their websites. These links are highly relevant and helps greatly in contributing to the site rankings. Article writing is extremely useful if an article is submitted to many article directories.

One of the latest link building strategies is to utilize social bookmarking sites such as digg and del.icio.us to post your story. These sites have tons of traffic everyday and refers a good amount of visitors to a site especially if the story is interesting. Although some of the links are not valued highly in search engines, the traffic will indirectly link to your site if your content is interesting.

Another method to build links is to advertise your link on a popular page. A popular page would mean one that has a good page rank and receives high amount of traffic. This popular page will help in both ways; increase your search engine result ranking and attract targeted traffic. However, advertising in popular sites can be expensive and short-lived.

The latest trend that people build links is through Link Investment. Take for example, LinkVestor.com allows Webmasters to invest in text links while advertising their sites so as to sell back their links for a profit in future. This type of links is beneficial to the Webmasters in more than one way; traffic and revenue.

To conclude, Webmasters must be clear to build links that can either attract targeted traffic or have high page importance. Webmasters must also be aware of the surroundings as new link building strategies will be introduced from time to time.