Recently I got a message from a vldCrowd member asking me how one of my sites had so many backlinks. There is no magical formula but much of your backlink success will depend on utilizing every possible scenario you can to get backlinks. Before I discuss some of the methods for getting links, lets look at some the terms used in backlinking:
 
BACKLINK: are incoming links to a website. These inbound links are important to search engine rankings because many different search engines have algorithms that measure the number of backlinks a website or web page has, and ranks those web pages with more backlinks in a higher position.
 
DOFOLLOW LINKS: is a link telling search engines to crawl or follow the link to its location letting the search engine index the page.
 
NOFOLLOW LINKS: is a link telling search engines not to crawl, or notice, the link.
 
Here is a list of some BackLinking methods:
 
1. Forum signature. If you look on vldForum, you will see several links in my signature. vldForum is golden because all signature links are dofollow links (links that search engine spiders can follow). Many forum links are nofollow (links that can not be followed by search engine spiders). So believe me, if you find a forum that allows dofollow links in your signature, take advantage of it.
 
2. Blog comments. I’m not big on this, but if I do come across an interesting blog and want to leave a comment, I will leave a link to my site. The same dofollow and nofollow principal can apply to blogs as well. For that matter, any link on any type of site can either be dofollow or nofollow.
 
3. Link exchange. I have given up on link exchange. I use to do it religiously. But over the years google has devalued these type of links and it isn’t worth the effort. Link exchange usually isn’t a one way link. You have to exchange links with another site to get your link put on their site – this is called two way linking. For example, if I want to exchange links with site B, I have to put Site B’s link on my site and in turn Site B puts my link on their site. Contrary to a one way link site, like vldForum, I can put my link on vldForum and vlad does not expect or ask me to put his link on my site – this is called one way linking.
 
The other negative aspect of link exchanges is after you exchange links, the other site could easily remove your link at a later date (many webmasters do this...basically they are cheating). I use to monitor all sites that I exchanged links with to ensure my link was still on their site. If not, I removed their link from my site. Man, this was time consuming and not worth the time and effort, especially now that google had devalued these type of links.
 
4. Directory Submission. More and more webamsters are saying this is not worth the effort. I still do it at times, but overall I do not put a lot of effort in to it. It is still worth the effort to get your link in some of the more notable directories like DMOZ, but overall, most directories have lost their value. Worse, many directories are nofollow links.
 
5. RSS linking, social sites, social bookmarking, etc. I do quite a bit of this. Thanks to some of the mods Ramil has created for me, I have automated a lot of my RSS linking on social sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. The real value with this type of linking is that it can create a buzz about your site and bring traffic. I did a blog on this at vldCrowd. Here is the link to the blog: http://www.vldcrowd.com/member/8/blog/view/252/
 
6. Article Distribution. At the moment, I would recommend this type of backlink strategy over most other linking strategies. Basically you write an article and put links to your site in the article’s resource box (a resource box is similar to an About Me box -- see bottom of this page for example). For example, I wrote an article yesterday and submitted it to over 130 article sites. All links are one way links. I’m not sure if all the sites will publish the article, but usually my success rate for publication is pretty high.
 
The above are some of the more popular linking strategies, but if you research the subject, you will find hundreds of recommend ways to get backlinks. I think the most important strategy for getting backlinks is just doing it. In other words, when ever the opportunity presents itself to get a backlink to your site, do it. However, do a little research and stay away from backlinking methods that can get your site banned by google and other search engines (i.e. buying links).
 
Also recommend you learn a little about how to construct a backlink. One very important SEO (search engine optimization) concept of backlinks is keywords in your anchor text. A good example of using keywords in your anchor text for a backlink is my signature on vldForum. I want my anchor text to use words that may be used by those who use google (or any search engine) to find my type of site. After all, if a person is looking for an Asian Dating site, good chance they will use the words Asian Dating in google search box. Consequently, to let google know what type of site my links represent, my anchor text should contain keywords people might use to find my type of site when searching in google. For example, if you look at the Resource Box below, the links all contain keyword anchor text.
 
RESOURCE BOX
 
Filipina Eyes Association has several Asian Dating Sites with free membership. You can check out their sites at:
 
Asian Dating and Asian Girls
Filipina Lady and Asian Dating
Asian Wife & Asian Dating