Once you feel your website code is complete, optimized and validated, you can begin working on the most important part of the search engine optimization process: building links. You can do this in a variety of ways, including submitting your site to search engines and directories, participating in link exchange programs, or manually exchanging links with similar websites.
Search Engine and Directory Submission - The first major step to building links is submitting your site to the major search engines and directories. DMOZ is the directory that should never be overlooked, as it is the single most important directory to improving your rankings. DMOZ is a free, human-edited directory with high site standards. Another directory you should consider is the Yahoo! Directory. Yahoo is more than just a search engine. It is also a web portal that includes, among other things, a directory which helps feed its search results. Right now, Yahoo doesn't seem to be crawling sites as deeply as Google. Some SEO experts recommend submitting your site to Yahoo's Pay-for-Inclusion program to help your site get listed on Yahoo. Each and every site submitted to Yahoo will be reviewed by a human editor.
It can take several months to get listed on DMOZ as well as Yahoo's free submission services so be patient. If you are considering submitting your site to a free directory, make sure your site contains unique, relevant content and that all pages of your site are finished. When you do submit, be sure to submit to an appropriate category and subcategory. Keywords and keyphrases in your title and description tags will come into place, since the editors will look at how accurately your title and description tags relate to your site content. There is currently a long waiting period for getting listed but afterwards, your site will be easily found by major search engines such as Yahoo and Google, as well as additional directories. Do NOT resubmit your site if you haven't heard back from the directory for several months. Resubmitting will only start the submission process over from the start, lengthening the amount of time it will take for you to get listed.
Reciprocal Links Search engines view every link pointing to your site as a "vote" for your site's popularity and relevance, so the more links, the better. You've already accomplished the first step of getting natural reciprocal links, and that is through quality site content. Now you just need to find potential linking partners. You can do this by searching for sites with content that is relevant to but not in competition with your own. Consider linking to sites that would be valuable to your visitor. Let's say you sell fishing rods. You could link to sites that sell fish hooks or bait. To find good link partners, perform a search for possible keywords and keyphrases. In this case, you'd search for "fish hooks" or "fish bait" and evaluate some of the resulting sites. Check the PageRank of each site using Google's free toolbar. You will benefit most from linking to sites with PageRank equivalent to or higher than your own.
Every time you find a potential linking partner, send the site owner or webmaster an email stating who you are and why you'd be interested in exchanging links. Personalize the email and give reasons why the site would benefit from linking to you. Even if you get rejected, you might want to send a follow-up email at a later date, just in case the person changes his/her mind.
Link Exchange The manual link exchange process is often tedious. Perhaps the quickest, easiest way to get inbound links pointing to your site is to participate in a link exchange. LinksMaster.com is just one example of a link exchange program. Join LinksMaster to automate the link exchange process and instantly receive inbound links from hundreds of sites. LinksMaster also offers SEO advice to members of its link exchange program.
You will hear a lot of speculation that link exchange programs either don't work or cause your ranking to drop. The truth is, there has never been any documented evidence indicating that search engines penalize sites for participating in link exchange programs. Link exchanges can, in fact, increase your rankings because every link pointing to your site will help determine your site's link popularity.
Link exchanges speed up the tedious process of manually exchanging each and every link. They can be compared to directories such as DMOZ, with the main difference being that members of link exchange programs are required to post the directory index on their sites, linking back to all members of the link exchange program.
If you haven't given a link exchange program a try, what are you waiting for? Join a link exchange for a few months and, with the help of other SEO techniques, watch your search engine rankings rise.
Regardless of whether you participate in a link exchange program, exchange links manaully or just wait for natural linking to occur, it will take the search engines a while to index new links. Google and other major engines can take several months so, as with any other aspect of SEO, you'll have to be patient. The time and effort you invest will no doubt be rewarding.
