Link Building: 90 Seconds to Basic Understanding

What is Link Building and Why Do I Care?

Link building describes actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of inbound links to a webpage.

Increasing your social footprint is an inexpensive and effective way to build your personal and business brand. Link building is one of the most effective (and yet still underrated) methods for establishing your reputation and improving search engine rankings for your website or blog.

The Many Benefits of Link Building

  • It improves search engine ranking – it’s a bit mysterious to regular people, but nonetheless true.

  • It increases site traffic.

  • The more other sites link to you, the more trusted you’ll be – a popular link destination is a trusted destination.

  • People will want to post on your site and link back to their own because quality links attract quality links.

  • It increases brand awareness.

  • It increases influencer level (Read the blueprint on influencer thinking in Sam Fiorella and Danny Brown’s new book this summer. See that? Danny and Sam will enjoy some link love!).

The Painless Activity of Commenting

Chances are you already visit numerous websites each day reading articles on industry news and current events. To optimize this activity, take an extra couple of minutes and add a comment to the bottom of the article. By doing this you are adding value to the discussion with your opinion and, most importantly, you are leaving your name and a breadcrumb trail back to your website.

Commenting on a site often requires you to create a profile there. Always fill out the profile completely and add all pertinent information including your social networks and the URL to your site. More ways back to you!

Here are some juicy sites for commenting opportunities:

  • Disqus
  • Quora
  • Business2Community
  • Social Media Today

Check out this great article from SEOmoz.org to give you more ideas.

Illustration: Usability Geek