35 Link Building Methods & Tools to Automate Them

Hi Everyone,

I don't post a lot on this forum, I normally just browse and see what other people are talking about. However, I have had a lot of people send me emails asking about link building, and I see a lot of people ask about different link building techniques, so I decided I would list a bunch of different link building techniques and different software that can be used to automate the link building tasks and advise on how to get the links for the different methods.

These are not by any means new methods, and this is nothing ground breaking. I am not leading up to a WSO on link building or SEO. This is just a compilation of link building methods and different software that can be used to automate many of the link building methods.

So, here goes nothing:

1. Website Directories (I use GSA Auto Websubmit, which submits to 6,000 directories)
2. Software Directories (I use GSA Auto SoftSubmit, which submits to 5,000 directories. Many people use Promosoft)
3. Article Directories (I use Automatic Article Submitter, which submits to 300 good quality directories, allows you to spin your articles and drip feed them so they are not all submitted at once. Many people like to use Brad Callen's Automatic Article Submitter)
4. eBook Directories
5. Script Directories
6. High PR Websites (I find the sites from Angela and pj413's WSO's)
7. Video Sharing Sites (I use SEnuke & Traffic Geyser)
8. Image Sharing Sites (Such as Flickr)
9. Social Networking Sites (I use SEnuke, there is also Brute Force SEO)
10. Social Bookmarking Sites (I use SEnuke, most people use Social Bookmark Demon)
11. Facebook Pages & Groups
12. RSS Feed Aggregators (I use SEnuke, many people use Big Mike's RSSBot)
13. Blog Comments (Comment Sniper, Blog Comment Demon)
14. Guest Posts (Free Traffic System, My Article Network)
15. Automatic Link Building Sites Like: Link Metro, Linkvana, Jonathon Leger's Sites (MyWayLinks, ThreeWayLinks, 1WayLinks, etc.)
16. Paid Links (If Google can tell they are paid, your rankings will go down. Google doesn't it like people paying for links)
17. Reciprocal Links (You can contact site owners about obtaining these, or use sites to automate the process. These are not nearly as effective as they used to be)
18. Examine your competitors backlinks and get backlinks from the same places. (SEO Elite, Traffic Travis. What a better way to beat your competitors than to get backlinks from the exact same places and then go get some from other places as well?)
19. Interlink Your Own Sites (Just link to your site from other domains you own. You can even just create a page listing all of your other sites and products)
20. Press Releases (PRWeb, Press Equalizer)
21. Yahoo! Answers & Other Q&A Sites (Answer people's questions and drop your link. Make sure the link is relevant and has more information related to the question asked)
22. Twitter
23. Squidoo (Squidoo is great for getting backlinks and it is easy to create lenses.)
24. Profile Pages (Many sites allow you to create profile pages. Just create a profile page with your link on it. This includes forums, networking sites, etc.)
25. Wikipedia (These are more difficult to get, and you must have a high quality site to get a link that will actually remain on Wikipedia)
26. Affiliates (If you have your own product)
27. In Site Links (Link to other pages within your site)
28. Google Profile Pages (What better place to get backlinks than from Google itself?)
29. Google Groups
30. Forums (In the posts and in signatures. Don't spam forums though)
31. Contests, Quizzes & Other Link Bait
32. File Sharing Sites (Most well known one is Scribd)
33. Podcast Directories
34. Testimonials (Give testimonials to product owners and they will often include a link to your site)
35. Wordpress Themes (Create Wordpress themes and distribute them. Everyone who uses them will have a link to your site on every page of their website)

I am sure there are more link building methods, but using these you can get an unlimited number of backlinks. Never spam sites to get backlinks though. Always provide useful, relevant content.

Things to remember about backlinks:
- Backlinks from authority sites (such as Wikipedia) are worth much more than brand new or non-established sites.
- Backlinks from sites that are related to yours are worth more than sites that are based on completely different topics.
- Backlinks from web 2.0 sites are powerful backlinks and they are easy to obtain
- Google likes whatever users like, as their entire goal is to cater to the general public. Find out what types of website people like, and get backlinks from them. (Currently web 2.0 sites)
- Link farms are not effective for obtaining backlinks.
- Never spam. If you are posting a blog comment, actually read at leat part of the post and make a relevant comment that actually ads value. This ensure that your comment will stay, and it doesn't tick people off. (How many people do you know that actually like spam?) If you are posting on forums, ask useful questions that actually benefit people, and when replying to threads leave more than a "nice post". If you want to just say "thanks" there's a button for that. If you have more to say, then post a nice reply with some actual content.

Sometimes your links will be removed from websites, sometimes your accounts will get banned. Sorry, people don't generally like marketers! It is a fact of life. Just keep building new links to replace the old ones. If you are giving good quality info and making nice comments, most of your links will remain intact.

These are methods that I use to get backlinks to my sites, and I use these methods to get indexed quickly and rank highly for whatever keyword I want.

Again, these are not new methods, and there is no ground breaking news here, but it should help those who are new to SEO and maybe give you an idea of what tools to help you get your SEO efforts done more quickly.

Shawn