10 Ways to Get Natural Links for Search Engine Optimization:

Author : Thomson Chemmanoor
SEO Coordinator

There is no doubt that the power of backlinks is an important factor to improve your search engine ranking. There are several people trying to game the search engines by falsely inflating backlinks to their site. This methodology of getting links will fail when Google slaps them right on top of their head as they loose all the ranking which they were trying to build.

One of the effective ways to get natural links coming from other sites is by making your website a quality source of content for visitors. By this way, people naturally start linking to the site because of the quality of the content.

Here are some effective natural techniques to get you the backlinks you will need:

1) Syndicate News and Articles Distributing articles and press releases to article directories, industry related PR sites, and media outlets can generate authority links which will boost your website ranking. Creating newsworthy press releases and interesting articles gets noticed by other website owners, journalists, and bloggers which can attract natural links from their websites.

2) Conducting Web Contests – Web contests are very popular now a days and it can go viral if the winning prize has a good cash value. These kinds of online contest products create an incredible amount of buzz around the blogsphere if you are able to get the word out. A few hundred dollars can result in getting thousands of dollars worth of traffic and backlinks.

3) Offering Freebies Everyone loves to get free offers. You must offer good quality content that has value without any obligation attached to it. It will spread the word and people start linking back to the offer. One of the best examples is creating a free tool like an online calculator or a tool which is valuable to the industry.

4) Product Review and Testimonials Most people look for reviews that they can trust before buying any product. Try reviewing products on other websites and if you have the option – put your website URL in the review. Also, companies will be interested in getting testimonials from their customers. If you have a chance to put a testimonial along with your website address, this will give your website a back link.

5) Sign Up with Social Media Adding your website in your social media profile will get you backlinks. For example, profiles in your Twitter and Linkedin accounts give you the option to add your website which shows up as a backlink in search engines.

6) Share Knowledge Sharing your knowledge will get you backlinks too. Answering peoples questions in sites like: answers.yahoo.com, www.linkedin.com/answers, and www.answerbag.com will make others think that you are an expert in the field and will link back to you. The key is to give quality information to the question they post.

7) Run Your Own Affiliate programs Run affiliate programs for your website address embedded within the JavaScript of the tracking code. Offering higher commission is the key to get more people to join your affiliate program and start promoting your program.

8 ) Creating Widgets for Blogs Coming up with widgets for blogs and spreading the word out to bloggers can get massive amount of links back to your site. Widgets are easy and simple way to add some flare to blogs which generates a ton of backlinks.

9) Offer Free EBooks Offering free information through downloadable eBooks can get links. You need to embed the links within the content of the eBook to get back links. You should allow the users the right to republish those eBooks without changing the embedded links.

10) Comment on Do-Follow blogs There are several blogs which have do-follow links on the comment files where you can put your website address while you engage in the blog posts conversations. By default, all blogs have no-follow tags, but you need to identify those blogs that allow do-follow on their comment fields.

A good link building strategy is just a good way of marketing. Its all about being creative and thinking outside the box. When you incorporate these tactics, it will set you apart from the competition as it gets you the backlinks that you will need to create a presence.