How to build links to your website.

The world wide web consists entirely of a huge collection of links. Hooking into this global network, although challenging, is an important task that is often over looked by website owners.

Getting other websites to link to yours has two distinct benefits:

1. Helps get people to your website
2. Can boost your page rank within search engines

But how do you go about getting links to your site?  Firstly look at what your site and company is about.  Approaching sites that are of a similar nature / industry is a good idea.  A good approach to getting a link is to offer a "reciprocal" link in return (i.e you link to me, I'll link to you).

Approaching web site owners can be quite tricky, and research is the key.  Researching information about a company first and then writing a personal letter / email to a real person (rather then dear sir / madam) will generate a better response.  Also highlight in your communication where on their site you would like your link to go, and what text you see as appropriate.  Also mentioning that the client will need to contact their web developer to get this link done (and offering to pay for this) is often a good idea as well (remember you are asking for a favour - so make the process as easy as possible for them).

Remember if you have a wealth of information on your site, other site owners will be more likely to provide a link to you (as it provides a real benefit to their users).

Finally remember quality is better then quantity.  It is much better to have five links from popular sites than 20 links from unpopular sites.  Also targeting non commercial entities (although they will prove a harder nut to crack) such as educational institutions, government bodies and non-profit organisations may also generate better results (especially with search engine results).