The Big List of Link Building Tactics
Posted by Mike | Filed under Link Building*Post is republished. Reason: To reach more people!
Backlinks, backlinks, backlinks… *sighs* Everyone needs inbound links for their websites to increase their SE rankings! I decided to make a list of link building tactics and give a brief description of each so that when people are tired of doing one method, they can just check this out and do things to increase their incoming links.
To those who are new, I have written an article on how to get backlinks by requesting them or buying them. There’s also a natural way of getting these links and it is also tackled by the article. Read it here: A Guide to Getting Backlinks 
Okay, now let’s move on to the big list of link building tactics!
Link Building Tactics
Directory Submissions - The never-ending directory submission technique for more backlinks. I’m pretty sure that most of you are aware of this tactic, but I just want to inform some people that when submitting to a directory, use relevant keywords as your site’s title (that is if the directory allows it) so that you will rank higher for those keywords on the search engines. Before you go on a link building frenzy, let me tell you something: DO NOT STUFF KEYWORDS ON THE TITLE!
If you want to know more why keywords should be used as the title, read more about relevant keywords as your anchor text.
Paid directories give your sites much stronger backlinks, so if you have the budget, try to purchase some listings from them.
Blog Comments - If you comment on related blogs which don’t put the “nofollow” attribute on links, then the comment that you made will give you one backlink (provided that you entered your URL in the “Website” field). This is a good way to get backlinks AND visitors since some people click on the names of people who give very good comments.
*Note: The WWW Observer doesn’t put the “nofollow” attribute on links, so feel free to comment here!
Blog and Website Templates Sponsorship - Most free blog/website templates (especially WordPress themes) have some sponsors’ links on the footer. For every person that uses the theme, the sponsors get one backlink! Isn’t that great? All you have to do is pay the template designer to put your link on the template, and in return, you get thousands of backlinks especially if the template is really nice. The usual price for sponsorship is around $40 to $100.
Forum Signature Links - At first, links from forum signatures won’t do much because of the small number of your posts, but when you manage to get a lot of posts, they will serve their purpose. Remember not to spam just to get lots of posts!
Link Exchange - Just another well-known method to get links… be sure to get links from related sites so that the value of the links are higher. You may use link exchange services like Link Market to make it easier for you to find link partners. Note to all: Three-way links are way better than reciprocal links. 
Blog Posts/Site Reviews - Paid or free blog posts for your website will help your rankings because they stay forever on the blog’s archive. They will not only give you links; visitors will also come your way especially if the blog where the post is published gets a lot of readers. If the articles gets a good PageRank because it is informative, the more they will aid your website.
Article Submissions - Create high-quality articles then submit them to article directories. Put your link below the article, and you’ll receive a backlink for every article directory that you submit your article to.
Link Baiting - Build good content that will spread fast, and most likely people will link to your site. According to my study, the most viral stuff that you can post on your sites are funny images and controversial articles. Make use of your creativity and make your link bait now. 
Social Bookmarking - As I said in my previous articles, social bookmarking can help in driving traffic to your site and in giving you backlinks. Some of these sites have the “nofollow” attribute on the links though…
Link Building Tactics to Avoid
Submitting to Word Clouds - Trust me, they just aren’t worth it. Most of them use expired domains and their current PageRank will not last long. Read my article about word clouds to know more about them.
Buying Pixel Ads - Pixel ads are also trash. They work almost the same as word clouds, except that you use images instead of anchor texts.
That’s it!
This article covers all (if not all, then almost all) the link building methods that you can use to gain more backlinks for your sites. Good luck! Check back soon for some hardcore SEO and link building tips.
Thanks for the list. I need to remember to do these things.
it’s a nice list… now I’d like to see you take it the next level by blogging about each listing
Now that’s a nice big list there.
I definitely agree on that pixel ads and word tag cloud thing.
Nice list here and nice what to watch out things.
As far as Link Exchanges..I was wondering your opinion on manual versus automatic. Which do you think is better? I have been doing both, and on manual dishonest people sometimes delete the link to my site. What is your opinion?
Nice list.
To bad that wordpress doesn’t allow sponsering of thmes anymore.
Elizabeth:
Automatic link exchanges are more organized and you can track links easily, so they are good in terms of having long-term (or even) permanent link trades.
On the other hand, manual link exchanges can build good communication (or even partnership) between webmasters because they are personally sending the messages to each other — not through an automatic link exchange site or something. As you said, only dishonest people destroy the trust between webmasters who exchange links.
I will go for manual link exchanges and use a “link monitor” or something similar to that. Linksnitch.com is an example of these sites.
Qryztufre:
I’ll try to do your challenge when I have time.
Darren and Keral:
Thanks for dropping by! I’m glad that you found the list useful.
OriginalPages:
Yeah, but the sponsored themes can still be submitted to other WP theme sites. They’ll still get a good number of downloads, IMO.
Pretty nice article here. Thanks for sharing. I know now how to get my website to next level increasing its number and quality of links.
Nice list - I keep meaning to try sponsoring a theme.
So do other blog platforms offer anywhere near the benefits of sponsoring a wordpress theme?
amazing list! I will try some of these tactics
Thanks for the great article.
I’ve leaned alot.
Thanks for the article. Other than WP theme sponsorships, you can find a lot of ‘free proxy themes’ to sponsor on webmaster forums like digitalpoint as well.
Jenny:
Other blog platforms’ themes are also good, but nothing beats WP theme sponsoring — they give the most backlinks.
Wii Fit:
Yep, proxy themes are good too. ^_^
Very nice list you got here. Most of this tactics I’ve tried before.
I must say I like link exchange most of them.
Simply contact another webmster, ask him nicely and thats it!
Thanks for putting this great list together. In the spirit of sharing here is are two of my favorite tips if your developing links for a business.
1. Sponsor local events and charities - ask for a link on their sponsors page!
2. Strike a deal with a local college or university alumni association to offer them discounts on your services - and of course ask to be listed on their alumni site. This could just get you a .edu link, not to mention extra business.
Happy Linking!
Sometimes we forget that there are also SEO beginners. These posts are really necesary. Good work.
Commenting and forum posting are the easiest way to get backlinks provided that they don’t put the nofollow attribute on links.
Great list… thanks!
Nice tips, Christopher!
Great to know that you guys liked it.
If you have any other ideas to build links, please share them.
this article is very helpful , thank you for these great tips
Viva Beautiful! Bookmarked and stumbled
Loved the to the point approach and some clarity points 
All the link building tactics you recommend work. I particularly like article submissions and blog commenting. Directory submissions work, too, but submitting to hundreds at a time can kill a lot of brain cells, lol!
I have tried all the link building tactics you recommend, except for blog and website templates sponsorship. Might as well give this a go one of these days. Thanks for the suggestion.
You’re welcome.
[…] actually) but he doesn’t know the right way to build backlinks. He could have used one of the link building tactics, but he decided to use a rather sloppy […]
This is useful information. Of course, now that Google is going after some of the paid links, we might want to be careful about the paid directories that we choose. The point about web template sponsorship interests me. I think I will create some web templates and let others use them for free - with a link to my site at the bottom, of course. Now, if only I am a good enough writer to submit articles to the article directories…..
Nice tips. I definitely needed to read an article like this. I am looking to find ways to increase my backlinks and this is exactly what I needed. Thanks for this awesome post!
Funny pictures must be original. I noticed some sites just grabbed pictures from other sites.
This is a nice list of link building techniques.
I’ve been intending to start posting around on related blogs for some time, but I often find that I either don’t have time or don’t have anything relevant to add. This, I believe, can end up doing you more harm than good. Search engines may find a few more links, but no one who comes across your comment will have any interest in what you have to say on your own blog.
Template sponsoring is not recommended by big G and mattcutt.
I never really noticed this post, but this is great Juggler. Thank you for the info.
It’s such a rich information on the post, still i would like to know, on link anchor shall i have more than two keywords?
or it’s just works better with only one keyword?
James: The keyword/s that you’re targeting would do just fine. If you’re targeting “Free Ringtones”, then use that as your anchor.
Let’s say, may i use “Free Ringtone, Mp3 Ringtones, Pop Music Tones” as Anchor of my link?
There are 3 keyword i have used, or it’s good with only “Free Ringtone”?
I’d recommend building separate links for each of they keywords. So you’ll have to use “Free Ringtone”, “Mp3 Ringtones”, and “Pop Music Tones” (which means you have to build more links).
Wow! I had no idea about all of the different ways that there are out there to build links. I will have to try some of these ASAP!
Great article, thanks for the tips
Wow, these are truly awesome tips and tactics! Had I been a newbie with a home based business online and found this site, I would have been in back link heaven. What I really enjoyed is the connection you made with each tactic, it helps knowing what another person idea is toward different methods available on the net. These tactics not only help someone who’s already wondering to better decide, but the newbie can avoid pitfalls and gain back links at the same time. One other tactic to keep in mind is to keep an excel sheet of the services you have submitted to in case you can only submit once, or want to submit again.
Get great tips and free money tactics from Sista-WAHM’s at Freemoneytactics.com
Cool list of link building tactics! However ,I think Link Popularity demands a practical approach. Drawing the inbound links from many websites is less important than drawing the links from quality websites. The trick is to choose the websites/ article submission sites/ social book marking sites that could be instrumental in letting your website rank higher.
Thanks for sharing this .one more good article about link building. By the way, if you managed to get inbound links from those .org , .gov or .edu . it is much better as there is a saying that these non-profit organization tends to offer more scoring for pagerank.
Those methods are correct unless if they are DO Follow otherwise you wasting your time on link building. For example there are thousand of bookmaking sites but not many of them do follow. which mean those site not offer any back links.
i hope this comment will help to beginners of SEO.
Thank you! And I’m going to start right here! For a regional website (Namibia) link building is really a challenge.