There’s no doubt about it that building high-quality inbound links to your website is hard work. While many website owners resort to spamming blog comment sections in order to get their backlinks, that’s neither a necessary nor effective tactic for your SEO efforts.

However, link building strategies aren’t as challenging to implement as many individuals say that they are. Think of the process of link building like social media: if you’re a source of great content – and you get it in front of the correct people – they’re going to share it.

Search engines are in search of two criteria when they evaluate your website links and determine your website ranking: quantity and quality. This means that both the number as well as the relevance of your links are crucial if you want to get your website found faster by search engines in addition to by potential clients.

The different types of links

The number of links to, from as well as within your website come from three areas:

  • Inbound links are links to your website that come from third-party sources
  • Outbound links are links to other websites the originate from your website
  • Internal links are links between individual pages on your own website

However merely having a lot of links isn’t all you need to think about. The quality of your links is important as well. While your goal must be to build a good mix of inbound, outbound in addition to internal links, those links have to be applicable to your content, business, industry and audience. In addition, you can’t forget that the basic, naturally occurring links are extremely powerful too.

The most valuable — and indeed the most difficult link to acquire – is the inbound link. This is especially  true of an inbound link which comes from an industry-authority website.

The reason why an inbound link is valuable is because it means that someone else on the Internet has visited your website and is giving it a stamp of approval. This  action,when  repeated over and over by people all across the web, means achieving what everyone website owner wants for their website — thriving traffic.

Here are three ideas for building quality inbound links to your website.

Get social

Grab a profile on the social networks which you can commit to be active on and fill out the full profile. Once you have your profile established take advantage of all of the features which are offered, especially linking to your website as well as blog. This action not only increases your visibility but also builds links to your website in addition to preventing others from using your name or business name on those social networks.

Reviews on Amazon

Amazon offers a great way to review books as well as products, build a reputation as a credible reviewer, in addition to a profile with a link to your website. In addition you can use your Amazon reviews as a sort of satellite blog, a place to offer your insights, intelligence as well as helpful advice to consumers who are trying to find the right book or product.

Publish online articles

The world of publishing online has made it possible for any person with gumption to publish an article for the entire world to read. Websites such as Ezine Articles, Articles Base in addition to Self-Growth offer free membership in addition to the opportunity to publish your articles on their website.

These sites offer a great opportunity to display your expertise in front of a new audience, a much bigger audience, the most significant benefit is the author resource box, which is also known as the author bio box. This is added to the end of each article. You can control the content in your author bio box in addition to the links you may include as well. This means readers who like your piece will have the opportunity to click through the link you include to your website.

Ultimately, link building is about building a network in addition to a solid base of quality content which offers value to the world – particularly your industry. This value is what draws not just customers and influencers to your website, but it also signals to Google that you are a genuine brand with in-depth knowledge on a topic that is relevant to consumers.