As you can imagine, with the importance of links in SEO the topic has been discussed quite a bit. In fact, there are guides, blogs, and even businesses devoted entirely to the subject. So, rather than try to list every method you could use to increase the number of links to your site, I figured I’d give you my five favorites.

Submit to Directories

Directory submission was quite popular a few years ago but has recently fallen out of favor. The number of worthless directories out there led Google to largely devalue links from many directories across the web.

Luckily, there are still several high quality directories that provide valuable links. The most popular are Yahoo’s Directory (paid), Best of the Web (paid) and Dmoz.org (free but can be difficult to get into), however, niche or industry specific sites can also provide quite a bit of value.

A common complaint about directory submission is that it’s time consuming. While that’s true, there are services out there that will do the leg work for you.

My favorite, Directory Maximizer, will hand submit your site to a list of over 1,000 SEO friendly directories at a rate of $14 per every 100 directories. And, you can select an option to spread out the submissions over several weeks so you don’t end up with 100’s of new inbound links in a single day, all raising red flags over at the Googleplex.

Blog

While this might seem like an obvious point, you’d be surprised how many sites still don’t have blogs attached to them. Quite simply, if you’re site doesn’t have a blog on it, it should. I’ve heard people talk about how they think blogs make the sites look less professional and  how it’s a hassle trying to keep them updated etc etc etc. Frankly, thats BS.

If you can have a site on the topic, you can and should have a blog. If you don’t want to write on a regular basis, pay someone to do it for you. You’d be surprised what kind of quality content you can get for a few bucks.

No, having a blog does not magically create new links to your site. But blogs, even a bad ones, attract links fairly naturally.

Link Out

Once you have a blog set up, another easy way to gain more links is to link out to other blogs. Whether it’s through trackback links on a post, through the dashboard in the Wordpress admin panel, or sites like Technorati, the blogger you link to will probably see the link. And, as the law of reciprocity states, they’ll be much more likely to link back to you in the future because of it.

Syndicate Content

Another easy method of link building is to create content to place on other sites. Whether it’s guest posting on another blog, or submitting submitting articles to sites like ezinearticles.com, trading content for links is win/win propositions. The webmaster gets fresh content, you get a link.

People often ask how to go about finding these opportunities but the answer’s pretty simple: ask. If you regularly read a blog in your niche and think you could provide useful content, send the blogger an email asking to guest post. I’ve had content published on blogs with tens of thousands of readers, simply because I bothered to ask.

Great Content

With the advent of Web 2.0 and the social media revolution, the spread of information has become even easier. Linkbait, viral content, pillar content, no matter what tag you slap on it, the concept is the same: create remarkable content that people want to share with others. Chris Garrett calls it “Flagship Content” and explains it like this:

Flagship Content … builds its own momentum and delivers targeted visitors back to you. It works as an ambassador for your blog and for your brand. Flagship Content is content that represents you in the most positive light. It’s an authority builder.

This content can take all sorts of forms (ebooks, guides, resource lists, tools, etc) but in the online world, sharing your content and delivering targeted vistors means one thing: links.

While some are easier than others, each of these 5 methods will help increase the number of links pointing to your website.  Even if potential buyers don’t value inbound links as much as an SEO would, the results produced by those links are certain to catch their eye.

Not only do new links provide traffic when clicked, they also help increase the amount of search engine traffic your site receives. Whether your site is monetized with ads or products, increased traffic translates into increased revenue, and revenue is valued by every potential site buyer I’ve ever seen.

More Link Building Resources

• 5 Link Building Strategies that Work
• 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website
• 20 Linkbaiting Techniques

The entire premise of flipping websites hinges on the ability to increase the value of a site you’ve purchased, before selling it off for a profit. While the usual suspects of redesigning the site, increasing revenue, and boosting traffic are discussed quite a bit, one of my favorite methods tends to get the cold shoulder.

Link Building

Ok, being in the search engine optimization (SEO) field for so long has obviously made me a bit biased. I automatically place value on links pointing to a site. However, many of you, and more importantly many of your buyers might not view links the same way I do. So if your buyers might not value it, why am I insisting that link building is still a worthwhile way to increase the value of any site you plan on flipping?

Click Through Traffic

Unless this is your first time on the internet you realize that links are the way the web is traveled. When someone links to your site, they’re telling their visitors that your page or site is worth looking at. Every time one of those links, you’re increasing traffic to your site. If you manage to receive links from popular sites, the increase in traffic can be quite substantial. Obviously not every link will bring thousands of new visitors but click through traffic isn’t the only way links will benefit your site.

Search Engine Traffic

Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and explain all the ins and outs of SEO in a single post. (There are plenty of great SEO blogs you can check out for that kind of info.) But the basic premise is that links pointing to your site (also known as inbound links) are viewed by search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc) as a “vote” for your site.

Each of those votes help your site rank better in the search engines for whatever anchor text (the blue clickable text of the link) the link uses. For example, this link to my Site Flipping Resource List will help that page rank better in a Google search for that term. The higher you rank for popular search terms, the more traffic your site will receive.

More Money

An increase of traffic doesn’t always correlate to an increase in income. Traffic that isn’t unrelated or uninterested in your site’s topic probably won’t provide much value.

However, when someone clicks on a link or a listing in the search engines they usually have a good idea what your site is about. As a result, the visitors will convert at a much better rate than say social media traffic. And increased conversions, whether that’s purchasing a product or subscribing to a blog, are always reflected in the bottom line.

So now that you know the value of inbound links, how do you actually go about building them? Check back Wednesday (or subscribe to the blog via email or our RSS feed) for the second half of this post when I’ll share 5 cheap and easy methods for building links.

By the time you read this I should be in the recovery room after some minor back surgery to fix a issue I had with a disc. I tell you this for two reasons. First of all, I’ll be out of commission for a while so posting here is going to be a bit more spread out than I’d like it to be. I have a few posts ready and there might even be a guest post or two but even so, posting frequency is going to slow down slightly.

More importantly though, the thought occurred to me that surgery really is what’s often required for a successful site flip. So, in the spirit of embracing the post slowing annoyance also known as a partial discectomy, I’d like to discuss the 4 stages of Site Surgery.

Diagnosis

More often than not in flipping, you’ll be dealing with a site that has some sort of issue or problem. The first step in a successful flip is going to be diagnose or identify what is wrong. While the problem might be something obvious like a horrible design, it might also be something a bit more subtle like using the wrong types of offers to monetize the traffic.

Prescription

Like any good doctor, once you make the diagnosis you’ll need to figure out what course of action is needed. Does the site need a complete redesign or just a few tweaks? Do you need to have a bunch of brand new content written or would one or two viral posts suffice? Perhaps the site would be improved by moving it to a new domain or just some better sales copy on the auction listing. Once you’ve decided what prescription is needed it’s time to move on to treatment.

Treatment

No practitioner will proclaim to be able to do any and all procedures you might need. That’s precisely why there are brain surgeons, podiatrists, and everything in between. Rather than become a jack of all trades, medicine encourages specialization. The same principle applies to buying and selling websites. Instead of spending time learning Photoshop to improve a site’s design or becoming a prolific copywriter to improve a site’s content, “refer” your site to a specialist. Spend your time on whatever aspect of site flipping you’re best at. You’ll not only be more efficient that way, but you’ll also avoid a lot of frustration and possible burnout.

Follow Up

After treatment, any good doctor will tell you that you absolutely MUST follow up. Once you make the changes, tracking the results will tell you whether or not it was the right course of treatment. Has the new design resulted in a lower bounce rate? Have the new articles attracted the traffic or the links you were hoping for? Are the new product offerings or ads resulting in increased revenue? By following up after treatment you’ll be able to identify whether further work is needed or the site has been “healed” and is ready for sale.

Did I miss any steps in the process? Why type of site “surgeon” are you? Feel free to weigh in with your opinion in the comment section below!