A website thrives and indeed survives on the number of hits it receives from its target audience. This may sound pretty obvious but it is amazing how many new web sites seem to disregard this basic tenet, more often than not to their own detriment.

While the creation and subsequent presence of effective links within your website is a crucial factor in ensuring that your website is well optimized for search engines, it is still only one factor and you should take the time to explore other means by which you can achieve a successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.

This article will be focusing primarily on Link development but you would do well to be aware of the other factors of successful SEO such as the Text component, which involves the use of various words and phrases that your target audience will most likely types into search queries and the Popularity component which has to do with the number and quality of links pointing to a Web site.

One of the most important things to keep in mind and one that eludes most first-time web developers is that high-quality link development takes a considerable amount of time. There is simply no way to get around this fact and many web developers who resort to the use of spidering software as opposed to actual human efforts are bound to experience less than satisfactory results.

Link farms have as of recent times already garnered an unsavory reputation but for those who are new at this it bears repeating that you should avoid these at all costs. In almost all cases, a text link that you purchase from a link farm will have absolutely no value and therefore have no use for you. Be wary of sites that feature several links that obviously have nothing to do with each other and are irrelevant to that particular site’s theme and general content. This is not a hard and fast rule however, as there are many reputable sites that host a large number of links. Take your time to determine which ones can actually be of value to you.

Relevance is of course of primary importance and to this end you should make sure that any links that you host on your site are relevant to your content and general theme. You can help ensure this by targeting most of your link purchases to sites that have the same subject matter as yours. This will result in a better link profile that will eventually translate into more publicity for your site and higher visibility in search engine results.

One of the easiest considerations to miss when you are in the midst of a link buying frenzy is whether the domain name that you are buying the link from is actually still operational. Many domains that are in fact expired still show up in Google so you may unwittingly fall for one of them. Check the status of the domains in question yourself and if they are expired it may be best to avoid them and save yourself the money; they probably will not be of any use to you.

Probably? Yes, because in some cases, even if the domain has expired it could still be of some use to you if it has good backlinks. Whether a site is good or not is largely dependent on the quality as well as quantity of its backlinks. Both active and expired domains can have a favorable backlink profile so do not automatically discount a domain just because it has expired.

You should of course always check your links for page ranking and make sure it is the current page ranking and not a fake one. http://www.digpagerank.com/ is a good site to check your current page ranking.

One of the most important factors that can affect the quality of a backlink is the number of outbound links. Generally speaking, a good quality backlink will have as few outbound links as possible. The total number of outbound links on a page will also have an impact on the value of a particular page.

You should also consider the possibility of buying links as a means of increasing traffic to your site as opposed to buying links for the purpose of increasing page ranking. This could potentially provide more direct benefits and even profits for you.

Some other things to keep in mind: contextual links are supposedly seen by Google as being more natural and therefore will prioritize these over other links. .gov or .edu links are not treated as special in any way by Google so consider carefully the benefits of hosting such links. Look for a site that has similar keywords to yours for a better ranking in Google search engine results page. Finally, it would be best to avoid purchasing a site wide text link if all the other outbound links on that site have nothing to do with the site in question.

Building effective links is one of the most time consuming and challenging aspects of web site design. Ultimately, link building can spell the difference between a high search engine ranking web page and one that disappears in a sea of similar web sites, so it is best to take the time to do it right.

Search engine algorithms are changed often on Google and other popular search engines. Following algorithm changes are often left to the professionals, however effective linking continues to be the most decisive factor in search engine optimization and will likely be for several years more.

Links as the name implies, are the most basic connectors to all the pages on the Internet and is the easiest way for a given application to gauge the relevance and integrity of a web page.

People love lists; find a way to integrate a list into your site. This can be anything from a list of tips or things to avoid or a list suggested reading, for example. Lists give the impression of being a definitive source of information and many people will want to link to them.

Often people will link to a site if they feel that it is an authority on a given subject; they will then feel confident about recommending that site to other people. That is what link building is all about after all, a sort of digital referral or stamp of approval. Every web site should strive to have reliable and well-researched content. Try to keep content informative and simple to read; if no one can understand what your web site says they probably won’t want to link to it! Check your text for spelling or grammatical errors; a web site riddled with incorrect spelling and poor sentence construction doesn’t seem very professional or authoritative.

Online news sites are a good way to establish links. Some of the things you can do are: submit an article for online publication or syndicate an article with a news site. Reputable sites usually enjoy a high search engine rank for their articles and receive plenty of traffic. You may also send press releases or trade articles with other sites…or even write an article about another site and ask then to link back to your site; most will be happy to repay the favor.

Establish contacts with the Better Business Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce in your area or the relevant city and state government offices. You may even look around closer to home by submitting your link to the local library or exchanging links with local businesses in your area; even non-competing businesses in the same field.

Submit your site to directories that allow free submissions such as DMOZ or even paid directories. You can even take this a step further by creating your own directory of similar web sites. You can obviously link to your own site here and even include other important pages in addition to the home page. Quality listings are important here so if it is a useful directory to the most number of people, it will easily attract links.

You may want to post a link to your site in classifieds sites such as Craigslist or if you belong to user groups like Yahoo and Google groups it is often acceptable to post links to your site if you are asking or answering a question. Just make sure it is in the context of the discussion, as most people do NOT to be spammed.

Comments and reviews are also great ways to attract people to link back to your site. If you have a reputable looking site with informative, well-written reviews, there’s a good chance that the articles will receive high search engine rankings. Try to keep your reviews on-topic, informative and thorough, and be specific whenever possible.

Blogging has become an integral part of the Internet and is one of the most effective means of linking; you can either drop a few words of comment on someone’s blog or link to them from your own blog. Most blogs will be happy to link back to you. Try to update your blog regularly and post interesting content so people will want to link to you.

If your budget permits, explore the possibility of hiring a professional web-linking publicist (yes they do exist!) or consultant for your web site. If you choose carefully this will free you up to take care of other areas of your web site and leave the details of link building to the experts.

Those are a few things to do to create good links, what about things you should avoid? These methods will actually hurt your visibility on the web as it may cause search engines to ban your site or ignore it altogether!

Do not spam forums! Nobody likes a spammer and can usually tell if someone joins a discussion forum for the sole purpose of self-promotion. A sure way to annoy people is to post a non-relevant reply to a question and then include a link…or worse not even answer the question at all!

Choose carefully when submitting your site to directory services; a poor one won’t help increase your traffic at all and may carry out-of-date or off topic links.

When asking someone to link to your site, make sure that there is a good reason why he should; maybe your site is similar to his own in subject matter or your site showcases him, his products or his web site in a favorable light.

Take the time to compose a polite, well written personal request for linking. It doesn’t have to be long but the important thing is to make it seem like a genuine request as opposed to an impersonal, automated email. Do not pester a Webmaster with several, persistent emails; it is annoying and will not likely help your cause any. If you don’t get a reply, move on.