Arguably, the hardest part of gaining top search engine rankings is building quality backlinks pointing to your site. Getting a sufficient quantity of quality links is a challenge. In this article, we'll discuss a few methods that can help you build more quality links.

Method #1: Manual Link Exchanges

Link Quality: Medium

Link Exchanges, or link swapping, is an industry standard way of building incoming links. Very simply, you agree to link to link to site XYZ in return for them linking to your site.

I highly recommend that you use software to manage your reciprocal links. A good piece of software will ensure that all of your link partners continue linking to you, & will automatically organize links by category. I recommend SolvoLink, which you can download free at http://www.free-link-exchange-software.com There are others, such as Links Manager, but you have to buy them. SolvoLink is good enough for the average webmaster.

Once you install a link exchange management script on your site, you will need to find webmasters with sites related to yours that want to swap links. Here are a few free tools that you can use to locate other webmasters to exchange links with:

http://value-exchange.sitesell.com
http://www.linkalizer.com
http://www.addurldirectory.com

Method #2: Articles

Link Quality: High

Article marketing is an excellent way of getting free, high-quality links pointing back to your site. Here is how it works: You write a informative article sharing your expertise in an area. Include a signature in your article that includes links to your site. Then submit it to article distribution directories. Other webmasters will use your article as content for their site, & include the links to your site.

To get a list of sites that you can submit your articles to, go to http://www.internetsuccesskey.com/submit-article.html I update this list occasionally as I find new sites.

Method #3: Buy Links

Link Quality: Varies

You can buy links, either one-by-one, or in quanities. You should be cautious buying large quantities of links, as you could be penalized if the search engines did not like it. Also, most links bought in quantity are very low quality. On the other hand, buying links individually can be very expensive. Buying links, though, is an option you should at least keep in mind.

These three link building methods are the three most dependable methods I have used. Use these methods, & I promise that you will have more inbound links than ever before!