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Earning quality links to your site is a primary factor in your site’s rankings in search engines and it is also one of the greatest challenges in online marketing. Just as building a better mousetrap will not necessarily get you customers, building a remarkable and useful piece of content may not earn you links unless you are proactive in promoting it. The following resources and articles provide many great tactics and tips for building links to your site and my top takeaways from each article.

Link Building Strategies – The Complete List Point Blank SEO
-You can earn a lot of links from live blogging at industry events.
-People tend to share and link to useful tools.
-Create a webinar page on your site and post webinars to it.

The Professional Guide to Link Building SEOMoz
-Build relationships with other blogs in your niche.
-Linking to spammy sites can lower your site’s trust to search engines.
-Google wants links to be an editorial endorsement by the site owner.

The Noob Guide to Link Building SEOMoz
-Sites with unnatural link profiles leaves a footprint that Google can identify.
-You need to create content that people will be compelled to link to. Make news or make friends.

Link Building The Essentials Distilled
-Links are still the biggest factor of SEO. They are a key difference between websites that can be measured by Google.
-Google crawl frequency correlates with the Pagerank of the page.

The Most Creative Link Building Post Ever Point Blank SEO
-Create an extensive resource that would be worth paying for.
-Offer a free quick SEO audit to help the site grow traffic.

The Complete Guide to Link Building With Local Events SEOMoz
-Submit your events to the event section of local news websites.

10 Extraordinary Examples of Effective Link Bait SEOMoz
-People love lists. Make it visually appealing and use social share buttons.

21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries Search Engine Land
-”keyword phrase” sponsor charity
-”public library” “useful links” keyword phrase site:.gov
-keyword phrase “write for us”

Using Copyscape for Easy Links Wins Seer Interactive
-Copyscape premium helps you identify sites that have republished your content and you can ask them to please add a link to give you credit.

Infographic Link Building Using BuzzStream Paddy Moogan
-Search for competitor’s infographics in Google Image search.
-Search for backlinks to your competitor’s infographic URL in Open Site Explorer.

Link Building in a Panda’s World BlueGlass
-Consider getting links from relevant niche forums.

Utilizing Second Tier Link Building for Massive ROI Ross Hudgens
-Consider building links to authoritative pages that link to you like Mashable.

131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies Search Engine Watch
-Produce different types of content like a video, podcast, or infographic.
-Consider pitching a series of guest posts.

51 Essential Link Building Tips Econsultancy
-A lot of people have blogs and have an ongoing need for content which you can fulfill with guest articles.
-Live blog and take photos at conferences you attend.
-Conduct a survey that will be newsworthy.

11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out SugarRae
-If you have pages that have a lot of inbound links, use anchor text internal links to send link juice to important pages.
-It is easier to move from #6 to #2 than rank for a new keyword phrase.
-Ignore the toolbar Page Rank meter.
-Vary everything you can with manual link building to make pattern detection as difficult as possible.

10 Types of Unnatural Link Building Tactics + 10 Quality Alternatives Search Engine Journal
-Focus on directories that are not easy to get into.
-Avoiding no-follow links can result in an unnatural link profile.

Creative Link Building for Ecommerce Sites SEOMoz
-Offer a special discount on a page on your site and let bloggers know about it.

Improving Link Building Response Rates With Persuasive Psychology Buzzstream
-Mention the number of social shares your last guest post received when pitching a guest post.
-Highlight things you have in common with the author.

15 Best Link Building Tools Search Engine Journal
-You can use Amazon Mechanical Turk to inexpensively hire people to work on link building tasks.

10 Ways to Use Images for Link Building Kaiser The Sage
-Consider hiring professional photographers and offering premium photos to bloggers for free.
-Create an image meme with a tool like QuickMeme.

7 Pieces of Sound Advice for Link Building Noobs SEOGadget
-Personalize your email outreach.
-A high quantity of linking domains and a low Page Rank may indicate a poor quality link profile.

Please Exit The Link Building Ross Hudgens
-Think about link building strategies that scale rather than focus on just manual link prospecting.

Broken Link Building: How Napoleon Suarez Gets 8-12% Conversions Citation Labs
-Many people don’t realize how effective broken link building is.

Link Building using old competitor sites & easy content development for SEO (Video) Wil Reynolds
-Look at sites that have given up and recreate their resources to get their links.

9 High Quality Link Building Methods in 2011 Affilorama
-Sign up for Help a Reporter Out so you can find opportunities to help a journalist with a story.

30 Link Building/Link Baiting Techniques That Work in 2011 SEOptimise
-Offer freebies to attract links.
-Leave comments to suggest a resource that should be included in the article.

What Makes an Effective Link Builder SEOMoz
-Read Reddit and Hacker News regularly.
-Link builders with hustle can beat out those with more talent and resources.

62 steps to the definitive link building campaign Wordtracker
-Create a free useful tool.
-Create downloadable guides or white papers.

The Marketer’s Ultimate Guide to Link Bait HubSpot
-Blog articles with infographics (even third party) attracted 178% more inbound links and 72% more views than other posts on Hubspot.
-Publish original data.
-Be the first to produce comprehensive content on a trending topic, e.g. The Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest.

Link Building Tools We Use at Distilled SEOMoz
-Zemanta recommends your content to relevant bloggers.
-MyBlogGuest is a good forum for finding guest blogging opportunities.
-Chrome Web Scraper is a good free Chrome extension for pulling data from websites for download into Excel.

A Linkbuilder’s Gmail Productivity Setup (with Outreach Emails from 4 Industry Linkbuilders) SEOMoz
-Use Gmail keyboard shortcuts to save time.
-Customize your guest post ideas for each site you contact.
-Use the Canned Responses feature in Gmail.

You Can get Links from Cold Outreach TripleSEO
-Create an information gap that creates a desire for the person to find the answer.
-Don’t include the link in the first email you send to a contact.

SEO Guide to Creating Viral Linkbait and Infographics Distilled
-Build a persona of why potential link prospects might look like.
-Link bait should be incredibly compelling content that link prospects feel compelled to share.
-Short succinct emails win.

7 Strategies for Getting .edu Links Portent
-Colleges often link out to relevant scholarships that are offered by companies.
-College career centers sometimes link to companies that have recently hired students.
-Many colleges have job boards where you can post a job and earn a link.

Scaling Link Building (video) SEOMoz
-You can offer perks that are inexpensive but provide great value to employees.
-Outsourcing content can be effective but it is difficult to outsource outreach.

33 Links & How To Get Them Justin Briggs
-Go beyond a sponsorship and get involved in a worthy cause.
-Give a news publisher a scoop so they can be the first to report news about your company.
-If you are covered by a major blog, you can use Stumbleupon ads to boost the article to the homepage.

10 Ways to Increase the Odds of Getting Editorial Links Search Engine Watch
-If you are mentioned but they don’t link, you can suggest that they mention where readers can find the original source.
-Provide a regularly updated list of useful information. Example: BeatofHawaii.com maintains a list of free parking spots in Hawaii.

How to Scale Your Link Building Ross Hudgens
-Develop evergreen linkable assets that continue to earn links passively over time.
-Your linkable asset should appeal to a large target audience.
-The more you practice a specific tactic, the more effective you can become.

How To Be More Persuasive – Psychology 101 for Link Builders Triple SEO
-Point out common interests with the person you are reaching out to.
-We have have a strong tendency to be consistent with our past actions.
-The more exposure you have to someone, the more inclined you are to like them.

How to Really Build Backlinks and Dominate Google Viperchill
-There are tons of sites that feature beautiful site designs.
-Be cautious with link exchanges.

Creative Broken Link Building Tips with Jon Cooper SEOBook
-Find links to content that has been removed. Use archive.org to find out what the content looked like and rebuild it. Then contact sites that are linking to the removed content and ask for them to link to the updated content that you created.

101 Ways to Link Build in 2012 Search Engine Journal
-Create a useful online tool.
-People love to share list posts.

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity SEOBook
-Create a list of gurus or experts.
-Stay away from link trading networks.
-Only pursue link exchanges that you would pursue if search engines didn’t exist.

10 High Quality Link Building Tactics Buzzstream
-Sign up your office for volunteer events with local charities.
-Create a survey of thought leaders or business owners.

30 Advanced Link Building Techniques Single Grain
-Produce high quality photos and license them under Creative Commons so bloggers can use them.
-Offer to update outdated information on sites in return for a link.

Link-building Tips and Tools for Bloggers in a Post-Panda and Penguin World Problogger
-Provide valuable comments on a blog before pitching a guest post.

The 6 Month Link Building Plan for an Established Website SEOMoz
-Social media and link building are becoming more intertwined.
-Large companies often have lots of great content that can be repurposed.

How to Automate Link Building Kaiser the Sage
-Ranking highly for informational searches can help you earn links naturally.
-Invite people with a large following to contribute to your blog.

11 Ways to Create Linkbait with Zero Budget Skyrocket SEO
-Curate a collection of tips from experts in your industry.
-Create ego bait that strokes the ego of people in your industry.
-Create a world class beginner’s guide for your niche.

Content Based Outreach for Link Building Outspoken Media
-Websites don’t give links, people give links.
-Develop personas of the audience you want to earn links from.

Bucketing Link Prospects for Link Outreach John Doherty
-High value link targets are pitched every day so you have to make a compelling case and/or build a relationship.
-Set up a Google Alert for the name of a high value link target.
-Don’t ever spin content for guest posts.

Link Building Means Earning “Hard Links” Not “Easy Links” Search Engine Land
-Avoid getting links that anyone can get.
-Pursue links that people might click on to visit your site.

The 3 Link Building Tools I Always Use (And How I use Them) State of Search
-Google advanced search queries are great for finding link opportunities.
-Export Twitter accounts from FollowerWonk into Excel and filter for accounts with a website.

11 Creative Ways to Build Links Quicksprout
-Interview industry experts since they will often link back to their interview.
-Create a quiz with an embeddable badge that shows the quiz taker’s score.

7 Uncommon and Powerful Link Building Techniques Search Engine Journal
-Hire an influential blogger to write for your site.
-Publish an eBook on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble marketplace.
-Offer a free service to influencers.

20 Resources To Add To Your Link Tool Arsenal Right Now Search Engine Land
-Citation Labs will find contact emails from a list of URLs.

5 Ways to Increase your Link Building Efficiency State of Search
-Use the Check My Links extension for Chrome to quickly find broken links on a page.
-Don’t ask for a link, ask for feedback and then show them that you took their advice.

Link Building for the Little Guys SEOMoz
-Create a weekly roundup that highlights interesting blog articles then reach out to the authors.

Link Building 101 – The Almost Complete Link Guide (Updated for Post-Penguin) SEOMoz
-Most ranking factors are external sources like links, citations, and social.
-The safest links are within the content section of a page (not sidebars or footer).

Culture Building: 8 Local Link Building Tactics Beyond Business Listings Whitespark
-Take professional photos of your city and submit them to sites that feature photos of your city (these sites can be found by searching for “your-city + photos” in Google).

Bullet Proof Link Building Strategies For 2013 — The Experts Weigh In Vysibility
-Help webmasters with things like spelling or site errors.
-Provide high quality and unique images. It is easy to get links when people use your images.
-Broken link building is one the last scalable link building techniques.

8 Tips To Increase Your Link Building Efficiency Search Engine Land
-Boomerang provides reminders if you haven’t heard back from a contact after a certain amount of time so that you can follow up with them.

How to Attract .Edu Links Through Blogger Outreach BlueGlass
-Use Mailtester.com to guess if an email address exists on a server.

Rapid Fire Link Building Strategies Seer Interactive

-Export sites that have commented on your blog into a spreadsheet since they are good link prospects. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seer-contact-exporter/
-Search Follower Wonk for writers of online publications like Huffington Post that cover your niche.

8 Link Building Tips SEOMoz

-Ask people who tweet your infographic if they can link to it.
-Search for blogging Amazon Wish List and send them a gift.
-Create a profile page on your company site for people who get interviewed by news sites.

Outreach for Linkbuilding SEOMoz

-Being enthusiastic is more important than being unique for outreach.
-Forums are where people who are passionate about a niche hang out.
-Don’t just track links, track relationships.

Scalable Link Building Using Social Media SEOMoz

-Send email requests as a person, not as a company.
-Use a short email subject that stands out.
-Use a natural salutation (this is often seen in the email preview).
-Create a contest where people enter by writing a blog post and linking to you.

High-Value Tactics, Future-Proof Link Building SEOMoz

-Pursue links where you don’t have control over the anchor text.
-Use press releases to draw attention to your linkable asset.
-Include a link in the content of guest posts that points to your linkable asset.