Links are important. They’re what let us rank well in Google’s search engine, as well as others. And you probably already know this.

But what many people are forgetting, in the age of paid SEO and Web 2.0 strategies, is that traditional link-building techniques still work.

Unfortunately, many people forget that for these easy, free techniques to work, you have to work them! All the time. Not just once or twice.

Any good linking campaign depends on persistent, consistent action. Here are some simple and no-cost strategies that will help you rank better in the search engines, as long as they’re applied consistently.

Article directories. Articles are good for backlinks for many reasons. Most of them have a bio box, true. But you can also list your web sites in the articles you submit to directories.

Some of the better directories don’t like when you blatantly point to your own sites. But who says you have to be blatant about it?

You can always link to a website, in your body text, that’s not the same website in your author bio. It doesn’t have to be in the same niche. You can probably find an excuse or two, on occasion, to link to a website that’s not in the same niche as your article.

But if you can-consider starting another website in the same niche. Then you can give that site links (often "dofollow"-tagged) straight from the body text of your article.

Even a couple of articles a week can really help out your site. Not only are they good linking strategy, they also increase your brand authority and trust when they’re well-written and highly informative.

Press releases. Press releases are great for a number of reasons. For one thing, they can get you into Google news results. In some cases, they can propel you straight onto the first page of Google!

Various keywords have various kinds of media display in regular Google search engine result pages. "Regular" results are web pages. But sometimes results from images search, blog search, video, shopping, or news pop up on that first page. If you see news pop up, then it’s worth your time to try a press release.

Web directories. Nobody talks much about these anymore, but they are still relevant. These can still be good for your linking strategy, although you should avoid the spammy-looking ones. Especially pay attention to niche directories.

Be careful not to submit to too many directories a month. One to three, occasionally four a day is not a bad pace. Consistency AND variation are good for your linking strategy. Consistent links tell Google your site is relevant. But TOO consistently linking can make you look like you’re buying links--and you don’t want to look like that!