It is every blogger’s dream: to be read by as many people as possible. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Several things have to fall into place to capture that wide audience.

First is to get the word out that your blog exists, second is to hold visitors’ interest in what they are reading, third is to make them return for more, and fourth is for them to start referring you to others.

That is why when SEO marketers sit down with blog owners to talk about increasing audience viewership, one of the strategies they instantly recommend is to build as many links to the site as possible.

Just how does link building equate to a wide captive audience?

The equation goes something like this: links to your blog from other sites generate referral traffic and increase your blogs’s Google page ranking.

The former is possible when users go to another site and click on the link from that site to your blog. The second is when Google’s search algorithms consider the links to your site as a vote of referral from the other sites, taking that to mean that you are a site of substance, thereby elevating your page rank. The higher the page rank of your blog means that when users search via Google, your blog will be one of the first ten sites listed on the first page.

Sources of Blog Links

When you commit to link building, there are many sources where you can get these links. Below are a few of them:

Common-niche blogs, websites, forums, and communities. Visit these sites and drop a comment or two in forum messages and posts. Be helpful by answering questions or offering information. Sign your posts on these sites with a link to your blog site. As your presence in these sites is established, so will your blog site generate more traffic.

Social networking sites. StumbleUpon and Digg have proven track records in generating traffic to sites, so take advantage of this. Consider other sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well.

Directory submissions. This technique is still good for link building, but you have to be careful to submit your site to quality directory sites only, because there are many directories out there that turn out to be mere link farms.

More Tools and Tips for Link Building

Link sources may be there for the taking, but the key to success is in actually keeping in mind the following rule-of-thumb:

Link building takes time. Many sites require webmaster’s approval for links to be established. And with Google suspicious of a sudden increase in links, a slow but sure approach gets the links in the long run.

Link building means never having to give up. Not all link-building efforts strike gold – moderators and webmasters may disapprove of your posts, or remove your link signatures, or worse, consider you spam. Continue your link-building and don’t get discouraged.

Link to quality sites. Although they are more discriminating in whom to give their links, links from quality sites are worth more than low-ranked sites.

Create quality content. Interesting and useful content gives your link requests a higher chance of being accepted and your blog linked to by other sites.

Successful link-building for your blog generates referral traffic and increases your blogs’s Google page ranking. The result? A bigger blog readership than ever before.