Link building strategies for search engine traffic consist of four types of links: in-site links, inbound, external, and reciprocal links. Encouraging other sites to link to yours can result in a higher value placed on your site's pages. Links are treated as "votes" for the page that will raise your site's importance in search engine logarithms; the effectiveness depends on quality and relevance of the linking sites.

In-site links are those placed on the pages using keyword-rich anchor text linking to the other relevant pages. These links are used to extend the navigation ease and readability of the pages for search engine spiders. If not done at the time of design, the SEO may have to re-word the content so that keywords for smooth embedding will be placed in the paragraphs. In order to do away with the underline and coloring of the links, the HTML element STYLE="text-decoration:none" is used in the link.

Most day-to-day business SEO programs focus on inbound links from other sites. Inbound links also rely on anchor text so that keywords can stand out to search engine spiders. Directories, articles, blogs, press releases, and eZines are places to publish content containing links to your pages. When content is re-published there is a universal agreement to publish the links as well. This is an example of Viral Content, where links multiply as the content is downloaded and re-published.

Outbound links are similar to reciprocal linking, where you contact (or are contacted by) another site to trade links. With an unsolicited link to a site however, there would be less work involved. People like to get free things so they may volunteer a backlink if they like your site and its Google page rank. If a good number of quality sites are involved in link exchanges this will help promotion in search engine rankings.

Link-baiting means creating content that will attract backlinks naturally. Articles and blogs are common ways get links as they are re-published. Webmasters will download them to add to their sites' content. There are "share" buttons on source directories so that the content can be sent to social media and bookmarking sites. Depending on the business, many ideas can be used for link-baiting - running a newsworthy event, build a useful tool that links back to you, give something valuable for free, become an expert in your niche, write something controversial, make a theme, plugin, or a piece of software, be the first to do something online, issue a press release, a funny video or cartoon...anything that will gain attention enough to encourage relevant sites to link back to you.

Catching the attention of a Web audience has to be planned carefully to ensure that there is a clear goal by which to measure success. In a press release by PR expert Ken Lyons, he explains the importance of setting a goal and create highly interesting content. He describes how his PR firm got a link from the New York Times: "Since our primary goal was to earn a link from a national publication, we created link bait with a "news hook," i.e. content that would leverage hot and trending topics and tap into public passion."

In 1997, the father of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee stated that there is no copyright infringement making a link to a publicly viewable document yet in 2010 Nikkei blocked this free speech issue and made it a requirement for anyone linking to their web site to fill out a written application requesting permission. This indicates that Nikkei is recognizing the fact that linking to them increases the value of the linking site.