Building quality, one way links to your website can be difficult, time consuming and frustrating. It is generally agreed that the best way to build links is to build them gradually over time, relying on natural links to your original, frequently updated content.

There are, however, a few shortcuts to building up links. They are not easy ways to make your site popular, nor are they guaranteed to work for everybody. They are simply some casual tips to help you obtain a few quality inbound links.

Submit Articles to Digg

Google absolutely loves Digg. The site is spidered very frequently and the domain has a lot of authority in terms of link building. Even stories with no diggs will still be spidered, so long as there is a navigational path for the spiders to use to reach it. Google cannot use the number of diggs as any sort of authority when ranking a URL, yet...

For the best long term effects only submit good quality articles to Digg. Or better yet, let your users submit the articles that they think are worthwhile. You will quickly get a reputation as a spammer if you keep posting unpopular content.

Other Social Networking sites

Submitting to social bookmarking and social networking sites can be hot and miss for some people.

Some social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Twitter use "nofollow" on their links so they cannot influence rankings. Other sites, such as Furl, do not.

Having your links on a few social network profiles may also be useful in building up the number of links. For others it is simply not worth it. While some, such as Facebook, do use "nofollow" on their links, some do not. However, the weight that these links carry is relatively low, despite the authority these domains actually carry.

"Widgetbait"

"Widgetbait" is a term thrown around for an object that is added to a user's website or blog. This item features a link back to the author’s website. If the object is installed on many thousands of websites, this results in many thousands of backlinks. The classic examples of widgetbait include online quizzes, IQ tests or horoscopes.

While these links are valuable to some, for others the quality of the link and the traffic it brings is just too low. If the text of the link bears no relation to the page in which it is contained, Google becomes suspicious. Additionally, the text that links back to the site must relate to the widget, and, the link must go back to the author’s website, not a third party site.

A classic example of spammy widgetbait would be an IQ test that features a text link to an online dating site. Google would soon hear of this and the sites involved, including the sites distributing the widget and the site being linked to would be penalised.

The Best Kind of WidgetBait: Just Build Something Useful

The best type of widgetbait is to simply create something that people want to use. Classic examples of this are Winamp Skins, modifications for forum software such as Invision Power Board and plugins or themes for Wordpress. Why are these good ideas? They will result in you being listed on the official website of each respective product. These sites are popular and the links they feature carry a lot of influence.

Find high PageRank Sites that allow Backlinks

This excellent tool from Seo Chat (http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/) allows you to perform a web search and sort the results by PageRank. You can look for websites relevant to your content from which you may be able to get backlinks. Good examples include forums and blogs. Always ensure that these sites do not use "nofollow" on their links.

What About Directories?

Web directories used to be incredibly helpful in building up the number of incoming links to a website. The usefulness of directories is decreasing over time and many people question whether there is any worth in pursuing directory submissions at all. The two notable exceptions to this are the Open Directory Project and Yahoo! Directory. The following list outlines the main problems with using directories. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide if it is a strategy worth pursuing.

Does it Check the Quality and Topic of Submissions?

Any free-for-all web directory that has not been penalised by Google is just one site review away from being so. These are nothing more than spam farms. The directory's editors should at least check the site to verify the given information and ensure the site is legitimate.

On a similar note, web directories should generally be targeted to a specific audience. Most general web directories that have no specific focus will not be of any use to you.

Can it Still Pass PageRank?

While PageRank is far from being the answer to every SEO question, it is still a useful indication as to how "useful" Google thinks a page is. Bear in mind that the most up to date Page Rank is at least a few months old. Use the following strategy to determine if a site has been penalised in Google:

• Search for the website's title in Google

• Search for a large block of text from the site's homepage

• Search for the actual domain in Google

If the site doesn't rank for one and two, but it does for number three, it has been penalised in Google and probably won't be able to pass PageRank. If it does not rank for any of these steps, the site has probably not been indexed by Google.

Any directory that has been penalised by Google has done something against Google's guidelines. Don't associate your website with any directory like this. Google is seriously cracking down on paid links. Any spammy web directory, particularly those that charge for links, are in the firing line as far as being penalised by Google.

Does a Link on this Directory Actually Mean Anything?

Don't submit to a directory just for a link. Make sure the link is worth your time. A link is not worth having if:

• The specific category pages are not indexed,

• There are too many links on a single page - having too many links on a single page with dilute down the ranking influence that is passed, or

• The directory has very little traffic to send to your website

If you decide to use a web directory, this article entitled 50 Page Rank 3 Or Higher Free Website Directories is a good resource (http://awebmastersguide.blogspot.com/2008/05/50-page-rank-3-or-higher-free-website.html). Just remember to assess the quality of the directory first.

Areas to Avoid

Two of the main places that people try to spam for backlinks are Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia. Both of these sites use "nofollow" in their links. There is often misunderstanding and false information given about this, but it is true for both sites. If the situation ever changes or you need to verify it for yourself, simply look at the source code on each website. The new service from Google, Knol, also uses a nofollow meta tag to prevent any links being followed.