In addition to web directories, there are many blogs and other websites that discuss your topic. Contact the owners of these blogs and websites, and discuss the possibility of a link to your site, in exchange for a “reciprocal” link from your site back to theirs.

It helps if you provide valuable content on your site that is worth linking to.

Do a Google search for other websites that are in related fields to your own but who are not direct competitors. Contact them and ask for a reciprocal link. In most cases, this is a win-win for both businesses and the owners of the sites will be delighted to exchange links.

Link-building is an ongoing process

In some cases, a website has such useful and interesting content that people will want to spread the word and link to it from their own sites. If your site is like this, your link building will occur naturally and steadily over time.

There is a snowball effect on the Web, where links beget more links. If you start a blog (we’ll discuss this later), send out newsletters and generally keep yourself in the public eye, you will gain more and more links, and Google will increasingly love your website!

Link building in a nutshell
1.    Link building should be done personally – don’t automate the process.
2.    Search for sites that contain content related to your own site (but are not direct competitors).
3.    Contact the website owner directly to ask for a link.
4.    In some cases (e.g. if you are in a very competitive market) you may need to pay for a link.
What does the future hold for search engine optimisation?
In short, it’s going to get more and more difficult to “trick” Google into giving your site a high ranking.
Google has only one objective. To provide the most accurate possible search results, which are as close as possible to what people are actually searching for.
One very significant change that is occurring as I write this (mid-2009) is that Google is now taking into consideration feedback that is submitted by “real people” (as opposed to primarily software calculations).
Google is now asking Web surfers to “vote” for sites in the search results, based on the surfer’s own idea of how important each one is. If they like a certain page in the search results, they can move it higher on the list.

Google claims it is not currently using this data in its algorithms to determine search rankings. But it’s likely to be only a matter of time before they do. In future, Google will give higher priority to sites that Web surfers vote for.

It will look at criteria such as:
-    How often have Web surfers voted your listing to the top of the results?
-    How many times has your website been bookmarked (voted for) on a major social networking site (i.e. Digg.com, LinkedIn.com, and StumbleUpon.com)?
-    Does your web page have video? If so, how long do people watch it?
-    How often do website visitors return to your page?
-    If you have a blog, how many comments does it have on it?

These changes will make it more and more difficult for SEO experts to manipulate Google search rankings.

But the good news is, you don’t need to worry if you make sure you provide plenty of good quality content on your website, which is of value to your target market.

The old saying holds true: Content is King.

Plain and simple, if you have good content, people will bookmark it, comment on it, and talk about it on other websites. And Google will take notice. This will continue to boost your SEO efforts more than anything else.

Focus on building content and everything else will take care of itself.

One final thought

Keep in mind that even a top ranking on Google won’t mean a thing for your business unless your website is designed and written to convert that traffic into paying customers!