As most web site owners know, in order to rank well in the search engines, it helps to have links pointing to your web site. The tips below will help you to maximize your link popularity without spending a lot of money.

By S. L. Simmons

Have Link-Worthy Content

1. The best way to attract links to your site, to adapt a phrase from an old Seinfeld show, is to have lots of link-worthy content. Some sites can compete well in competitive areas without a lot of ongoing link building work because they get natural links. I know of one site that started off with only a few links and made under $5 a day. These days that same site makes enough to cover the site owner's mortgage payment with very little work on his part. It now has several thousand links, most of them unsolicited, and many are from high quality sites like nonprofits and schools. I think one thing that helped this site is that owner writes really unique articles. Except for the parts that other people have copied since he put the site online, all of the content is completely fresh, original and hard to find. Many of the other sites in this niche have content that is simply a rehash of other content already available on the web.

Submit to DMOZ

2. When your new site has a substantial amount of content, submit it to the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org). I've noticed a bit of a traffic surge for new sites after they were accepted into DMOZ. For an established site that already has hundreds or thousands of inbound links, a DMOZ listing may not help much, but for a brand new site it usually gives a nice little boost.

Check out the Competition

3. Go through the backlinks of the other sites in your niche and analyze the sites that are linking to them. Be on the lookout for any free or inexpensive directories, sites that solicit link suggestions or sites that accept guest articles. See how often the sites get linked to from blogs or are book marked from places like Digg and Stumbleupon.

Submit to Free Niche Directories

4. Look for any free directories in your niche. Do a search for some of your main keywords plus the word "directory". You can also try searching for your keywords plus terms like "submit site" or "add listing".

Solve Someone's Problem

5. Include lots of problem solving or "how to" articles on your site, especially for obscure problems that may not be covered elsewhere on the web. That way your pages may get linked to for answers in forums or online advice columns.

Utilize MySpace

6. Set up a MySpace page for yourself and put a link to your site from your page. Depending on the topic, many web site owners report getting significant traffic from MySpace alone, in addition to any possible link popularity benefit.

S. L. Simmons is the editor at Pine Canyon Media. Visit her site at http://www.pinecanyonmedia.com/linkpop.htm for more tips on link development. Copyright 2007 Pine Canyon Media, LLC. Reprinted with permission.