Before the advent of Google Panda, online marketing relied heavily on building links by any means necessary. Thousands of websites existed simply to be used for backlinks to boost SEO. And, it worked.
Any link was a good link, and they all helped to build page rank. Today, thankfully, the rules have changed.
Quality Links
Now only high-quality links will help you. The link farms and low-quality sites that once worked well can actually count against you. Google will actively penalize sites that use shady backlinks.
Before creating anything that will link back to your site, consider what type of site it is.
Will it end up helping, or hindering, your page rank?
Guest Posting
One of the most common ways to get a new backlink is to create a guest post for a blog and to put a link to your site in the bio at the end. However, even guest posting can be penalized upon if not done correctly.
Before considering guest posting, think carefully about how this can benefit you other than getting a link. Building word of mouth so that other people will link to your site is really your end goal—not the link itself.
Watch Your Numbers
If you do decide to guest post either on a blog or an informational website of another type, don’t send out posts to every site that will take you. A high quantity of low-quality links will count against you.
If you have a lot of low-quality links out there, get rid of them.
So, How Do You Build Links?
Google is encouraging people not to build their own links. You still need backlinks in order to rank well, but by selectively linking your high-quality content, those backlinks will come naturally.
Place your link in a few well-considered places, use social media to promote them, and hope that others will link to you. If your site is awesome and useful you can expect that people will continue to link to it over time.
