Off-site optimization: Outbound Link strategies

Getting quality back link is the most important thnig in high search engine rankings. Search engines count links to your site as a popularity vote. Search engines have better idea in recognizing link patterns, linking profiles, deep-linking, farm linking one-way and reciprocal linking, etc. Your links should be inbound one-way links with appropriate anchor text related to your site. They should also come from a site that's related to the theme of your Website or the link is devalued. Search Engines gives values to theame base links.

The basic link building techniques (getting links, link exchanges and directory submissions) aren't that effective anymore. You can say its a big waste of time (except for submissions to some high quality directories like Dmoz, Yahoo etc). Links always were suppose to be a sign of popularity. Link popularity is suppose to be the result of having a popular website, not the result of placing links all over the place. Search engines are now getting so good at determining real (natural) link popularity that webmasters have to get back to basics.

Back to basics means: doing marketing, increasing the popularity of the website/company which results in more links to the website. The marketing step has been ignored for a long time because search engines couldn't tell the difference between links placed for SEO reasons and links that are the result of popularity. Now that they´re getting better at determining why a link was placed, the marketing step now needs to be included into the SEO strategy. Or if you prefer : marketing and SEO need to work together.

The WEB 2.0 makes it possible to do much more with a website. A company that combines marketing and SEO efforts to support each other, are the most successful in obtaining high rankings. This is becoming so obvious that it is almost impossible to ignore the WEB 2.0 for much longer. Websites that have enjoyed high rankings for years need to keep up with technology otherwise they may be passed by competition that does focus on the WEB 2.0. Marketing and SEO need to embrace each other, something that, in many cases, is not that easy as SEO is still often seen as something technical in which a marketing department can't do much. But the reality is that the most difficult thing in SEO, link building, in fact should be handled by the marketing department and not by the SEO.