There are mainly two types of links that you can build naturally for SEO purposes:-
We strongly advise you do not pay for links or use link farms as this can harm your site and Google may penalise you when they catch up with you. Links should be quality links i.e. created naturally and linking back from genuine, relevant sites where possible.
To make your site look natural you should use at least a couple or so outbound links within your sites pages, rather than just having all inbound links. Your pages will no doubt have information and reference to other services or products so use this opportunity to link out to a quality, relevant website. You could even ask them for a link in return.
Should I pay for link building services or do it myself?
This is really up to you. It depends whether you have the time and money to invest by doing either, so the amount of time and money you have available will determine whether you will choose to do your own link building or pay someone to do it for you. Are you really saving time and money doing it yourself, is the question to ask.
If you are very familiar with the process and have a strategy and know all the techniques involved to do link building (to increase your website search engine rankings) then by all means have a go. But if you are just 'having a pop at it' with no real experience behind you, then I would say, by all means have a dabble and do a few things you can manage yourself, but find someone who knows what they are doing and pay for it.
Cheap Links
Whatever you do, don't fall for the 5,000 links for £500 gimmick. That will no doubt come from unscrupulous SEO link building companies! The links you need must be relevant, meaning quality. Imagine sprinkling 'hundreds and thousands' onto your Hagen Dazs ice cream! Yes that's right - it would most likely ruin it for you! Well the same can be said for churning out the same amount of cheap and irrelevant links for your website.
When choosing directories - choose relevant ones linked to your sector. Or if choosing generic directories, choose well-known and or well established ones.
Don't worry about chasing only high PageRank websites because many of the low PR sites will increase their page rank score over time so that eventually, maybe in 1-2 years or so, you may end up with some nice PR 4's and 5's at least. Maybe even higher, who knows?
The more websites that link to you that have a high PageRank, the better. But rather than tirelessly chase sites only of PR3 and above, include the PR0-2 sites in your link building strategy, and watch many of them romp home in time to come. As long as they are relevant in some way, this is what will matter. Getting links from hundreds of irrelevant and poor quality websites won't improve your PR score and could even harm it if you do hundreds or thousands in a short space of time. Don't take risks and tempt fate because the numbers look good. Build links steady over time - Google dos not like to see a sudden influx of links - it looks suspect!
Remember, quality over quantity!
Also, and if possible, get inbound links from .gov and .edu websites. Now this might not be possible for many businesses if there is no way you can add value that will make them want to link to your from their website, but if you can get them, they add a lot of value to your site - they are very trusted sites of a higher authority - thus your PageRank score will increase.
Getting a listing in DMOZ (free) and Yahoo! ($300 - about £200 at the moment) directories also adds weight to your PR score. However, Yahoo! does not guarantee your listing even though you have paid and DMOZ may or may not add you and even when they do, it can take months for that to happen, if at all. They do not correspond with you to let you know if or when you will be added or not. It's just a black-hole submission! The important note here is to follow the strict submission rules to have any chance whatsoever. Submit to geographical categories and only re-submit once a year. Spamming them with loads of submissions will do you no favours!
Once your website is complete with content and optimised with your chosen keywords you need to start building links back to your website to start getting traffic to it. There are several ways in which you can do this:
Reciprocal Links
When you request a link back to your website and offer yours in return, it's actually a good idea and more likely to get a positive response if you add their link to your website first. Once they can see it in place and used in context within theirs and your site content (i.e. relevant) they are more likely to link back to you - though of course there is no guarantee. Many will simply bin your request - it depends on how you approach and structure the request. If it reeks of bulk spam type mail and irrelevant, then it's no surprise if they don't reply.
Watch out - if they add your email to their spam bin, and if they use a good spam filter, then it may detect all future emails from that same email addresses and filter them directly into their spam box in the future!
Ultimately, ensure any link requests are relevant to their website and professional in presentation.
