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Once keywords have been researched and implemented naturally into the content of every page of a website, the next step of an SEO campaign is to build quality inbound links that point back to the website. These inbound links establish trust with the search engines and build brand visibility and improve website traffic over time. Of course, all inbound links aren’t created equal and there is a right way to build links and a wrong way. Some links are easier to get than others, but don’t provide as much value and aren’t weighed very heavily by the search engines. To follow are tips to build a quality link portfolio:

Focus on Quality Content
The foundation of a good link building campaign is creating quality content. Links won’t be shared unless the content of that link provides visitors and the search engines with something valuable. Don’t create content just to create content, create it to serve a bigger purpose and to establish your website and business as an authority leader. Develop content that is educational and informational to establish trust.

Build Diverse Links
Limiting your link building efforts to only a few strategies limits visibility and leaves your link building efforts vulnerable to search engine algorithm updates, since the search engines are constantly changing how they weigh particular links. There are so many sources of links available online including blogging, blog commenting, guest blog posting, article marketing, press release distribution, directory submission, social networking, and video marketing. Incorporate as many of these tactics into the mix as possible.

Develop an Active Social Media Presence
Creating social media pages and letting them sit dormant for days, weeks, or months at a time will never help build a brand or help with link building efforts. The key to social media success is to be active, engage in a dialogue with followers, and share links to quality content from your website, blog, or other web property. The search engines now consider “social signals” when ranking a webpage, meaning that a page that is Shared, Liked, re-Tweeted, and +1’d frequently will be viewed more favorably.

Build Links to Internal Pages
When link building, many businesses make the mistake of concentrating only on the homepage. However, it’s important to remember that the search engines rank individual web pages, not websites as a whole. Internal pages that have inbound links and have established trust over time can rank prominently for long tail keywords.

Use Keyword Anchor Text
When writing content to build links it’s important to include keyword anchor text links that tell the search engine spiders that crawl the content what that page that is linked to is all about. Don’t link to text that doesn’t tell the spider anything at all, like “click here”. Instead, link to the keyword phrase “women’s handbags”.