As you probably know already, getting links to your website can be a frustrating and thankless task.
There are countless ways to get other sites to link to yours and some methods work better than others.
So, assuming you have just launched a new website, here is a basic plan that will help to get your site noticed in an ethical and effective way.
Your First Link Firstly, you are not going to get any links until your site is indexed by the search engines such as Google so this is your first challenge.
There are several ways you can approach this and some work better than others.
If you are a member of an internet forum then using a link to your site in your signature is a great way to get search engines to crawl your site and get indexed.
Posting a link for other members to review will also have the same benefit.
Remember, this is just about getting your site indexed -- the value of these links in the long term is minimal and not an effective link building strategy.
Directories Submitting your site to a few directories will help you get the ball rolling and is often the simplest way to start off.
Most directories will need you to link back from your site in order to be listed and the benefits overall are not great.
However, at this stage, beggars can't be choosers, so provided you don't get carried away, a few directory listings will be a slight benefit.
Social Bookmarking Social bookmark sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon and del.
icio.
us are popular with some website owners.
They can be useful to get your site crawled by search spiders and to get the attention of other users.
This can be effective for some kind of sites but for most regular e-commerce web sites it is not a great method of obtaining links.
Some social network sites automatically set outgoing links to "nofollow" and, in any case, they are so prone to spamming that search engines place very little weight on these kind of links.
Press Releases Issuing a press release about your new product or service is a good way of starting out.
The link from the press release itself might not be valued very highly but it is a relevant one-way link and will certainly be picked up by the search engines.
If your product or service is particularly interesting then it may well be noticed and featured on other sites too? Article Sites Submitting articles to sites such as EzineArticles are a great way of gaining reputation and providing back-links to your site.
Not all article sites are equal though and, generally, the best ones will have strict submission guidelines.
Your article should be unique, relevant and well written -- in some cases a good article will attract links in its own right, which, in turn, can only be of benefit to your site.
The more effort and creativity you put in, then the more you'll get out of it.
Don't just submit any old rubbish, try and write something useful and informative to others.
Link Swaps or Reciprocal Linking Asking other sites within your industry can be an effective long-term strategy provided you do it right.
Firstly, you should only exchange links if the other site is truly of benefit to your site users.
Don't overdo it and try avoiding sites with hundreds of reciprocal links -- this looks bad in more ways than one.
Ideally a one-way link is what you are after and some sites will be open to this if you offer some content in return - perhaps some reader advice, top tips or just an article of particular interest.
Natural Links Of course, the links you really want are those you don't have to ask for -- natural links where someone has linked to your site because they want to share it with others.
This ought to be you long term aim and natural links are rated highly with search engines.
The only way you'll get natural links is by having great content so always try to offer something that people will want to link to.
Examples of this kind of content are original product reviews, useful lists of recommended products or services, gossip or celebrity news, controversial stories or articles, competitions and tutorials.
The more useful and original your content then the more quantity and quality of links you'll attract.
Overall then, getting links to your site should be seen as an ongoing process, not a one-time effort.
Taking short cuts or employing dubious methods may have a short term effect but for the long term the best links will come when you make the effort to provide a service and content which is useful, original and informative.
It can take time to get right, but when you do, you will reap the benefits.