In the world of search engine optimization, link building is a necessary part of gaining rankings.First, it is important to distinguish between the new link building standards and the old link building tactics. In the old days of search engine optimization, and by that I mean pre-2006, the goal of link building was to get as many inbound links as possible. Like any shortcut or loop hole, people took advantage of this, thus, creating link farms. Link farms destroyed the credibility of inbound links.

No longer does the larger number of links lead to higher rankings. Quality has become much more important. Not only important, but a necessity.

Below are the 5 steps to create quality link building.

1. Find quality sites – Start by searching for sites similar to yours and see where your competitors are linking from. Quality sites make quality links, thus improving your reputation with search engines. Education and government sites often boost sites popularity quicker.

2. Create keyword based links – the link itself is not enough anymore. You need to tell search engines the keywords to associate with the URL. Linking your company name doesn’t help the search engines.

3. Make sure the content matches the link. After you include the keywords as the hyperlink text, be sure that the landing page matched what the search engine is expecting. Ideally, the page title should match the text that hyper-linked text
4. Match the keywords in the URL.
5. Keep the URL as concise as possible. Avoid non-English characters, such as &, %, and ?.

Things to avoid in link building
• Do not participate in link popularity farms. Link farms will not help, in fact they may actually hurt.
• Do not use bulk submission programs
• Do not link on sites that have nothing to do with your site.