When Google recently updated its search algorithm, many websites saw their rankings plummet. The update known as Panda punished some sites in the rankings and promoted others. The websites that were negatively affected were those with poor content and low quality links, forcing webmasters to reconsider their SEO strategies. While improving the quality of content on your site is one way to increase your rankings within Google’s search engine, continuing to perform the tried and true linkbuilding methods will also help improve your site’s rankings.

Below are five great methods that The Search Labs recommends you use to promote your website and build high quality links to improve your site’s rankings within Google’s search engine.

Pro Bono Work

Doing some type of volunteer work or assisting an associate with a project is two good ways to get a link to your website or blog. After helping out an organization or associate within your industry, you can ask the organization to place a link to your blog or website on theirs, providing you with an excellent backlink to help increase your website ranking.

Host a Charity Event

Hosting a charity event is another great linkbuilding method SEO professionals can use to diversify their link portfolios. When you host or sponsor a charity event, you can create a press release alerting the world about your event. In this press release you can place a link back to your website. When other media outlets learn about your charity event, they will also link back to your website, providing you with even more quality backlinks.

Blog Commenting

Blog commenting has long been a popular linkbuilding method among search engine optimization professionals. The secret to building quality links through blog commenting is only leaving comments on dofollow sites that add value to the conversation. Webmasters will appreciate your thoughtful comments and reward you by allowing your backlink to stay up on their site. Blog commenting has become overrun by spammers, but it is still a viable linkbuilding method and should be included in every one’s backlinking strategy.

Guest Posting

Writing a guest post (just like this one!) for another blog in your industry is a great way to gain high value backlinks. Most blog owners love it when they receive requests from guest bloggers as they are able to fill their site with high value content without having to do the work themselves. Most blog owners will reward your work by allowing you to place a link point back to your website within your post. When utilizing guest blogging as a linkbuilding strategy, it is important to remember to create the best quality content that you can. This will increase your chances of being allowed to post your article on a highly valued, high page rank site.

Networking

Reaching out to your business associates and offering to exchange links is another linkbuilding option at your disposal. First, create a list of contacts within your industry that have a website that is relevant to yours. Contact these associates and explain that you would like to place a link to their website on yours in exchange to a backlink from their blog or website. It is important to remember to only exchange links with relevant websites that contain quality content. Staying away from websites that are marginally relevant to yours will increase the effectiveness of this backlinking strategy.

With Google’s latest search algorithm update complete, website owners are scrambling to correct any issues with their site that may be negatively affecting their search rankings. Any site that Google views as having poor quality content and poor backlinking structure has been demoted within the search rankings. To counteract these changes to the search algorithm, webmasters have changed the ways that they build backlinks so that they can get the most out of their SEO efforts. Some of the best backlinking methods The Search Labs uses today include offering to do work for an associate in exchange for a backlink to your site, hosting a charity event and sending out a press release, blog commenting, guest writing for blogs within your industry, and exchanging links with relevant websites.

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Thank you to my Guest Post Author: Ruben Corbo 

Ruben Corbo is a writer for the website The Search Labs a global provider of link building, on-site SEO, and competitor link analysis services.
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