What is Link Building

Are you one of those guys who had made a website with lots of stuff to offer to visitors (your portfolio, perhaps) but have no idea what to do next? Well, what do you know.. there are thousands just like you. One of the thing that you can do is to let people KNOW about your website. Be warned though; this is hard work but seeing the traffic report afterwards will be music to your ears.

Link building is like trying to 'advertise' your website on other people's website. But it doesn't just stop there. You can let people know in your favorite forums (in correct section, of course), create those nifty looking forum signature and link it to your website (you can try with email signature too!), leave a comment in people's blog that would link to your website or even print the URL in your name card. Endless of choices. It would be much better if the website that you are going to have the same audience as your website, so they would think “Hey, this guy's website have photos of Hawaii too! Let's check it out!”

Now, why would you want to build links to your website in the first place anyway?
Is this really important? Can't we just skip it?

Okay..why did you make the website in the first place? What was the purpose? If you are trying to showcase your artwork or skills in photography, link building is a very good way to get exposure from the public and even potential employers that might want to hire you. If you are living in Alabama, someone from New York might notice (and being awed) your work (being hired is a bonus). Link building is also good for SEO purposes. When there are lots of popular sites linking to your website, there is a big chance that your website would come out on the first page of the search engine. And when that happens, you can expect big and significant traffic to your website. Once in awhile, search engine all around the world have tendency to change their policy or method to display the search result. Nevertheless, putting up your link in popular websites is a safe bet.

Link building may sound easy, but depends on your target audience (and target websites) it will take most of your daily life routine. It will be tiring at first but hey, no pain no gain. First come out with list of websites/forums/blogs that you would like to 'approach' or post in DAILY, and then figure out things to post. Example, for forums, you can join in any interesting topics but at the same time showing them your forum signature embedded with a link to your site. If your daily life is hectic, or simply not enough time to do all this, you can always find freelancers on the internet for some money. There are even SEO companies out there that would do all the hard work of promoting your site.

To sum it up, link building is to create your small 'network' that would link to each other while building up your site popularity and relevance.

By Jim Tan, Operion Founder, Jan 8, 2008