Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has gained paramount importance in today’s time. It has become so crucial that no individual or business having their web property can ignore it. Since the early days of its inception, there are some basic parameters that have been the driving force behind the exponential growth and popularity of search engine optimization. Among all these parameters one that has been the most crucial and will always be are “backlinks”.

For those who are not aware of the importance of SEO, it is a set of processes and methods adopted to optimize the website in such a manner that it is easy for search engines to crawl, index and rank in its search results. Therefore, if you own or manage a website, it is imperative to implement SEO so as to generate free traffic to your website via various search engines. But the question arises – How to gain the popularity? The answer is quite simple – Backlinks.

We can understand it by a simple example: If Mr.X says that he knows President Obama, it hardly makes any difference to his stature or popularity in the society. On the other hand, if President Obama says that he knows Mr.X then Mr.X will be a celebrity in no time as his “popularity” will serge immediately. Likewise, if a website gets quality backlink, its popularity increases and gets ahead in terms of ranking.

What all has been said above is a well known fundamental behind SEO. The difficult part is to get such quality backlinks. Let us go through the methods of obtaining them:

1) Article Submission – It allows you to share your expertise with the people searching on the same subject. Th trick is to produce best piece on the subject matter, giving a neutral view without promoting oneself. You should always remember to write it by keeping the needs of the reader and making it as explainable as possible. The article should be written as if it was created to help the reader to find answers to his/her questions. If you are successful in doing so, your article will be shared by the reader and the sharing process may continue for a longer period of time resulting in high exposure and readership around the web.

2) Press Release – It is an optimal method of spreading the important news among readers from various industries. It is quite helpful in B2B arena i.e. where businesses are searching for another businesses to execute a deal. It is considered as more serious form of marketing activity to reach the intended audience.

3) Guest Blog Posting – It is yet another creative method of online marketing. As we have said earlier, backlinks are important, but backlinks from different domains are more important. If you get an opportunity to write for some other website then you should grab it with your both hands and produce quality content exclusively for the readers.

4) Link Bait – It is the most common yet unnoticed form of link building method. Rather than going into the theory of link bait, an example is more helpful in explaining the concept . So let us understand it with the help of an example. Suppose a car manufacturer a about to launch a hatchback with youngsters as its target customers, a nicely crafted online campaign can be extremely helpful. If the manufacturer starts a simple competition wherein the people wil have to complete a simple form with name , email address and an answer to the question “Why would they prefer the car from this manufacturer?”. The winner of this contest will be awarded with a brand new car! Naturally this kind of campaign will attract lot of attention(backlinks) which will be quite important for the website in the long run.

Link bait is all about the creativity one can pour into their marketing campaigns.

How is a link bait different than a squeeze page?

Well if you have used seomoz then you may have noticed there is a page for test your skills and when you complete that test then it shows you an icon with your score. It also gives you an option to paste that image on your website and when you do so then seomoz gets a backlink from your site or in some other sites you would have seen some info like "share our banner on your website if you found it usefull" and when its shared then he gets backlink.

Now I dont think there is any relevance between the squeeze page and link bait?

I've always chalked the two up as follows;

Link bait - articles or information written in such a way to compel others to link to it. It's something we see with Youtube videos or the SHARE function in Facebook. It's designed in a way to generate links to a site, sometimes through social share options. Sometimes the link bait is designed to push users toward another area on a site or a signup form.

Squeeze Page - generally a competition type page, or newsletter signup, and once completed it's a dead end. Once you get to the page, hand over your info, there's no exit, you just close the page (or get a thank you for entering your info). It's not designed to push to other parts of the site. Generally you'd only request minimal information (an email address usually that ends up on some Opt-In mailing campaign).

Thanks Conor for your interpretation. What's your take on FREE white papers as part of the sign up process on a squeeze page? I've read some that absolutely ROCK, and others that fizzle horribly.

I suppose that best method to get quality backlinks is social networking

Just to clear your doubt its best to get traffic not for backlinks..

Hey Steve, no idea how I missed this posting - must have been when I was sick.

White papers I've never personally liked as I rarely read them. Usually they're filled with fluff. By the same token, most places use them as they're a way of hyping up something, or providing free information. Just like the "sign here for a free ebook" and then there's a 7 page PDF file of information that you already knew

I hate them, but people like the word FREE. It's a psychological marketing strategy that usually pushes someone over the edge if they're on the fence.

The FREE ebook/whitepaper marketing is very popular, but what's become more of a trend is the "get this for $0.01". The advantage of the PENNY is that you're forcing someone to actually take out their credit card or PayPal account. essentially, you're targeting people that are already mentally in purchase mode, and are an easier upsell to the product later. Those looking for FREE are generally not really ready to commit.

Psychological Marketing - I guess I could write a whole whitepaper on that