How Linking Improves Your Rank
Search engines catalog your content, looking for keywords that they then use as criteria for ranking you. But keywords aren't the only thing that determines your rank. They can't be, especially with popular keywords; there are too many pages vying for the same high status on the search engines. A better way to determine how well a web site matches the keyword criteria a searcher inputs is examining how they are linked to other sites.
Part of what search engines look at is how many times a site is linked to from other sites. Sites that are more frequently linked are more likely to be good information resources, which are exactly what people using search engines are looking for.
Sites that are well-correlated with a search term are more likely to be linked to from other sites, and the best ones are probably going to be linked to from sites with identical or related keywords. For instance, a dog grooming company may recommend their customers to go to Dogs.com for more information on how to keep a dog's coat healthy. Both sites probably have "dogs" as a primary keyword, and therefore that link gets rated high. Chances are good that a person searching for "dogs" is going to be looking for information like that on Dogs.com.
Sites that have the highest degree of correlation with a keyword are more likely to be linked with that keyword; for instance, if you want to link to the New York Times, you're probably going to use the words "New York Times" on the link itself.
What this means to you is that the perfect link:
* Comes from a site with similar information to yours, but not competing,
* Uses your keywords in the link term itself, and
* Is one of many similar sites linking to your page.
Now that you know what you're looking for, how do you get it?
Acquiring Links from Other Sites
Great content is the key to getting links from other sites. Put yourself in the position of choosing links: what are your criteria for recommending a website to your customers? First, the website has to be complementary to yours, not a direct competitor. Second, it has to look professional – this reflects on you. Third, it has to have great content that you cannot duplicate.
The third criterion is the most difficult to achieve. You can rewrite information on other websites; if it's been picked up from an article directory (more on these in a moment), you can go out and put the same information yourself. The key to great content other sites cannot duplicate is continually-fresh, quality articles. You would send your customers to someone else who always had the latest news, right?
This is what you want your site to achieve: professionalism and an article bank that is continually updated with new articles, corrections and updates to old articles, and similar items. Blogs are good, as are newsletters. Once you're ready with your content, you can approach other webmasters.
You already should have a pool of potential trades; they're the websites in your niche market (outside your direct competitors) that you already visit. All you have to do is email the webmaster of the site politely, sending a link to your site and asking if he or she would like to trade links. In certain informational sites, you can instead ask if they would like you to donate an article to their collection; most will happily take good-quality articles, leaving your name and URL intact in a resource box at the end.
Article Directories: Another Way to Link
Donating articles, in fact, is a great way to get links in exchange. There are several article directories online with thousands of quality articles free to the public; the only thing the authors require in exchange is that nothing in the article or in the resource box be changed. If you have a great article you think others would like to pick up and put on their own websites, submit it to an article directory. Be certain you set up the URL link with your keywords so that it gets those bonus search engine points.
Now you're done, right? Nope. To keep your links fresh and growing, you must do this regularly. Schedule time for yourself every week or month to grow more links for your site, and to review everything you have right now. And watch your ranking in the search engines rise.