In late 1990s, the link building was born to take the benefits of Inktomi search engine. In fact, Inktomi was gathering all the links from each resource Websites and giving preference to appear in search engine result pages (SERPs). The URLs with less inbound links did not appear on top in result pages. The SEO professionals/link builders started their work of building links for their Websites. The inception of Google with its unique PageRank algorithm influenced their work. They understood that Google is classifying the links based upon their importance and assigns more weight only to links coming from or going to good Websites. The goodness of a Website is being determined by number of incoming links, outgoing links, unique visits, and clicks in search engine result pages (SERPs).

Let us break it down. Number of links decides whether a Website comes on top or at bottom in search results, if it comes on top then it has more clicks resulting into more visits. The SEO tools like keyword tracker, page rank checker, number of links tracker etc. evolved slowly in the market and emphasized the automation of link building aka SEO work. This automation ultimately results into LINK SPAM (massive unethical links).

Recently, Blekko has blocked major 21 Websites and Google has also released Panda (Farmer) update to block the sites only meant to get traffic from search engines. If you do not want your site to be blocked by search engines like Google and Blekko, then you should adopt following next-generation ethical link building strategies.

Social Signals

Major search engines such as Google, Bing, Ask, Blekko, and Alexa are giving preference to user behaviors. They’re learning from users what to show on top. You can take benefit of user behaviors to promote your Website with a new technique called social signals. The online world is being social today with online social media Websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, Orkut, etc.

People share their information, knowledge, skills, and links of liked URLs on these online platforms. You can affix the share buttons of these social networking Websites at your Website, blog, and articles. Few examples are Facebook Like, Facebook Recommend, Facebook Share, Twitter Tweet, Google Buzz, Google Recommend It, Google Wave This, Digg it, Reddit Share, LinkedIn Share, Sphinn It, Stumble It, Identi.ca share, and so on.

Recently, Google and Bing declare that they are giving importance to social signals like Facebook Likes and Twitter Tweets for URLs to manage their appearance in SERPs. In fact, each social signal will work like a link. On Facebook, each user has 130 friends on an average. If user has liked a page then it means your URL is spread to 130 friends. Yes, these links are ‘no follow’ but still URL is gaining preference from search engine. What else you need from a link?

Spread Your Work

Create a profile of your Website on social media Websites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and so on. You can publish the Title and URL of your latest posts on these Websites. If you’re using WordPress, Drupal or Joomla then extensions are available to spread your blog these platforms directly.

Give Leverage to Commenter

Almost each commenter on your Website is asked to leave a URL. Most of the times, these URLs are ‘no follow’. Make them ‘do follow’ to give leverage to a commenter. If he/she leaves a link of high rank then it benefits your Website. However, you’ve to be strict with this leverage in checking comments closely as it increases the chances of spam. You can

●      create a separate Comment Policy to show which type of comments do you approve
●      use Google reCAPTCHA library (WP reCAPTCHA plugin for WordPress) to show reCAPTCHA when someone comments
●      invite login from Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. using their Connect APIs
●      delete the irrelevant comments that doesn’t match your article.
●      close the comments after a specific time period say after one month.

Socialize your Website

Install social media gadgets like Facebook Recommendation Box, Google Recommend, Twitter Profile, etc. These gadgets show the end user opinion towards your Website and generate social signal with each update.

Write for others

Instead for writing for your blog, write for other famous Websites like EzineArticles, ArticleBase, Infobarrel, Hub Pages, Wall Street Journal, etc. You will get quality backlinks from these Websites to your blog.

Check Directory Reputation

Almost each site owner prefers to have Directory Submission only in relevant categories. Now, you should check the reputation of Web Directory in which you want to submit the URL. You can do this either by checking its PageRank or by checking its cached copy in search results. If the PageRank is low or cached copy is months old then it means Google has not crawled the Websites for a month. It doesn’t worth to submit your Website’s URL in a Web Directory not preferred by major search engines, say Google.

Stay up-to-date

Google, Bing, Blekko, Ask and Alexa are updating their style of working and algorithms to search day-by-day. Recently, Google released Panda update and Blekko started Spam Watch. You should know how to protect your Website from being abused as a result these updates. Stay updated with each latest update of Google, Blekko, Bing, Ask and Alexa by joining their Press Releases, Forums, and Members.

Third Generation Search Engines

Third Generation search engines like Ask, Blekko, Yippy, Kontera, Kartoo etc. are in market but their usage is limited. Following their slow but increasing popularity, Google and Bing are improving themselves to step into third generation. If you want to sustain for a long time then you should know the working style of third-generation search engines.

Avoid being unethical

You should not be unethical in any mean to promote your Website.

●      Do not write only to build links and get more traffic through search engines.
●      Do not have irrelevant outgoing links on your Website.
●      Do not submit your Website in irrelevant categories while doing Directory Submission.
●      Do not keep the comment if they don’t match the content.
●      Do not submit your Website to irrelevant and less reputed Web Directories.
●      Stop doing link exchange with others as major search engines have strict norms on the same.

Conclusion

The tomorrow’s link building strategy does not get limited just to Directory Submission, Link Baiting, Link exchange etc. It’ll cover the social aspects, user behavior, and Website reputation as well. Stay updated and focus on future rather than being stick with the out-dated link building strategies.