I notice some of my competitors get links on the side bar for some high ranking blog and similar sites. Does anyone have a list of bloggers that offer link placement (not directories)?
There are no list of blogs as such. However, if you look around this forum there are people ready to help you place your links on their site/blog, myself included.
Im a new user - why does the "free links to your website" link go through a url shortener? valashiya.blogspot.com is not very long...
The hard work (meaning articles, PR releases, blogging, commenting, forums, social sites and bookmarking) still yields you low ranking links in most cases. So being a sponsored link where your competitors seems to be the only option to get over the hump.
My blog is dofollow with commentluv enabled, see my signature as long as you don't spam, add your keywords and comment...i will be more than happy to give you a free backlink also don't be afraid to tell your friends about my blog either. I want to reward my readers for their comments with dofollow links. As long as you don't spam me, im cool with it.