You need to purchase them or study your competition and find a way to make them want to link to your site.
I don't buy links but I do try to get backlinks from the sites that link to the top10 sites for my keywords. I also try to link to the top rank sites that are related to mine but not competing for the same keywords.
By far the best method that continues to work for me is studying your competition. And I'm talking top-ranked, real competition here who are possibly into SEO as well. Here's what I did last month to get me more quality links for a new niche site: - Found out who links to them, then emailed or called those guys and asked to link to myself as well. Offer something valuable if you can in return (a free copy of your infoproduct, free eBook, valuable info, a link form your other site), or buy a link from them -- as appropriate. Works great for me. - I discovered that site-wide links used by my competition are bringing them quite a few extra rankings points. So buying site-wide links and squeezing out competition works well for me too. - Established my presence on niche forums. This is beneficial in terms of rankings, traffic and sales. Some of best forum spots i now use I found by studying my competitors. I guess I'd never have found them otherwise. BTW, here's a short list of things I look at to decide if it's a quality link: 1. it's on a well-established, trusted site, which is relevant/complementary to my niche. A listing in DMOZ or Yahoo! Directory makes the site more trusted. 2. the site's age is important. You can use WHOIS info to find out this bit. 3. if the site is a "hub" within my niche, its value increases dramatically. 4. I don't look much at the toolbar PR of the page. Instead, I calculate the link value of the link. (The link value formula takes into account the # of outbounds on the page in question, etc.) 5. I take Alexa into consideration. 6. if I'm gonna buy a link, the location of the link is important. Also, I make sure there's no paid footprints ("sponsored", "paid", etc.) around my link. This is not always possible. Hope this helps, Warkot
A quality link? Excellent that you recognize quality and PR are different beasts! Look for sites that have a high amount of traffic from your target market and: - Ask for a link from them. Asking never hurts and just might work. - If they have forums, post in their forum and use sig links. - Make good link bait that they'll want to link to. - Buy a link for a month or two. Analyze the traffic to see if its actually working. If you're only concerned about traffic, you can ask to have a nofollow tag added to your link so you don't get penalized for link buying.
I generally search for "my niche" + "submit link" then I check out the sites that I find looking for things like the proper use of the English language. If I see things like UR rather then YOUR I'll head back to the search engine. Often times I'll simply find relevant web pages and email the owners of the sites and ask for links and link backs. I've gotten MANY links this way. I've also gotten several emails from others, and if they are ask using netspeak or treat the email like it's a chatroom, then I'll just ignore the request. In many cases it really depends on the niche, and the site(s) within that niche. As for buying links being the "only way" I generally find the only people that say that are link sellers. Especially with all the free options out there. Q
If your selling peanut butter find someone who is selling jelly! Just find quality websites in your general area that do not directly compete with you.
You can search in Google for your keywords. Links from sites ranking high for those keyword will greatly improve your rankings too.
In my experience, those high-ranking sites will be my direct competitors more often than not. Chances are, they won't link to me for love or money. Warkot
Then try related (non-competing) keywords and try to get links with the desired keywords This should get at least a few related links with the desired effect....enough of which could put you on top. Also do not discount the "home page" effect of the average internet user. As long as your form letter does not look like a "form letter" then you may surprise yourself with just how many mom & pop sites just may link to you...especially if you are linking to them.