Getting links is one of the biggest challenges facing site owners and SEOs. However, who links to you, and how many links you have, are important parts of Google's algorithm. So you need those links to get seen by the people who are searching for what you have to offer. What can you do? Keep reading for some link building ideas.
In this article we discuss link building tips kindly shared with us in the "Link Building Secrets" manual. We add a little more spice and simplify some of the complex techniques described by link gurus.
Using Google Alerts
You can use Google Alerts to monitor search results for high quality sites in your niche.
You know that it's a high-quality web site and has a lot of editorial content.
Go to Google Alerts and set up this alert:
Set up one alert for "Comprehensive" search and another one for "WebSearch" once a day. This will make Google notify you of new .edu domains that have medical content, but do not have a link to Medical News Today yet. Once you spot those sites you can discuss linking with webmasters.
You can use this technique with any search terms of your choice and for any other domain extensions. For example, you can set up Google Alerts to look for "medical software" sites across the entire web that don't have links to Medical News Today, or limit your search to .edu domains. Play around with this; it's very powerful.
Buy a Link by Sponsoring a Charity
You can get very legitimate links from charity websites. Do a search with "your keyword" + "sponsor charity" or "charity." Once you find good sites, contact webmasters and ask if you can get a link for sponsorship. For example, if you're after "new york dentist," search for "new york dentist sponsor charity" or something similar.
Technically, you're not buying links, you're doing good deeds. On the other hand, would you sponsor charities if it wasn't for links? =)
Cloaking Links
Patrick Altoft shared a shady technique; it's included here for completeness, but it is NOT recommended. He cloaks links so that Yahoo and MSN see them differently from Google to gain rankings on the less sophisticated search engines.
For example, he has a site wide link on 2000 pages. He will make sure that Google doesn't see it, while Yahoo and MSN do. As a result he gets quick rankings on Yahoo and MSN without hurting Google (which doesn't like site wide links).
If you plan to use cloaking, use: http://www.fantomaster.com/ -- at your own risk! Again, we emphatically do not recommend this approach.
Link Trading 
