1.      Use keywords in your anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text displayed for links - and it’s more important to your search engine rankings than you might think. Every time the search engines find a link pointing to your site it counts as a “vote” that someone considers your site good enough to share it with their own visitors. If your keywords are included in that anchor text, the search engines assume your site must be related to that topic and your site relevancy for those keywords increases a little. The more links you have with keyword rich anchor text, the more important the search engines consider your site. The most important sites make the top 10.

2.      Include keywords in the text surrounding the anchor text. You will get the most value from including your keywords in your link anchor text. However the search engines also look at the text around the link so be sure to include your keywords there as well. This can be useful for links where you’re unable to specify keywords to use in the anchor text. For example, some sites that you exchange links with may include your site name as the anchor text. Give the search engines a hint as to what your site is about by writing a site description that uses your major keywords.

3.      Make sure your anchor text matches the content of the page you’re linking to. When a search engine spider follows a link, it registers whether the anchor text used for that link matches the content on the page it arrives at. For example, if your home page is optimized for “prom dresses” and you get a link to your site that includes the anchor text “green prom dresses”, that link will be considered more valuable then if you linked to a page which was optimized for “prom tuxedos”. To get the maximum benefit from links pointing to your site, be sure that your anchor text matches the content of the page you’re linking to.

4.      Don’t worry about getting links from sites with the same IP. If you own more than one site and they’re hosted with the same company, chances are that they have the same IP address. There has been some speculation in the past that if you put a link up on one of your sites that points to the other, that the link is given no value by the search engines. However, many SEO experts now agree that this is a myth. So if it makes sense to link your sites together, do it!

5.      Make sure your link anchor text is varied. Search engines penalize sites that seem to have used link exchange services. How they spot these sites is by looking at the incoming links.  If the anchor text on every link is the same, then there is a good chance that software and not a human generated the links. Instead of using an automated service, take the time to submit link exchanges one at a time and make sure to vary the link text. This gives a more natural look to your incoming links.

6.      Get links from relevant sites. The search engines are becoming more sophisticated at reading and understanding what a site is about. And they are using this capability to look for natural linking relationships between sites. If a site selling “baby blankets” links to a “parenting information” site it will be seen more favorably because the two cover similar topics. Whereas a link from a “baby blankets” site to one selling “lawnmowers” is most likely only an attempt to improve a site’s link popularity.

7.      Provide good content and other webmasters will link to you. The most effective technique for getting people to link to your site is to make it the best of its kind in your industry. The more valuable and relevant content that you include, the more likely others will be to share it with their site visitors, blog readers and newsletter subscribers. And every mention brings new traffic as well as a one-way link that gives your search engine ranking a boost.

8.      Don’t add a blog just for SEO. The search engines seem to love blogs and they often index them quickly. But if you don’t update your blog frequently you won’t be doing yourself any favors. Nothing looks worse to potential customers than a blog with only a few outdated entries. So if a blog that is updated regularly doesn’t make sense for your business then don’t add one to your site.

9.      Get links to internal pages if it’s appropriate. A well designed site that has a proper internal linking structure will pass link popularity between its pages. So don’t worry about only getting links to your home page. If it makes sense to have another site link to an internal page then do that. Remember, you should always be focused on creating a site that is usable for your potential customers. If you write an article about “blue widgets” and then at the bottom you put a link to your home page where there is only general information about your company then you may lose the interest of potential customer’s. Instead link to your “blue widgets” page directly. This will still count as a link in the eyes of the search engines, and it’s much more user friendly.

10.  Use text links whenever possible. For both internal links and external links, it’s best to keep them in plain text whenever possible. That’s not to say that there is no value to links from images, but you lose the benefit of the keywords contained in the link anchor text. When image links cannot be avoided, be sure to use alt text that includes your keywords.

11.  Get one-way links. One-way links are when another site links to yours, but you do not link to theirs. The alternative is two-way links or reciprocal links, where they link to you and you link to them. The search engines put a much higher importance on one-way links because they are more likely to be a true “vote” for the quality of your site. The idea is that other webmasters would not tell others about your site if it were no good. The best ways to get one-way links are by submitting to directories and offering your articles for other webmasters to publish.

12.  Use alt text in linked images. When you include pictures on your site it is important to include a description of the image in the alt text. This is particularly true for images that that link to other pages. Including relevant keywords in the alt text for these linked images has been shown to have a positive effect on search engine rankings. But be sure to use only relevant keywords and not stuff your alt text with unrelated information in the hopes that you’ll impress the search engines.

13.  Don’t try and trick the search engines with three-way links. As one-way links become more important to the search engines, some webmasters have devised a reciprocal linking plan that makes it look like they’re getting more one-way links than they are. The idea is that three sites participate. Site A links to site B, site B links to site C and site C links to site A. On the surface it looks like these are all one-way links. But it is only a matter of time before the search engines figure this out (if they haven’t already!) and penalize all of the sites involved.

14.  Get links from authority sites. Authority sites are ones that are seen as the best of the best in their industry. These are typically very large information sites that have been around for a long time. Because the search engines place a lot of value on where these sites links to, one link from an authority site can have a tremendous effect on improving your rankings. Although getting links from authority sites can be difficult, it’s definitely worth the extra effort.

15.  Consider the quality of the page you’re getting a link from. When deciding whether to pursue a link from a particular site, some people will tell you to look at its Google PageRank Google. But even Google admits that it does not keep the PageRank value shown to the public up-to-date. Instead, look at whether the site practices good SEO techniques. Where do they rank in the search engines? Getting a link from a site that is already ranking well will help improve your ranking. Your site looks better by association.

16.  Remember that internal links are important too. So much emphasis is put on external links that often the links within a site are overlooked. But they are extremely important and should be carefully planned. It is through your internal links that your site’s popularity is shared between pages. This gives the inner pages more importance because of their association with your home page. The key to a good internal linking strategy is to ensure that all of your pages have at least one link to them - ideally more. When setting up the links, use plain text whenever possible with keyword rich anchor text.

17.  Get one-way links from directories. There are hundreds of different directories on every topic imaginable. Be sure to submit your site to relevant ones in your industry as well as general ones. For a listing of directories check out http://www.isedb.com and http://www.grackelfish.com. The most important directory from an SEO standpoint is DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.com). Not only does a link in DMOZ carry a lot of weight with the search engines, but their results are also published on other sites, which brings more one-way links.

18.  Get one-way links by publishing articles. One of the best ways to get one-way links is to publish articles. Submit them to article directories, related websites, blogs and newsletter publishers. If you write good quality content you’ll find that it spreads quickly - bringing traffic and one-way links.

19.  Don’t waste time getting links the search engines don’t count. Too many webmasters spend countless hours posting on forums and submitting blog comments in the hopes that these one-way links will improve their rankings. However, the search engines are smart enough to know that the site owners did not put up these links and therefore they carry very little weight. If the link will bring you traffic then it is worthwhile, but do not waste time trying to get links simply for the search engine’s sake.

20.  Avoid using image maps for navigation. Due to the code that makes up an image map search engines often get trapped in them and can’t spider your site. If you use image maps for your main site navigation you should consider switching to standard HTML hyperlinks or your site will most likely not be spidered properly. If you want to keep the image maps you can, but you should add another navigation scheme to your site that uses only standard text HTML hyperlinks. An easy way to do this is to create a site map page that links to link to every page on your site. Then add a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links to the site map.

21.  Choose your navigation system carefully. Your navigation system is how spiders move around your site. If you choose a menu system that they cannot follow they will have no way of indexing all of your pages. Whenever possible, use text links for your menu. Or if you want to do something more graphical, make sure that your navigation buttons do not include an image map and that you include appropriate keywords in the image alt tag. Probably the worst option is DHTML menus that create effects such as pull down boxes so unless it’s critical to the design of your site, this type of navigation system is best avoided.

22.  Create a site map. Site maps are important for users and search engines alike. They are a great way to ensure that you have a link to every page on your site. To make your site map useful, it should contain as much relevant content as possible and not just be a set of one-word links. You can do this easily by adding a one or two sentence after each link that describes what the page is about.

23.  Don’t be afraid to link out. Some people worry that by linking out they are giving away their PageRank to other sites. There is no evidence to support this claim. And many SEO experts believe that having links to other sites is natural and expected by the search engines. An absence of links may be a red flag.

24.  Keep your link pages to a reasonable length. Including hundreds of outgoing links on a page is not a good idea. The search engines know that these pages have very little value to your site visitors. How are they going to find anything relevant amongst 200 links? Instead focus on creating pages that are valuable to your visitors. Include descriptions for the links and keep it to a reasonable number. If you offer link partners a good quality link they’ll be willing to do the same for you. It’s a win-win situation!