All website owners have at least one thing in common; they want higher search engine rankings. The best way to obtain those rankings is to get other websites to link to yours. Here’s how.

1. Sending link request emails to other website owners. It takes a lot of time to identify appropriate websites and send out the emails, but the potential rewards are high. Buying link building software can automate most of the process and greatly increase efficiency.

2. Directory listings: listings in directories still carry weight with the search engines. The most important directory is dmoz, but the-big-brain, and many others are well worth submitting to as well.

3. All website owners should write and/or buy brief articles and submit them to article distribution websites. Each article should include an author biography (with your name and website URL), that will be run with the article. That way, every website that uses the artcle will generate a link. It is not uncommon for a single article to be picked up by 500 websites, thereby generating 500 links for the author’s website.

4. Writing and distributing news releases (which include your website URL) is another excellent way to build links. You can write releases or have them written for you, and you can use an online service to distribute them free or for a relatively modest cost.

5. Unlike the other kind of writing which can generate links, blogging is very simple because you can write about nearly anything related to your website, and good blog posts need not be very long. All webmasters should have at least one blog, write a minimum of one post a week, and link from the blog(s) to their website(s). In addition to short articles, many bloggers post link exchange offers.

6. Social networking sites: many successful website owners promote their websites on Facebook and similar sites. Just be sure to follow the rules.

7. Guest blogging: offer articles to appropriate blogs if they allow you to include an author’s box with a link to your website.

8. Informative, on-topic posts in guestbooks, forums, and blogs (with your URL in your signature), will make you friends and produce links the search engines will generally count in your favor. Think “low hanging fruit”.

Whatever else you do, link buying is probably not a good idea. Google has weighed in against it, and it is likely that all the search engines penalize sites that purchase links. Website owners are far better off using the techniques listed above.