For a search engine optimization campaign to be successful, you need to acquire a large amount of (preferable high-quality) keyword-rich links to your website, this method  has a very strong influence in search engine ranking.

How many is too many?

We don’t know for sure, but if the website is running a competitive profile we would say get as many as you can.
Acquiring high-quality links is proven to be harder than you think, as the more relevant to your profile the website is, the stronger the link.
This is due to the fact that many website owners might not have direct access to modify pages or they might not be interested in link swapping or giving outbound links from their site/s.

Link building needs to be done slowly, over a long period of time while the pattern of the anchor text will vary as well. Too many, too fast and too similar in the anchor text, trigger red flags on the search engines side and can have a negative impact, so play it safe.

You can acquire two types of links as outlined below:

Deep Links
Are links from other websites pointing to internal pages on your site using keywords relevant to the page content itself.

Main Links
Are links from other websites pointing to your website Home Page using the primary keywords available in your keyword list.

Generally, you should make sure that the Main Links have the highest priority and percentage 80%-20%

How can you acquire links?

Links can be acquired by Reciprocal link exchange (2 or 3 way), Directory Submission (Free, Paid, Reciprocal), Search Engine Submission, Forums Participation, Article Submission, etc…

2 Way Reciprocal Link Exchange – You link to me my way and I link to you your way (easier said than done but that’s the way this works)

3 Way Reciprocal Link Exchange – As above but instead of giving / getting a link from the linked site, is done from a third site (this could go many ways but this is the simplest way I can put it for you)

Directory Submission- They don’t carry as much value as other linking types but they still count if done the right way and it’s time consuming. Some are Free, some charge a fee for this service or require you to give them a reciprocal link, so it’s up to you on this one as it could get expensive.

Search Engine Submission – submitting your website URL to search engines across the web for them to crawl. Some are Free and some charge a fee for this service so it’s up to you on this one as well.

Forums Participation – It’s a good idea to join forums related to your website niche in the fact that you can add a link to your website with your signature and you can get / give great advice from / to other members, but please note: do not be a drive-by user and do not dig out old posts as you will probably end-up getting banned and this is not what you are looking for….

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