While browsing through one of my favorite morning show websites, I noticed pictures of a charity event.  As I followed those links and went to the event’s page, I also noticed that there was a page with a list of sponsors.  To my surprise, the links to the websites were not “no follow”. The links also contained quality anchor text.

This made me think about how sponsoring events could be a great link building opportunity.  Sponsoring local events in your area is positive for the community and beneficial for your link building efforts because the links are high quality and relevant. 

With the summer approaching, many communities and organizations in your area will be hosting events, fundraisers, running events and more.  Keep your eye out for these events to see if there are relevant sponsorship opportunities to incorporate into your link building efforts.  Sponsoring events can not only help your link building efforts, but it can also increase your brand’s reputation on and offline.  Showing your customers that you care about the community can help to solidify their decision when choosing your goods or services versus a competitor’s.

So, the next time you are involved in an event, ask about the sponsor page and think about the possible link building opportunities that can go along with it.

Building quality inbound links to your site has never been tougher, but there is one quick thing you can do to find quality links that doesn’t take much effort. One of the easiest ways to start out a link building program is to go looking for links that you should already have. By this, I mean that if you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’re probably already listed in various places on the internet. What you want to do is make sure that your website is included in your listings.

To find these potential link building opportunities, you can start by searching for yourself using Google, Yahoo or Live.com. Then, just check out any pages you find that are showing up for your name. If the site listing you is a local search directory, community organization, industry directory or other type of listing that includes a profile of your business, make sure there is a link there back to your website.

In some cases, it may be necessary to pay a listing fee to modify your profile. If so you will want to evaluate the site to make sure that it is worth the listing. Basically, is it likely that anyone will find you there and then click through to your site? Will a listing there get you enough traffic to pay for the link? If so, go ahead and pay the fee. If not, then the listing is probably not worth it. Never pay for a link just to get a link.

However, there are still lots of sites that freely allow you to modify your listing and in that case; this is a great way to get a quick and easy relevant link. If the site is an authority in your industry, that one link could even have a marked effect on your rankings. So, if you’re looking for links, first try looking for yourself. You never know what you might find.

As we all know, the benefits of inbound links to your website are paramount. What’s more important than the “amount” of inbound links? “Quality” inbound links. These quality links can have a positive effect on both your rankings in Google as well as your PageRank. The only catch is getting good links. Of course, the most obvious answer is to just create good content on your website that can inspire people to link to it. Another obvious answer is to merely create a “Link To Us” page.  Unfortunately, it really isn’t as simple as that.

In addition to having that exceptional content that people want to link to, the content on your blog or website should have a point of view; a perspective that’s controversial, funny or that really takes a definitive side of an argument. Anything that separates your content from the rest of the pack is always beneficial. Being original can really get you noticed as an authority in your field and will make attracting those natural links that much easier.

While social media may not be great for getting “link juice” or a “vote” from another site (most links from social media sites like Twitter or Facebook are nofollow), they are a helpful way to get your website or brand noticed and drive some traffic. This is done simply by placing a link to your site in your profile. Also, don’t forget to link your social media profiles together by saying something to the effect of, “Come visit us on Facebook!”. Social bookmark “widgets” are good too and are free and quite easy to implement.

Of course, if you haven’t done so already, submit to directories like DMOZ or the Yahoo! Directory and make sure that you are in the correct categories for each. These directories, as well as a few others, are considered to be the most trusted and links from there are considered highly important. This also goes for any kind of link from an .edu or .gov site. Any links from a relevant site with that kind of domain should help your site’s PageRank and rankings exponentially. To find these types of websites, simply type “site:.edu keyword” on Google. Substitute “keyword” for the most targeted, indicative and descriptive keyword of your site.

Lastly, having fun content like “Top Ten Lists”, contests or free widgets are great for tempting people to link to you. To get inspired, look at the websites of some other websites in your field and see what they are doing. See what kinds of backlinks they have to get an idea of who to target and, above all, write your content for the user, not for the search engines. A human being will be reading your content and you need to write with that in mind. Remember, you can never have too many quality inbound links.