There are two distinctive search engine optimisation techniques that are applied to a website, namely on-site optimisation and off-site optimisation. Link building is an off-site optimisation tactic that webmasters and SEO experts use to increase site popularity. For search engines like Google, the number of inbound links from authoritative websites can help improve search engine results page (SERP) ranking. The ultimate goal of SEO is to rank as high as possible on the search engine for a set of keywords and a good link building strategy is one key to this puzzle.

Link Building
This SEO strategy focuses on exchanging links with other websites. As search engine crawlers move through websites indexing them, they scan external links moving from current site to another. If your website happens to be the one linked to, then this reflects positively on your search engine ranking. However, there is a fine line between link building and link spamming. Many websites exist simply as link warehouses, selling links to websites across the Net. These are considered spam by most search engines, are disregarded by their crawlers and are nothing more than a waste of time and money. The best way to go about link building is by identifying an authoritative peer group and then requesting a link.

External Links
An authoritative website is one that drives significant traffic for a certain services or products, closely related to those of your own website. Placing an external link on your website will of course be beneficial to the recipient, that is, to the already popular website. However, this external linking can have a positive reverse effect. If your site provides quality content, a natural reciprocal link might come your way. Sharing your traffic can help create a sense of goodwill which is generally responded to in kind. However, tread lightly since websites are sceptical of linking to ones that appear to be link farms. Make sure that your external links are not spammy, your content is unique and you will be rewarded for your link.

There's no question that a popular website can boost traffic of linked websites significantly. On the other hand, these sites have little to gain from association with your pages. The SEO strategy of link building must therefore go hand in hand with an effort to create value through quality content. Highly popular websites will only pay attention, if what you have to show is truly worth the look to their traffic.