It’s been well documented for years that one of the best ways to improve your organic search engine results is to establish inbound links from other websites. Here’s 5 tips on how to do it.

1. Industry Directories
   Pick an industry, any industry, and you’ll find a number of options for posting your site in online directories. Most are free, and besides helping to increase your inbound links, visitors to those sites will be likely to find you when they visit.
2. Complementary Reciprocal Links
   Take inventory of your business partners and other complementary companies. Check out their websites and reach out to them about the possibility of cross linking. You can link to them and they can link to you.
3. Press Releases
   Whenever you issue a press release, be sure to include links to your site. When the press release is picked up by other sites and posted, your links are typically embedded.
4. Blog Commenting
   Spend time on blogs? If so, don’t be shy – comment away. Lend your expertise in discussions that match your company. Then at the end of every comment include a simple, but consistent signature that contains your information with your website address.
5. Social Site Status Updates
   Sites like Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter are all the rage. Use these sites’ status updates to provide useful information about your company and its solutions. Answering a question on Twitter, post a link. Letting people know about a news item, post a link.

Now, of course these are only a few techniques and I could spend an hour on each but no matter how you link to your site, be sure your site is a destination worthy of the visitor’s time. Keeping your site current and relevant is the first part of success, and of course a solid content management system can go a long way to help you do just that.

-- Mike

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