Getting links is same as what's important in being popular. So how many inbound links your site have, will reflect in higher search engines ranking. It is because inbound links are an important component of Page Rank system on search engines. So building links means to create a network of
Inbound links, Outbound links, and Cross links
Importance of link building in SEO
The importance of link building lies in the working mechanism of search engines. Just as in our daily life famous people usually have greater links than others. Similarly highly ranked website will also have great links. So in SEO it's very important to have effective link building capability.
Methods of Link Building
1. Finding Sites to Make a Link Request
Consider following when you find appropriate websites to make a inbound link request.
o Look for the sites you find useful, entertaining, and informative.
o Use the directories to find sites in related categories
o Use free help to find related sites
2. Finding email addresses
You can contact webmaster to request link and you can find webmaster contact either in web site or in its source code.
3. Comments, Trackbacks, and Discussion Threads
The easiest way to get inbound links is for you to post them on bolgs, discussion boards, comments and threads. These links are for short period of time but they are worth trying it.
4. Keeping Content Fresh
The basic of SEO is to keep quality content and for healthy link building keep content fresh. Regularly update the content on the website. You can create a blog or invite open discussions on your site.
5. Syndication
The content is syndicated in a feed that this feed is transmitted to destinations. These feeds can contain links to the originating site. Syndication feeds work well for link building.
Link Building Based on Competitive Analysis
By analyzing your obtained links with those of your competitors is good idea. This way you can compare the method pursued with the methods of your top competitors. Competitive analysis provide good tool to stay in competition of link building race. This is another way of getting natural traffic because these links and sites that send your competitors their traffic, they will also bring visitors to your site. This method is competitive analysis is fair and straight forward.
Example
Take Yahoo as example of best source of linkage data. Yahoo currently shows the most accurate number of links in "most valuable at top" sorted form. Google and Hotmail purposely does not report accurate link data can often show less valuable and effective links at the top.