Five Link Building Sins to Avoid

If you've done any research into search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, you know that one of the most important keys to getting good placement in search engines is to get other Web sites to link to your site. And, if you've ever tried getting other sites to link to yours, you know it's a whole lot easier to talk about the importance of link building than it is to acquire relevant, high-quality inbound links.

In fact, says author Janet Attard, looking for appropriate sites to ask for links, trying to convince them to link to you, and tracking the whole process, is a tedious, time-consuming task, leading some small business owners to take short cuts. But some of these short cuts can actually cost you good placement in the search engines.

Attard offers five link building tactics you should avoid:

1. Using form letters to solicit links.
2. Buying links from any company that spams publishers with canned pitches telling them they’ll make thousands of dollars by placing paid links on their Web site.
3. Trying to "sell" your page rank in a link swap request.
4. Soliciting links from sites that have nothing in common with yours.
5. Soliciting links from sites that are in a different country, and then asking them to run a geographically specific text ad with your link.

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