Incoming Links

1. Links From Sites You Control
   You can control your site's theme by setting up several small related sites. Then cross link them all together, including links back to the main site.
   
   Select keywords that describe the theme of the main site and use those same keywords to link to the main site from the other sites.
   
   The reason for doing this is because some of the major search engines, such as Google, place a great importance on the text used within links.
   
2. Links From Sites You Do Not Control
   There are three ways of finding sites to link to yours.
   
   i. Find Sites That Link To Your Competition
   
   Did you know that search engines can tell you which sites link to your competition? To find out, visit your favorite search engine and enter, "link:" followed by the competitors domain name (with and without "www").
   
   For example, "link:theirdomain.com" and "link:www.theirdomain.com." (Quotation marks not required)
   
   To check the link popularity of your own sites, simply replace "theirdomain.com" with your own domain names.
   
   ii. Find Link Partners In Web Directories
   
   Do not forget that all the sites listed in the same category as yours in the major web site directories, such as Yahoo!, LookSmart and the Open Directory Project, are ideal link candidates too.
   
   Once you have compiled a list of related sites, add a link to them in your site. Then send an email to each site owner informing them that you have linked to their site and politely ask them for a link back to your site. Don't forget to tell them about the benefits of exchanging links in this manner.
   
   iii. Find Sites That Accept Site Submissions
   
   Another way of finding sites to link to yours is to find sites that accept site submissions. To find such sites, visit a search engine, such as Google, and search for:

   "add url" "your keywords"
   
   Replace "your keywords" with those related to your site. Include the quotation marks to ensure the search engine only return pages with the exact search phrases you enter.
   
   Also try replacing, "add url" with one of the following sets of search phrases:

   add site, add link, add a url, add a site, add a link, submit url, submit site, submit link, submit a url, submit a site, submit a link.

   
   
   In addition, you can also find site submission pages by searching for the actual page. So, try replacing the "add url" search phrase with one of the following page names:

   addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html, addaurl.html, addasite.html, addalink.html, submiturl.html, submitsite.html, submitlink.html, submitaurl.html, submitasite.html, submitalink.

add-url.html, add-site.html, add-link.html, add-a-url.html, add-a-site.html, add-a-link.html, submit-url.html, submit-site.html, submit-link.html, submit-a-url.html, submit-a-site.html, submit-a-link.

add_url.html, add_site.html, add_link.html, add_a_url.html, add_a_site.html, add_a_link.html, submit_url.html, submit_site.html, submit_link.html, submit_a_url.html, submit_a_site.html, submit_a_link.

   You could also try replacing the ".html" extension with others, such as ".htm," ".shtml," ".cfm," etc.