With experience, every diligent webmaster conjures up a list of on-site best practices that help websites occupy a top rank on popular search engine pages for relevant keyword phrases. Search engine rating and ranking of your website is highly influenced by linking structure, Meta tags, image alt tags, unique content as well as page load time.

Regardless of the on-site factors usually focussed by webmasters, the most effective technique that can be applied to raise your organic search traffic is the effective implementation of an intelligent link-building startegy. The tactics is quite simple; as you have more relevant links pointing to your site from other domains, it will have increased opportunity of ranking higher for your target keyword phrases.

But if you are an off-site SEO novice, just thinking of link building could be quite intimidating. Given the wide range of options for achieving linkbuilding, do you know the result-oriented ones? Bear this in mind; it is not just the mere quantity of links that aid in pushing your website to the top positions for your target keywords, the quality of pages linking back to you also count.

Below given are 5 proven link-building techniques that are counted among the most consistent and highly effective practises by web-experts who have spent several years on search engine optimization. Although these five are not the only ways to generate links that point back to your blog or website, they are the most effective and have been proven to work on a wide range of sites. Remember, it is important not to limit yourself to a particular link building technique and to not stop from exploring novel online sources to generate greater an relevant backlinks.

1. Article Marketing
   Numerous webmasters use article marketing quite frequently to build relevant follow-up-links back to the domains; however, it is usually not performed effectively. Undoubtedly, original articles publishing on marketing sites create applicable links back to your domain; however, the articles on their own seem to have very minute search engine authority… in other words, there is need to publish numerous articles so that you can make significant difference. If your articles are well-written and beneficial to your target audience, it is most likely that some webmasters will pick them up and publish them again on related blogs. This will generate more links pointing back to your domain from other websites.

   If you want to achieve limitless success with your article marketing, have a sound plan to publish numerous articles monthly while ensuring that you include the URL to your WebPages in the resource box. The popular article directories to publish your articles are Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard, ArticleBase and SearchWrap.

2. Related Link Exchanges
   Be careful to observe that ‘related’ or ‘relevant’ is used to qualify link exchanges. The notion of some people that link exchanges have been made unproductive for accomplishing SEO by search engines is not true. Provided that link exchange is achieved between related sites and is not excessively done, you can attract substantial authority using it.

   Before suggesting exchange of links, it is wise to establish professional relationship with webmasters that their sites are related to yours. Participate actively in your online niche community; submit guest posts, leave comments, interact with bloggers and remember to make reference to your website at the right time. With this, it becomes easier to convince webmasters to exchange links with you.

3. Guest Blog Posts
   If you use this tactics appropriately, it has the potential of becoming the top influential off-site SEO tool for achieving link-building. The challenge with guest blog posts is that it is difficult to come forth with a result-oriented guest blog post, it is even easier to achieve link exchanges, article marketing and directory submissions. This technique ensures a much higher quality link to your website but with much effort.

   If you want an influential blogger to accept your content for guest post, you must make it relevant, valuable, and it should be thoroughly written. You can also achieve result by submitting your guest posts to less popular, smaller blogs. My Blog Guest is a valuable community online that can help you come across other bloggers that would want to work with guest posters.

4. Embarking on a Website Contest
   Another effective tactic for building links is to give away gifts or prizes to those who visit your site regularly – it is effective both in performance and cost. Although prize or cash award is a huge no-no with the search engines when it comes to link building, it can be an effective avenue for motivating your fans to visit your site and tell others about it.

   Instead of giving out monthly prize to a person that links back to your website, it is better to make it an entry requirement for the person to just talk about your site somewhere. It doesn’t matter if the contest participants talk about your domain on their Facebook profiles or blog, they will still build recognition of your brand and generate links for you on the long run.

   Remember to advertise the contest on some free contest forums online; examples are Contest Blogger, About Blog Contest as well as Lucky Contests. Don’t think for a moment that it will require a very expensive price to lure people into participating. Simple items like books, fun trinkets and t-shirts can attract user interaction.

5. Submitting to Authoritative Directory
   One of the standard SEO link building tools that has existed for a long time is directory submissions. A massive number of directories online will link to your website without charging you any money. The only challenge is this; the technique has been made less effective by search engines as a result of link building abuse.

However, site submission to few relevant and renowned directories remains a great way to build a profile of back-links. Webmasters with extra bucks should think of submitting their sites to authoritative directories such as Yahoo Directory and a few others. It is a guaranteed way of generating quality links back to your site.

More often it has been observed that PPC campaigns are directed to pages within the client’s website that seldom have the essential features needed for a visitor to accomplish a choice based on an action or goal. Also, many pages seem to have content more focused on achieving organic rankings as opposed to conversions or more importantly sales.

When you embark on paid search campaigns, you are investing in traffic generation, with the desire that visitors are converted into leads and then into sales.
To accomplish a result with your investment, your pay per click traffic should be sent to landing pages that have been specially created to convert users to leads and sales.

You can find several features that have the potential of assisting users to complete the lead form. In order to maximize leads, the following should be applied on PPC landing pages:

• The Lead Form
  The lead form should feature only form fields that are useful for following up a lead, and should be above the fold. Avoid creating several fields so that the user will be attracted to fill out the form. Try and keep the form as simple and short as possible.
• Calls to Action
  You need compelling messages on your landing pages to get users to do what you want them to do. In the case of leads generation, you want users to complete the form; the secret of achieving this is the way you structure the message provided on the page. Having a single desirable goal helps a majority of the landing pages to convert best.
• Testimonials
  This is probably the most excellent way to obtain more business. Testimonials are simply references to your business, from the previous customers.
• Offers
  Offers are a great way to attract users. They are what you give users in return for the information they supplied you. Offers can be in different forms such as free downloads, whitepaper, or a free product. A juicier offer attracts users to supply their information.
• Value Propositions
  The competitive advantage at your disposal is value propositions, they are also techniques you can apply to assist your customer’s business. Value propositions should be made simple to read; preferably, outline them with bullet points.
• Recognized Awards from Your Industry
  This is a way to showcase the competency and excellent nature of your company. Mentioning or even providing evidence of awards from your industry shows that your business is among the top rated in your industry, and it encourages the user to choose your company.
• Fewer Content and navigation
  The exciting thing about paid search marketing is the ability to select where to direct a user depending on the search term or keyword entered by such user. For this purpose, there is no need for much navigation since the user is already provided with exact information to match the search query entered. Also, keep landing page’s copy precise and brief.

The factors above are proven for maximizing conversion rates, and will help increase the return on your PPC campaigns investment.