Like it or not, getting inbound links to your blog is part of the business. If you want your blog to be found in search engine results, you are going to have to schmooze a little bit with your fellow bloggers. Blogs are built by participating with the blogging community, publishing quality content and effective marketing. Combined, these three processes will create a blog that is popular in search engine results as well as with other blogs in your niche.

Each of these steps is vital to the success of your blog. Without quality content, nobody will read your blog or stay around long enough to become a regular reader. Without marketing, your reader base will not grow quick enough to support your blogging efforts. And without links, your blog won’t be very visible to those looking for information similar to what you supply. You should have a detailed plan of action for how you are going to accomplish each of these steps, keeping track of what does and doesn’t work along the way.

Why do I need to get people to link to my blog?

• Getting other blogs to link to yours improves your blog’s credibility. The more blogs in your niche that link back to your blog tells readers that your blog has quality information worth sharing and spreads your reach across the sites covering your industry
• Building up incoming links also improves your blog’s Google PageRank, a score Gogle applies to sites to measure their importance in search engine results. The higher your PageRank gets, the more often your blog, in theory, will be found by searchers. Sites with higher Page Rank also enjoy a reputation of being more valuable to readers
• Inbound links is also vital to how people find your blog. Relying on search engines alone is a risky proposition, but having many blogs in your niche pointing others to your content greatly increases the chances your prospects will read the great information your blog has to offer

Who should I get to link to my blog?

• First and foremost, you should contact the blogs you have considered linking to in your blogroll. These sites are probably those that are of most interest to your readers and are likely to be similar to your blog topic wise
• Sites with high PageRank, between 4 and 8, or at least higher than your own blog, will increase your blog’s Page Rank. The more sites with higher Page Rank that link to your site, the better off your blog will be
• Blogs that are competing with yours on specific keywords are also very valuable to have shared links with. Each site that focuses on similar keywords to your blog that links to your blog increases the value of the keywords you are optimizing your blog for

How can I get people to link to my blog?

• One way to get other blog’s to link to your blog is to simply send an email to the blog’s webmaster and ask if they would be interested in trading links with each other. Generally, if your site is in the same industry and has a decent PageRank and traffic flow, the webmaster will be more than happy to trade links and increase their own blog’s authority, as well
• Another way to get links is to create some sort of link bait content. This is content that you intentionally create with the purpose of getting others to link to your site. Popular examples are comprehensive resource lists, ranking lists and articles written directly for the community’s at any number of social media sites
• Buying links to your blog, while not the most ethical form of link building, can also increase your blog’s value. If you are having trouble gaining links in any other way, this may be a good option to consider

While you may spend the majority of your blogging time researching and writing your articles, you cannot neglect to dedicate a considerable amount of time towards your link exchanging efforts. Blogging is a multi-faceted activity and requires your attention on several fronts. The more time you put in, the better off your blog will be. Over time, you will learn how to perform each of these activities more efficiently, but in the beginning, all you can do is get out there and see what works for you. Contact blogs with similar traffic and PageRank numbers, and as your blog increases in popularity, reach out to more established blogs in your industry. With each link, your blog will begin to attract more and more new readers and eventually, you’ll become a blog others begin to contact for link exchanges.