SEO is link building – quality content is great, and it’s an essential component in any marketing strategy, but there are hundreds, thousands, even millions of quality posts out there which never get read, and the reason why is simple to understand: link building.

I would go as far as to say that link building should comprise about 70% of all the activity you perform on your SEO campaign. Google looks to links like votes: each site which links into your site is essentially submitting a vote in favour of your site. Some votes are stronger than others, but put simply the more votes you have then the higher your website will rank for a range of its key terms.

So, without further ado, let’s look at some novel ways you can build links to your website, and attract other people to link to you:

#1: Vary Your Anchor Text:

This is a mistake which is really simple to make. Google is always on the lookout for a “natural link profile” – submitting hundreds of links, all at once, to hundreds of worthless article directories and using the same anchor text over and over again doesn’t really give off the most “natural” of impressions.

You should ideally vary your anchor text as much as possible. For example, if you want to rank for the term “Washing Machine Repair”, then consider using the anchor text variations “Washing Machine Repairs”, “Laundry Repairs”, “Washer Repair” and so on. Don’t worry about being too specific – all of the aforementioned anchor text examples will help contribute to improving your ranking for “washing machine repair”.

#2: Diversify Your Link Profile:

This is another mistake which many webmasters make when they first start experimenting with SEO. A diverse link profile is one where the links pointing into a site come from many different sources e.g. blogs, directories, article directories, social bookmarking websites, press release sites, news sites and so on. All of this diversity will help give your backlink profile a more natural appearance.

#3: Zemanta:

This is a service which has grown like wildfire over the last year. Zemanta will publish a feed of sites which are relevant to content you happen to be writing at any given time – these sites will appear in a resource box while you are creating a post. The obvious benefit here is that a blogger or webmaster may choose to link to you if your post is interesting enough to catch their eye.

#4: PageRank – is it important?

If you’re going to take anything from this article, try and remember the following concepts: authoritativeness, relevance and trust. All of these ranking factors exist independently of the much sought after PageRank value.

PageRank, quite simply, is a massive topic and it’s possible to write thousands of words on the subject. However, all you really need to know is that it’s far from being the be all and end all of Search Engine Optimisation. For example, acquiring a link from a PR0 page on the BBC.co.uk is far more valuable than acquiring your tenth PR2 directory submission – the BBC.co.uk is after all, a very authoritative resource.

Another thing you should keep in mind is that PageRank, as the name suggests, is assigned at the page level – the PageRank value assigned to the homepage is not universal across the entire website.

Gareth Power is a renowned author on all things SEO. Visit One Click Monetization for more tips on article marketing and AdSense, and learn how to actually build a website which is both valuable and useful for visitors.