If you talk to an SEO about optimizing your website then link building is one of the topics which will surely be discussed as a part of any SEO project.
I am of the opinion that the term 'link building' itself is an incorrect term. Links do not have to be built but they should get built naturally in the process as your website starts getting a wider web presence and preference.
As every link is like a vote to your site and goodwill of your company and that has to be earned as part of the web journey of the website.
If we focus on the quality content, have a good site internal linking architecture, have a site which is visitor friendly as well as robot friendly then getting high SERPs is not a difficult task.
Once you have high SERPs trust me there will loads of directories and portals adding your site in their listings even without you knowing about it, as they too are looking for quality listings.
Once upon a time the dmoz listing was something that you always wished for once you submitted your site in dmoz as that surely was a valuable link. I dont know if it still has that importance but I still manually add each site to dmoz.
Apart from a good qualitative site in all respects other genuine methods of gaining natural inbound links as your website goes from one milestone to another are as follows:
- Focus all your efforts on making the site informative, qualitative and content rich to get links automatically.·
- Do not neglect the On-Page Optimization Basics and just go after links. (Very important from the SEO perspective)·
- Participate in social media networks for discussions and sharing of information and mention links to the relevant pages to your website. (It need not be the Home Page always)·
- Have a social book marking button on your website.
- Make RSS feeds available on your website.
- Issue Press Releases periodically.
