Every SEO will agree that the most important factor in SEO is backlinks, both quality and quantity — it’s no secret.

There are a number of ways to get other sites to link to you… here’s a few: reciprocal links (you link to someone and they link to you), renting links through a broker or directly from another site, buying permanent links, sponsoring or advertising on sites (pretty much the same as renting), etc. You can also comment on others blogs and link back to your site or write in online article directories, such as ezine articles, and include a link to your site. But the cheapest and the best way to build links is by the sweat of your brow — developing a quality, valuable site that other sites will link to.

You can see how many sites are linking to you by typing the following in the google search bar link:yourdomainname.com. In yahoo, type linkdomain:yourdomainname.com. You’ll notice that Google and Yahoo will also list pages on your site that link to the homepage… this is normal.

So, when optimizing your site for search engines, the number one thing you can do is build links, lots and lots of links! There are a number of other things to consider when you’re building links… but I’ll leave that for tomorrow. It’s past my bedtime right now. :)