[EDIT: Man I hate this post. Go here for link building tips and explanation why!]

With all this talk of link buying and how it can effectively cause your much valued website to drop out of the serps altogether, maybe it’s time to review your methods of acquiring links and for us to discuss the steps to take in find good websites to link to that add value to your own site.

Sifting through the many sites out there is without doubt a laborious process and requires time and dedication. A good link builder needs to take into account a multitude of considerations, mainly how the acquired link will affect the website not only now but in the future too.

Lets make a list of tips for link building. I’ll start the ball rolling, by the end of comments I will compile the top 20 tips so you too can become a professional link builder.

1) Check out backlinks to your competitors website, make a list of these links and by the time you have researched a number of sites you should start to see a pattern emerging.

2) When negotiating links, think very carefully as to the angle you will approach the webmaster with. OK, that link may benefit you, but what does he/she get in return ?

3)  What methods will you employ to make sure the links remain on your chosen site ?

4) ( I always struggle with this one) Determine if the site is a good linking partner. What’s the nature of the site? What impact will it have on your site if you link to it ? Who owns the site ?  ( Some people such as Dave get a gut feeling about a site, but here we need to establish a definite method for filtering out the crap)