This is quite a common question among new bloggers and webmasters, so let’s talk about it. First of all Robert is certainly on the right track. He already knows the basics of SEO, and he also knows that getting those basics right is not enough to get your website ranking well. On top of that you also need quality and relevant backlinks.

So far so good. The problem that Robert is facing is that he is not sure about how to get those high-quality inbound links.
The answer to that is not that simple, as linkbuilding is a skill that you develop over time. If building high quality and relevant links was easy everyone and their dogs would be ranking high in Google, right? The reality is quite the opposite, which indicates that linkbuilding is quite tricky.

I know you guys want to hear some practical advice though, and not this abstract stuff. So how do you build links? There are several ways, but for anyone who has a blog or a content based website I would recommend focusing on one: publishing outstanding content and then promoting the heck out of it.

Some people call that linkbait, I call it killer articles, others yet call it viral content. Regardless of how you call it, the basic idea is the same: to publish an outstanding piece of content that will create the following reaction on people who will come across it: “Holy cow, I should blog about this to let my readers know about it, they will love it!“. If you manage to create this reaction, well, the links will flow.

Obviously creating this type of content is not trivial. You will need to spend time brainstorming some ideas, more time researching and writing it and so on. And after you hit the “Publish” button you will still have a lot of work to do, promoting the piece.
It is not trivial, but it is perfectly possible to master this strategy if you are willing to work at it. You should start by taking a look at what is working for other bloggers and webmasters, and then trying to incorporate that on your pieces. Over time you’ll learn what works, what doesn’t and so on.

If you want to get more details about the process of writing the killer articles, the craft of the headlines and the promotion aspect I recommend that you download my Make Money Blogging ebook. I cover most of that stuff there.