Everyone knows that it has been a continuous battle between the search engines and the online marketers. Now, that the first trimester of 2012 is almost over, we can easily say which are the best techniques for link building in 2012. We can already draw this conclusion because we had enough time to study which tactics still work after the changes that have been made in the past year and I am talking mostly about the Panda update. The update to the Google algorithm has changed the rules of the game and it forced the other search engines to do the same. There are some unconventional strategies for Link Building but today I have decided to talk about the effective ones.

1.Link Reclamation. If you have your website up for some time, then some of the websites which linked to yours may have become broken. The process of winning back links which are broken due to changes on your website or the external links point to pages redirected to 301, 302 or the 404 errors and which is not giving you its full value of the authority.

The Link Reclamation works in three phases:

Phase 1: Discovery.

Phase 2: Outreach.

Phase 3: Tracking.

Discovery. Using three main tools, OpenSiteExplorer, MajesticSEO and Google Webmaster Tools we analyze the links and do an Excel Sheet removing the duplicate links. Now you have the data for the outreach phase.

Outreach. This process it is the most rewarding, but it comes with a minus. The minus of this process is that it takes a lot of time. In this process you reach the admins who linked to broken pages. This is done after you have segmented the 301/302 and 404. This is a win-win situation for you and the webmaster that’s linking to the broken page.

Tracking. In this process you track to see how effective the previous two steps were. You do this by tracking the page authority on the pages of the reclaimed links and you do it with Open Site Explorer.

2. Competitive Link Audit and Acquisition. This is in some ways similar to the Link Reclamation and that is because there must be an understanding of particular websites, uncovering link targets. You do it by analyzing the competitions link building strategies. You can do it by using the next tools and graphs:

A) Domain and Page Authority Segmentation (Tools: Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO)

B) Brand and Non-Brand Anchor Text Segmentation (For this we use the same tools. Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO)

C) GEO Linking profile ( Tool: Blekko) This is useful in analyzing the link profile for global brands. It uncovers unique linking opportunities for websites addressed to a global wide range public, where quality links with Geo-Location are hard to create.

These are techniques which are time consuming, but great as a come back if you have been affected by Panda or Penguin and are even worth a try if you haven’t been hit by the new Google updates. The second part of this article will contain link building techniques which are still effective after the latest updates of Google and they were often used as SEO techniques before the updates.

1) Guest Posting. Administrators and webmasters are always opened to guest posting. Contact several and ask them if you can post reviews as a guest.

2) Forum Participation. The interactions on forums might bring you several advantages. Except that you can have a link back to your site through the signature, you can also learn and share infos with others about the niche you are interested in.

3) Q&A Websites. Like Forum Participation, you can create your reputation in your niche as an authority by answering to questions and answers websites like Yahoo and Wiki.

4) Article Directories. First rule: Unique content! This is the first rule of SEO. And this is a rule for article Directories.

5) Local Directory Listing. This is mostly necessary for websites that promote local companies and have local offices. Use the same info for all the local directories: Logo, Brand, Contact Info, etc.

6) Social Media. Presence in the Social Networking is very important. This is helpful for Branding also. You can use Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Reddit and lots of other social networks.

7) Video Submission. Your own videos might be a great way to promote your website, by adding links back to it. Post only videos that you own or you are authorized to. It can also help you if other website embed or index your videos.

8) Content Submission to File Sites. This way you can publish your own work, with backlinks to your website. Submit PDF Documents or slides to file sharing sites.

I know that reading this might get you excited, but do not overuse any of these techniques. SERP’s and their algorithms are against it. You might get unwanted result from your tiresome work. Most of the techniques have been used for a long time and you all might be used to them, but the secret is in not abusing them. Good luck!