We all want a lot of backlinks to our websites. High quality ones can be a source of traffic themselves, as well as give a boost in search engine rankings. Lower quality ones probably won’t send much or any direct traffic, but can still help you with your search engine rankings, if at a lower level.

The challenge is building those backlinks. Most of us don’t want to have to spend a ton of time on it, but you have to do something to do if you want traffic.

1. Everyone’s favorite – sites linking to you on their own initiative

We all love getting links we didn’t ask for or make any specific effort to get. Links that come about just because you provide content that’s just that good are wonderful. They’re usually pretty good quality too.

They’re usually the hardest to get. The internet doesn’t really live by “build it and they will come” no matter how many of us would like it to be otherwise. People have to be noticing your site already in order to choose to link to it.

2. Blog commenting

Commenting on other blogs is one of the easiest ways to get links back to your site. That’s why you get so many spam comments on most blog posts. For those who don’t want to do the actual work of intelligent blog commenting, there’s software that will do it for them.

If you want a good reputation for your site, stick with doing the blog commenting on your own. Nothing wrong with using tools to help you find blogs, but have something to say that’s more than “great post” or similarly basic comments. Add to the discussion. You probably shouldn’t link within the comment to your own site – use the URL field for that.

Don’t overdo it on keywords in the Name field or within your comment either. Many bloggers either delete or hit the spam key on comments that have only a keyword and no real human name. Using your name, a hyphen and then keyword is okay on many blogs but not all of them.

3. Forum participation

Some forums are really useful for driving traffic to your website. Not all of them, however. You want to check for things such as whether you can have a link to your business website in your signature, and if you can occasionally link to your site if it is highly relevant to the discussion. Knowing these rules can keep you from being banned quickly from the forums. If you can’t at least have a signature link, you probably won’t get enough from the forum to spend your time on it.

Just as with blog commenting, keep it intelligent and have something to say. “I agree” and similar responses may get your post count up, but they won’t draw a picture of an authority on the subject or draw people to click on your signature links.

4. Article marketing

Article marketing takes many forms and recently took quite a hit from Google. Many article directories don’t do nearly so well in Google as they used to. Given that many people use only article directories in their article marketing efforts, you do have to consider if it’s time to change your tactics.

There are more places than article directories to do your article marketing, however. You can contact people who run ezines, website owners and bloggers directly to see if they’d take an article from you. Some will take reruns from your site while others will require original content. You have to decide when original is worth it. If the site is a good one with a lot of traffic you can get quite a healthy boost, making original content worth it. Just make sure you can create something relevant to the site your submitting your article to as well as to your own site to have the best chance at acceptance and to make the most of any traffic generated.

You can also use Open Office or other programs to change your documents to PDF format and submit them to sites such as Scribd and Docstoc. Make sure your links remain intact in your PDFs before uploading them.

5. Create a video

Not everyone thinks of link building when they consider making a video about their business, but it’s a possibility. Sites such as YouTube allow you to place a link in the description of your video. Make it relevant to the video content to have it as relevant as possible.

Videos don’t have to feature you as a talking head. You can use screen capture software to demonstrate something on your computer. You can make a video that is essentially a slide show, and either talk over it about the slides or keep it quiet.

Don’t stress about not being comfortable making videos at first. It’s new to most of us. You will get better with practice.

6. Build link wheels

Now this one can be a bit controversial. Some say Google doesn’t like it and will penalize you if they catch you at it. Others say it’s worth the risk and neener, neener, Google won’t catch them anyhow. You decide if it’s worth the risk before building link wheels to promote your site.

The premise isn’t so different from article marketing in some ways. Rather than using article directories or submitting articles to ezines and other website owners, you create little sites that all point to your own properties. You use sites such as Blogger, Squidoo and other sites that allow you to create your own pages that you can edit at will.

They’re called link wheels because each page links to your site and to the next site on the wheel. Some eventually close the wheel; others do not. People like having control and being able to edit their link wheel pages at need, a big benefit when something changes with your business.

7. Social bookmarking and media

You know, social media sites of all sorts have become popular for a reason. If you aren’t taking advantage by now, you need to start doing so. In particular, you need to figure out if there’s a site where you get access to your target audience and build a presence there. Facebook and Twitter are some of the big names, but check for sites more relevant to your niche.

Don’t forget the more basic social bookmarking sites such as Delicious. You don’t get much link juice from any of the social bookmarking or media sites, but the right one will bring traffic simply by giving your target audience another place to discover you.

If you haven’t been doing a lot of link building for your sites, start with just one link building technique and get comfortable with it before adding another. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself or feel the process is too frustrating. Always remember that your most linkable content is your best quality content, so focus on the things that should do the best.

I mentioned yesterday that I am trying to do a lot of blog commenting. One of the biggest challenges can be finding blogs to comment on. Here’s how I do it.

Follow or No Follow?

I honestly don’t stress that much about follow versus no follow blogs. I focus on providing good comments so that people reading my comment might want to come on over. At the very least there’s a chance of attracting the blog owner, and that can have more benefits than just the traffic. It might be someone to develop an online relationship with, trade posts or comments with, for example.

Finding Blogs

I often start with some of the big, heavily commented blogs in the niche. Comments on these blogs may or may not get you a lot of traffic, depending on what you say and if people tend to follow your links there anyhow.

But I do follow the links other people leave. You see, these are people interested in the niche. They comment on blogs. If they have a link to their own, that’s a blog to comment on.

The chain can sometimes be followed through many blogs.

The advantage to this is that I can then comment on a range of blogs, not just the same few every time. Nothing wrong with building a reputation with your comments on a blog, it can be a big help in building your own reputation, but spreading things out is good also.

Comment Early, Comment Often

If you want to comment regularly on a particular blog, make sure it makes it into your feed reader. I’m currently using Google Reader, but there are many choices out there.

To catch posts early you may want to consider a tool I use – Comment Sniper. It’s from Duncan Carver, and it’s free.

Comment Sniper checks the feeds that you want to read at set intervals and pops up in the corner of your monitor every time that feed shows a new post. This makes it easier for you to get in on the commenting earlier.

The bad part is that it’s really easy to tune it out after a time. I can go most of the day without noticing it if I’m working hard. Of course, that’s also a good thing when you’re focused on a project.

Promote the Blog

I forget this a lot of the time, but one thing I like to do is tweet the blog posts that I comment on. It’s something I’ve found interesting enough to have something to say, and bringing them traffic brings my comment traffic which may just give me a little too. If not, I’ve still shared something I found interesting with my Twitter audience. That’s not a bad thing.

Giving the site a quick thumbs up on StumbleUpon can also work. Not necessarily well, as SU traffic isn’t always the best for clicking around, so don’t use up a lot of your valuable time. Similarly, if you have quick links for it you could add it to your delicious bookmarks, and so forth.

Any promotion you do of someone else’s site should be brief. It’s hard enough to promote your own site, but remember that those views of your comment on other sites can help you out too.

Will All This Bring Tons of Traffic?

Pfft! No. Probably not.

So why bother focusing on the people instead of the search engine value?

Because you don’t want to look like a comment spamming idiot, of course. Focus on the people and your comments last. Those who do click through to your site are more likely to stick around. And you’ll have a better chance of building a relationship with the blogger whose blog you’re commenting on, which can lead to links in posts or guest posting opportunities, and those can lead to more traffic.