To be a good link builder, you have to constantly think like a link builder. Since being heavily involved in SEO I can no longer casually browse the internet without thinking SEO; I will use the SEO for Firefox Extension at home (as well as work), I will critique the search friendliness of every site I visit, and above all I will use any opportunity I have to keep a link diary. Despite trying to separate work and play, since starting a link diary this is the only thing I can’t stop out of work time.

One of the most valuable link building ‘tools’ I use is my link diary; a spreadsheet where I can quickly add sites and pages where I may be able to get a link from in the future. It needn’t be anything fancy but it is a way to quickly add a site to come back to at a later date that may be worth looking at for link building. I have found the best way to satisfy the inner SEO in me is to quickly write down the site in a text file or spreadsheet, and then come back to these sites at a later date and take a better look. This way you never pass up good linking opportunities, but are not interrupted every time you see a site that may benefit you.

I do it for a range of sites; a niche directory that I wouldn’t have found otherwise, sometimes it is a links page, but most often it is those kinds of sites which you would never try to get a link from – the more obscure sites where you (and your competitors) would never actually think of – these are the ones you really have to look out for. You wouldn’t believe how many quality sites I have casually came across which I would have overlooked if I wasn’t thinking of my links diary at the back of my head. It is so simple to do, doesn’t interrupt you, and means you never pass up a good opportunity for links.

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