Acquiring backlinks can be an incredibly important mix in your SEO, search engine optimization efforts, ignore them at your own peril.

Back links can be useful in a number of ways, firstly, most search engines, particularly Google like to see quality backlinks, and the emphasis here is on the word quality.

Quality backlinks, in Google’s mystical algorithm of relevance, proves that your site is in some way valuable or important, but that’s assuming you go for quality links in relation to the keyword you are optimizing your site for.

For example if your target keyword is ‘Nike trainers’ then look for high quality links for that keyword.

Secondly, you can increase your site traffic with potential customers who find the backlink and visit your site and this will help to increase the overall visitors to your site.

So how do you get these all important quality backlinks? For one you need a well thought out and planned, link strategy, here are some of my suggestions.

1. Directories

Not all directories are equal, some are worth more than others so don’t waste your money, time and effort on directories that have a page rank (PR) value of less than 1. Ideally you would want to acquire directory links with a PR of 4+.

Make sure you are listed on Google and DMOZ, and if you’re budget allows for it, pay for a listing on the Yahoo directory. These are high value directories and will certainly give your site a boost.

2. Press Release

If you’re a business, try writing and distributing a press release that would be valuable or of interest to customers, suppliers or other relevant stakeholders in your area of business. Potential newsworthy items could include, launching a new product or service, relocating due to expansion, taking on new staff or creating a new department. All of these are valuable PR opportunities, and don’t forget to include a backlink to your site.

3. Article Directories

Try and write original, quality articles and submit them to article directories. Article directories can be an excellent way to get quality backlinks to your site. Every time you write and submit an article that gets published you have the opportunity to place one or several links back to your site. Typically this is done via the authors bio or the resource box.

4. Posting comments

Posting your comments to other articles on blogs takes little or no time at all and is an incredibly effective way of getting good quality baclinks to your site, especially if the blog is a high PR site and relevant to your keywords or site.

Aim to post useful and honest comments and Do not spam, go off topic, or post useless few-word comments just to get your link placed. If you do the chances are your comment will not even get posted.

5. High authority sites

Finally, some of the better quality sites are.edu and.gov, known as high authority sites. Get a link back from one of these sites and you will likely gain a real boost for your site in terms of traffic and PR. Unfortunately, it is notoriously difficult to get a backlink from those sites, but it is worth a try if you have a site that is going to be worthwhile linking to.

Try the above linking strategies, and hopefully over time you will see a rise in visitors and in your site rank.