The word is out that relevant link building is critical in achieving great search engine placement among the leading engines like Google and Bing. But not everyone is on board with this thinking and their web clients and web sites are falling behind as a result.

In the early days of Google if you wanted a good placement in search results all you had to do was submit your website url to a number of key web directories and they, in turn, would populate hundreds and sometimes thousands of lesser known engines and other directories with that information. This proved to sometimes effective and some times not so much, but we all agreed it was pretty much all we could do to try to get our websites in a better position in search results.

While there are still many businesses advertising they will still submit your information to endless directories it’s no longer an effective means to achieve higher rankings. Leading search engines have come a long way in the process of how they prioritize search results and building relevant links into your web sites is more than a good idea these days – it’s necessary.

To further add to the complexity of the issue, the engines follow the belief that all links are not created equal. Search engines like Google have a ranking order among domains, placing educational institutions (.edu domains) among the highest due to the informative academic work they publish on their web sites. It will benefit you and your clients the most by having link backs from institutions.

An excellent way to participate in link building with schools or other relevant businesses could be by building a relationship with them through volunteerism and donations.  Being acknowledged on their web site as a donor, with a link back to your site, is a simple way to obtain that link and will have you donating to a good cause at the same time.

Whether it’s a school (.edu), an organization (.org) or another business (.com or .net) the concept of link building is the same, regardless of the business niche you’re in. Find a relevant target to be linked back from, then offer to support that company in some way. If they don’t already have one, recommend the importance of a adding an Acknowledgements or Donors page to their web site. When doing so ask for a link back to your site explaining how it will benefit them as well.

Keeping this in mind, it won’t be long before you begin to see the benefits of relevant link backs to your site as you quickly climb to a more prominent position in the search engine rankings.