Link baiting has been the most important task ever since Google places great emphasis on links popularity. Search Engine Optimizers are constantly looking for new and effective ways to build links both for the users and search engines. This article discusses some of the commonly used link building strategies and highlights their respective effectiveness.

Most web masters submit their sites to countless of directories for backlinks. This method may not be useful anymore as it brings little or no traffic to the sites. Unless sites are submitted to popular directories like Yahoo Directory, other directories simply not worth the effort and money.

A better alternative to directories submission is article submission. Article writing has becoming more and more popular nowadays as these articles will also help to bring in more targeted traffic and quality backlinks. If done probably, articles is a very cost effective way of marketing tool as well.

Some domain experts also publish their sites in their signatures in popular forums like DigitalPoint and NamePros. These signatures not only attract highly targeted traffic but they are also classified as backlinks by the search engines.

Moving into the new link popularity era, search engines are looking more than just pure backlinks. Relevant linking is far more important as this will benefit the users ultimately. Next, we will take a look at those new linking techniques that will emerge useful in near future.

Several websites have been published recently to promote the awareness of some great sites. Stumble, Digg and del.icio.us are the most popular ones till date. Although most of the links from them are not classified as backlinks by the search engines at the moment, they bring in great traffic and help in viral marketing. If we could build links directly to attract potential customers while bypassing search engines, is it not a good way?

One of the latest trend in link popularity is Link Investment. There are already some premier entrepreneurs looking into the possibility of creating a link investment opportunity that will benefit the site by directing traffic to them and at the same time, earn profits by selling these links themselves. LinkVestor is the first site to implement this unique concept.