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Link development is essential to a successful SEO campaign. The main disadvantage is it takes time, whereas paid search advertising (in Google, Overture, FindWhat, etc.) results are nearly instantaneous.

Link development's main advantage is dynamic, cumulative, and difficult to imitate. Many sites maintain search engine visibility and the resulting qualified traffic because of successful link development, not just based on the number of keywords on a page.

Some link development tactics we commonly use:

* Choose quality over quantity. Link quality carries more weight than quantity. Spend time getting the highest quality links pointing to your site. One of search engine spammers' biggest sales pitches is, "Get millions of links to your site." Don't fall for that arcane, useless pitch.

* Begin with Web directories. Yahoo Directory and Business.com are two reliable places for high-quality links. Both require annual submission fees. If their links don't positively affect your site's link development, don't renew.

* Harness online publicity. How-to tips, helpful articles, even useful press releases often garner links from other Web sites. Publicity is usually part of a company's overall marketing plan, so harnessing these resources for link development can be a simple task.

* Use blogs and forums wisely. Blogs and forums can call attention to useful information on your own site.

* Use search engines to research link development. Look at competitors' sites to determine their link development strategy. It can help you with your own. What newspapers and media outlets do they use for online publicity? What Web directories link to their sites? No link popularity checker ("link:domain.com" in Google, "linkdomain:domain.com" in Yahoo) can substitute for doing the research yourself.