One of the big factors in search engine ranking is how many sites link to your website. Each link counts as a vote for your website, pushing it up in the search engines' listings. Not only that, but every link gives others that much more of a chance to visit your website. So how do you get other sites to link to yours?

One of the best ways is to put the links in yourself. On blogs, you can leave comments and include a link to your website. So visit plenty of blogs that are related to your site's topic and leave comments. Make sure they are valid comments, insightful when possible. This will make others more likely to visit your site.

As I've mentioned in the past, post in forums that are related to your site's topic. Make sure to have a signature with your name and website address. While not all search engines count links in forums, if your messages are helpful and demonstrate your knowledge of the topic, people will be that much more likely to visit your site.

Write about a controversial topic. If you have an opinion about a controversial topic in your industry, write about it. Articulate your opinion, using good writing skills. Other sites will likely link directly to your article. And if your page design is consistent, they can easily get to the rest of your site from there.

You can also submit your website to various link directories online. Though the general purpose link directories tend not to be counted by the search engines, you can find directories specific to your industry. Maybe your business is already listed in some online listings. See if you can add your website address.

There are, of course, plenty of ways to get sites to link to yours. If you know of more, feel free to contact me.

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.