Link building is an excellent strategy if you’re looking to gain a little more traction from your SEO efforts—but it’s going to take some time and effort on your part. (After all SEO isn't easy.)

If you want to build a great marketing strategy, building links goes beyond SEO; in fact, the strategy can help you out in terms of thought leadership, an important part of how brands establish themselves, and professional networking, a great way to get new customers and find more ways to promote your store.

Take a look at some of the tips for building links below.

Building lists and sharing them through a variety of social media (usually posting on a company blog) are a great way to drive traffic and build SEO credentials. For instance, lists reflecting “101 Top” or “10 Tips” usually get a lot of traffic as authority documents. They’re easy to read (as long as they’re organized), and savvy bloggers will pick up on them as a result. There are plenty of free and paid directories where you can list your online store’s address—and if that isn’t enough for you, create your own directory and list your site as a part of it. Social bookmarking is another great strategy; when you use Del.icio.us, make sure to tag related sites to get you greater visibility (and even more links). Yes, we had to say it twice. No catch, just plain old contests and giveaways. Launching a contest and organically promoting it by letting industry bloggers and journalists know about it can help inspire a wealth of traffic through your site. It’s easy, and it’s also a great way to collect lead information. Professional bloggers check their analytics on a regular basis; if your blog or website already has some traffic and customers are clicking on links, bloggers will notice where links are coming from and check out your site. If they find it contains good content, you might get a shout-out or, better yet, a listing in their own sidebar directory. If you contribute to industry forums or review industry-related items on Amazon and other sites, you gain the opportunity to include a link to your site. This requires thought-out and knowledgeable contribution; the better the contribution, the more potential customers will be inclined to click on your link and visit your site.