The World Wide Web is a network of information, if websites have similar content, search engines like them to be linked as it helps their search results to be relevant.

The best way to ensure that your website is deemed relevant to a particular topic is to build links from relevant websites.

The best way to begin this part of your search engine optimisation campaign is to enter a search term of your website’s topic into a search engine such as Google.

You’ll be greeted by websites that are already categorised by the search engine for that particular phrase or term.  These are the websites that you want to link your website to and in turn gain a back link from.

These websites could be considered your competition for a high search engine placement.  Even though you are likely to want to compete, you’re going to need to at least attempt to get a link swap with the website’s owner.
The reasons for wanting to gain a link with these websites certainly out weigh reasons for not doing so, especially if your website is new, or by no means as established as them.

Good search engine optimisation campaigns are all about giving the search engine what it wants and that is to categorise websites.  If your website is seen to be linking to and from websites that it had categorised, then your website will also find itself where you want it to be.

The more links to relevant websites that you get, the more relevant and important your website will become from the search engines perspective.  The more links to relevant, established websites you get, the higher your Google page ranking is likely to be.

This process may deliver results pretty much instantly, but it can take a while longer, depending on how many results are returned for a particular phrase.

If you manage to get at the top (or near to) of the food chain for your chosen phrase, it’s more than likely that fellow website owners are going to ask if you would consider swapping links with them.

Good search engine optimisation suggests that you should agree to do this, but for those of you who like to maximise their website’s earning power - you may well be able to charge somebody for the privilege of gaining a link from your website.  There’s no doubt that at one stage of your search engine optimisation campaign you will encounter somebody wanting some of your cash for a link.  Once you are established, you are able to do this.  Just don’t be too greedy though!