Finding backlinks from like-minded "relevant" link partners is like the gold at the end of the rainbow. When you can generate backlinks from older, "authority" websites that can send you targeted relevant visitors, you have earned yourself a link that can do much more than than a hundred other average backlinks can do for you in improving search engine results. Depending on your niche, you might find that direct traffic gains you more traffic than the top search engine position can do for you.

But getting these earnest backlinks can take some work and some time--and I don't mean massive link spamming campaigns in order to pick up a few stray links. Link building and building backlinks is much different today than it was even three years ago. Many potential link exchanges are lost due to poor communication, an insincere email introduction, the lack of integrity in reciprocal and three-way link exchanges, and other unfair link exchange practices.

To earn credible backlinks from important partners takes time and work, a little bit of research. Perhaps you need to ingratiate yourself to the authority website through genuine interest, and maybe an offer to write a guest post, participate in forums or other community discussions, send useful links for content websites that are useful to the webmaster, or supply other resources that can benefit both the authority website and your own. What I'm saying is that if you are willing to do something of value for someone's website, perhaps you can get something in return--something that both parties can appreciate.

You will find more people willing to provide you with links if you can do something for them, you're polite and genuine in your expression of interest, or you provide something of value in return to the other website. It doesn't always have to be a "what's in it for me" attitude, but it certainly can be worth the effort if the traffic return is tangible.

During the years, I've done everything from guest posts, article writing, link dumping, commenting, proofreading, URL validating, and offers to supply RSS feeds, free links, reviews, and many other tricks and tactics in order to earn valuable backlinks. But I see too many emails in my inbox that are poorly written, they're copy and paste, they're sent to multiple CC's, or they ask for a homepage link in exchange for a deep link in a worthless directory. Seriously, if you want me to consider linking to your website, offer me something genuine that I can use for my site, and maybe I can do the same for you. Backscratching in order to obtain a link is just part of the game, and if you can scratch your way into a high-traffic link, well then your efforts may pay off for you.