Search Engine Marketing is all about exposure. The more exposure you can get, the more people know about you, and potentially the more sales you make. In the Internet dimension back linking plays a major role in obtaining exposure.

There are various back linking strategies available and depending how you approach each of them could determine the overall outcome. My personal approach would be to do thorough keyword research to increase search engine ranking, but also keep in mind that the links I am building can send me significant traffic regardless of the fact whether I would rank in Google or not. In light of all of the above I am going to share 5 top search engine placement strategies which, if done consistently will bear beautiful and juicy fruit.

Technique #1 - Social Bookmarking

This is without a doubt one of the most convenient ways of obtaining quality back links. There are hundreds of social bookmarking services out there that are just waiting to provide you with free links. Social Bookmarking is the first technique I implement. Traffic from these sites usually start coming in fast. Once you do have traffic to your page, you can start with the other techniques.

Some of my favourite social bookmarking services:

- Stumble Upon

- Digg

- Reddit

- Laaik.it (Local)

- Muti.co.za (local)

TIP: Almost every social bookmarking service has the option to add tags. The quality of your tags will not only increase traffic from these social bookmarking sites, but also be a great benefit towards your web page optimization efforts. Be absolutely sure to do your keyword research first before deciding on your tags.

Technique #2 - Blog Commenting

Blog Commenting is a brilliant way not only to obtain valuable authority for an website positioning point of view, but also establishing yourself as an authority in your specific niche. Commenting on blogs give you the opportunity to voice your professional opinion, as well as obtain a link. Find sites which are relevant to your market and be sure to bookmark those blogs once you established that you can obtain a quality link.  Even though Google does in fact follow ‘nowfollow’ links, they usually do not count towards obtaining Pagerank or authority in Google’s eyes.

TIP #1: Once you have found four or five blogs where you can leave quality comments, that is get a ‘dofollow’ link, and leave comments which are relevant to your niche, then you should regularly go back. To leave comments regularly on the same blog will soon make you an authority in your own right.

TIP #2: Try and be the first person to leave a comment every single time. If your comment is informative, relevant and interesting it will be clicked on by anyone who is interested in your niche.

Technique #3 - Directory Submission

There are hundreds, if not thousands of Directory submission sites. Top search engine optimization professionals will always make sure your site is submitted at various directories. A typical directory would be DMOZ. DMOZ has been around since forever and generally obtaining a link from them could improve your site rankings. One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of Directory Services out there either want a link on your site in return, or you have to pay them to obtain a one-way link. It is pretty general nowadays that Google does not really count reciprocal links anymore. In my experience it is usually worth while to pay a good directory service to obtain a quality link from them.

TIP: Reciprocal linking is by no means dead! It’s how you approach this methodology which counts. See if you can exchange quality links within relevant content.

Technique #4 - Feed Aggregation

Feed aggregation has been around for some while now, but very few SEO Experts use it to its full power. Feed aggregation is basically submitting your RSS feed to a feed aggregator, which in turn makes sure your RSS feed gets well, aggregated all over the place. It’s a great way for building interest and links to your site. I have included a bunch of feed aggregators you can use.

TIP: If you own more than one blog in your niche you could combine all their feeds into one with Yahoo! Pipes Not only do you submit all your feeds separately, but as a bonus you can submit the combine feed as well.

Technique #5 - Article Submissions

I personally think this one is the mother lode. Article Submission certainly comes with a lot more work, as you need to create extra, unique articles which will ultimately link to your sales page. Again, there are hundreds of article directories out there and the more the merrier. Article Submitting is definitely the time and effort worth while.

TIP: We rarely submit or even write our own content in this case. Outsourcing for online business is a very viable option. You can get someone to write your articles for you from anywhere from $8-$9. In turn, this content can be submitted to article directories for about $15. Go and have a look at Elance.

And there you have it. For some of you all of the above might sound quite obvious. However, the above constitute the foundation of link building and, in essence, Search Engine Marketing