On the road to achieving prominent search engine placement, many webmasters are stuck in that SEO fork in road when it comes to building relevant site content. The chief concern is whether to focus on building page content or incoming links. There are many arguments for both sides when discussing building content versus link building campaigns, but from a practical stand point, shouldn't the primary concern be aimed towards gaining prominent placement on the search engines using any legitimate means available?

Relevancy is the number 1 aspect of your website when viewed through the eyes of the search engine. The amount of relevant incoming links to your site is how Google determines and awards PageRank. In addition to having relevant organic content on your pages, incorporating link building into your SEO strategy is not only valuable, but prudent as well.

The argument regarding link building is which method works better and will deliver the highest PR value. For those who are new to the use of site linking there are 2 methods of link building: one way links, and reciprocal links.

One way linking building is exactly what its name says: Links point to your site from another domain or site on the Internet. Google and other search engines consider one way or incoming links as an indication of the value or importance of your site's content. Incoming links can target your site's home page, specific pages, or both. A perfect example of the use of an incoming link is a trackback or comment about your site, or a page on your site that is the result from a discussion or comment on an Internet forum or blog site.

Reciprocal links or link exchanges are created when 2 sites link to one another. There are no requirements for this link building relationship other than both sites continue linking to each other in order to maintain the reciprocal relationship. The downside to using reciprocal links is that relevancy is not required in order to create the linking relationship. Google and other search engines favor links that are rich in relevancy over generic reciprocal links. It is possible however to build relevant reciprocal links.

The next concern webmasters face is where they can obtain relevant links for their website. There are quite many options available online, some in the form of paid software and others offer linking services. The method in which you choose should be investigated thoroughly before including it into your site, and above all, remember that your link building campaign should be based on relevancy.