freejung - 3:03 pm on Oct 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

I haven't traded or asked for links in some time. I license my content under a Creative Commons Attribution Required license, which requires people using my content to give me a link, and that generates a lot of good links.

Would I like more? Sure, of course, and I don't object to link building, including link exchanging with good relevant sites, in principle. But at least for me, the common "link building" strategies don't seem to generate good quality links nearly as well as the content strategy. I gave up on that years ago as simply a waste of time. Since then the only link building I've done is to try various ways to encourage more people to actually fulfill their obligation to give me a link for the use of my content.

However, in order for this to work, you have to get at least a little bit of initial traffic. When I started my main site, I got that by a combination of link trading and asking for links from people who owed me favors. You have to get the ball rolling somehow.

These days you might be able to get the ball rolling with a good social media strategy, if you do it right.