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There are different types of links and most Web sites could use a few of each type. A robust link building program includes as many types of links as are sensible and economically obtainable. The majority of Web sites don’t need more than a 2-3 month link-building program. If you’re still building links after three months, you’re doing something wrong.

We can assess links in many ways, but for search engine optimization you want to divide links into brand-building links, visibility-building links, relationship-building links, and crawl-building links.

A brand-building link associates value with the brand of the destination. For example, we can link to example.com as an example, establishing a brand value for that site as an example destination. Other examples of brand-building links include linking to CNN, ABC News, BBC News, FoxNews, and similar sites as news sites. Brand-building links may be based upon keyword research but they should not all be keyword-annotative links. Brand value can be built through descriptive association as well as through explicit association.

Directory links are the most common form of brand-building links used by the SEO industry. (Note: In this context, a directory is any ordered list of Web sites of a similar nature — it does not have to part of a traditional Web directory like Yahoo! or DMOZ.)

A visibility-building link is prominently positioned in a high-traffic article or body copy. The featured stories on news sites and entertainment sites are visibility-building links. People may not click on them, and search engines may not find them, but they create visibility for content — and that visibility may be lasting, producing secondary traffic when people recall the featured stories later and go searching for them. Visibility links can only be placed on high traffic pages. Or, to look at it another way, you’re not creating much visibility by placing a link on a low-traffic page.

Pay-per-click links are the most common form of visibility-building links used by the SEO industry.

Relationship-building links are the links that members, partners, customers, and vendors give to each other. If you’re a member of a professional association and they list your Web site in their directory, that’s a relationship-building link. It implies to a visitor that there is a relationship between you and the association. The relationship is between entities, not between Web sites (except in a few circumstances, such as when the Web sites are the primary function of corporate entities, like eBay and Amazon, Alexa, A9, Google and YouTube, etc.).

When you’re browsing a travel site and you see links at the bottom of the page pointing to car rental, hotel accommodation, and similar sites representing companies that are owned by or similarly affiliated with the site operator, you’re looking at relationship links. When you’re browsing a SpamAd site and you see footer links pointing to other SpamAd sites, you’re NOT looking at relationship links. The relationship is between the entities, not between the sites.

Crawl-building links may be found anywhere. A crawl-building link may be a hybrid (built for brand-and-crawl, visibility-and-crawl, or for relationship-and-crawl) or it may be pure (built solely for crawl). Crawl-building links tend to be the most controversial because they are often misused for anchor text. SEOs tend to build more crawl-building links than all other types of links combined.

Crawl-building links should be used first and foremost for the sake of getting sites crawled, indexed, and into competitive ranking range.

Using these type models, your link building program can be easily designed and quickly implemented. The program needs to leverage all available assets. Some SEOs have more assets to work with than others.

Step 1: Place your brand-building links. How many you need really depends on where you place the links. Suppose your brand is “Honest Mike’s Used Car Business”. That’s a fairly competitive industry, so to build brand value you’ll either have to obtain more links or you need to refine your brand. Let’s say Honest Mike’s car lot is located in Smalltown, USA. You don’t really need to create a national brand, then, do you? The real brand is “Honest Mike’s (Smalltown, USA) Used Car Business”. That’s a much less competitive field and it defines where you need your brand links:

• Local search
• Local business directories
• Telephone directories
• Local business communities

In short, any resource that provides brand value for businesses in the Smalltown, USA market is where you want to obtain brand-building links. How many do you need? As few as possible. Think of your link building program as planting a seed. As people recognize the value of your brand, they’ll provide more links for you. Natural link growth is NOT part of a link building program.

Step 2: Place your visibility-building links. How many you need really depends on whether you’re insane or just interested in getting the word out. One good local blog should be able to send your site tons of traffic. One decent local news story should be able to send you lots of traffic. One decent classified ad might be all you need. Again, your link building program just needs to get the process started. Your visibility links should bring you traffic. If all the high visibility sources in your specific market provide you with visibility links, you’re done. There are usually not that many high visibility sources for specific markets. I’ve rarely found more than 10 such sources for any market (and it’s hard to find that many for most).

Step 3: Get your relationship-building links. Some people might do this first. I often do when I create a new site in my network. When you control the sites you’re dealing with low-hanging fruit. But when you’re dealing with a multitude of companies, partners, vendors, etc., you will find it takes longer to get these types of links. It’s usually just a matter of going through a process, but these links can be left for the third step for a strategic purpose.

If you have placed your brand-building links, then obtain visibility links, people will find your brand links and be reassured that you’re a real entity. Brand-building links and visibility links give you credibility with your early audience. If you can get the partner links quickly, then do it, but don’t expect a lot of traffic or visibility from such links.

Step 4: Get your crawl-building links. While it’s true that the other types of links might influence your crawl, you have better control over what gets crawled when you place links specifically designed to influence crawl. Crawl-building links should point to deeper content within your site. Your brand, visibility, and partner links will almost always point to your root URL. Use your crawl-building links to get the rest of your site crawled.

And here is the million-dollar question: Where do you get your crawl links? Get them from sites that can help you in some way other than just with crawl. That is, hybrid crawl links are just fine as long as you obtain them for truly strategic purposes. Anchor text is not strategic. Visibility IS strategic. So if you can enhance your visibility and improve your crawl, you’re doing fine.

For hybrid links, it’s okay to build visibility on secondary sites that have less traffic than your primary visibility sites. These sites supplement and complement your link profile.

The most important part of your link plan consists of the goals you set. You should assign specific numbers to the types of links you obtain. Once you’ve reached your self-appointed limit, move on.

But you’ll also need to assess the quality of your linking resources carefully. Be sure these sites get traffic, are well-indexed, and have at least some search engine trust. Watch your statistics and track referrals. Check the cache data for the other sites to determine when your links appear. If you find that some of your links haven’t been cached within 3 months, you should see if you can find some alternative links. It’s not easy to find alternative brand and partner links, but there may be alternative visibility link sources. In fact, if a visibility link source isn’t cached within 3 months, it’s probably not a high traffic resource after all.