I promised another backlink building strategy if you read my post Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic and Generate Sales. If you were waiting in anticipation for it, the wait is now over… it’s here!

This strategy, if used correctly, can catapult your blog posts, web pages, homepage, etc. to the top of Google and other search engines. Once you’re sitting high and mighty at the top, the sales will follow (if you’re targeting the right keywords).

To get started, you’re going to need a blog post (home page will do just fine) that you want to get a lot of traffic to. This is especially if you’re promoting something big and want to earn commissions (affiliate marketing). For your home page, you’re probably promoting something, selling your own product or building your list. In any case, you obviously want traffic, so this will work just as well.

Assuming you’ve done all the on-page SEO stuff for your blog post or home page, you’re now ready to start building backlinks. But not just any backlinks will do here. While article marketing is still very effective (and I recommend using this method as well), there’s another link building strategy that works very well.

It’s called a Link Wheel.

You may have heard of it before…. or maybe not. It can actually be somewhat confusing to people, so I’m going to explain it the best way I can without confusing you.

If you’ve heard of this strategy before but just don’t quite GET IT yet, then pay close attention here. Better yet, the diagram above should do all the explaining that needs to be done. But, I’ll still do my best here to explain everything.

With the Link Wheel strategy, you’re capitalizing on free blogs/web 2.0/social sites. Take a look at the sites in the diagram, and you’ll notice one thing. They’re all free to use and post content to, and there’s a social aspect to them (this doesn’t really matter for the sake of this strategy). Simply put, Google and the other two major search engines love these sites.

So to get started, you need to write some articles. Anywhere from 6 to 8 articles will be sufficient.

There are some key requirements needed with these articles, though. They need to contain your keyword in the title and two or three times throughout the article body. If you haven’t done so already (you should have), your blog post should contain the same keyword in its title and content. This is very important!

The articles you write for these sites only need to be anywhere from 250 – 350 words long. You don’t need a novel here, just enough useful information to make the content relevant to the keyword you’re targeting.

If you don’t feel like writing the articles yourself, outsource it to someone else. I can get 10 articles written for $27 that do just fine. That’s actually very cheap, by the way.

Once you have your articles, you need to sign up for these free sites. Once you sign up with a site you won’t ever have to do it again. This is a one-time process.

Here are the sites I recommend. This isn’t an all-inclusive list, however. You can sign up for as many as you want. But for the sake of your link wheel you only need 6 to 8 sites.

1. Hubpages
2. Wetpaint
3. Blogger
4. WordPress.com
5. Gather
6. Xomba
7. Quizilla
8. Squidoo

There’s a couple I didn’t mention that are in the diagram. Like I said it really doesn’t matter which sites you sign up with. It’s completely up to you.

Here’s where it gets tricky…

Each article you post on a site should contain two links… one pointing to your blog post and the other pointing to the article on the next site.

BUT… those links need to contain the keyword being targeted.

For example, if I’m targeting the keyword “golf swing” then I have that in the title of both the blog post and all articles for each site as well as in the content. Also, the backlinks will contain the same keyword “golf swing.”

Follow? Just look at the diagram again and this should make sense.

Each article will do this until you’ve completed the rotation and placed one article on each site. You now have a complete Link Wheel.

Doing this correctly will boost your blog post or home page’s rankings in the search engines dramatically. Of course, you still want to perform other link building strategies I’ve mentioned in previous posts because this is not the only way I build backlinks to my posts and home page, just to clear up any confusion you may have.

Any questions about what I’ve shared regarding Link Wheels? Still don’t quite get it? Feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer you.

Article marketing is one form of marketing that I think will never lose ground. It’s been around for a long time and still remains a proven method of promotion and link building. If I had to choose just one marketing method, it would be article marketing.

Here’s my list of sites that I submit my articles to, some are more important than others, but I have found all to be quality sites that bring in traffic or at least get exposure.

My top 31 Article Directory List:

1. The Free Library
2. Hot Article Directory
3. Hubpages – Must be unique
4. Qassia – Must submit here before anywhere else
5. Scribd
6. eHow
7. Helium
8. Google Knol
9. Associated Content
10. Ezine Articles
11. Go Articles
12. Article Archives
13. Free Articles Directory
14. Article Dashboard Directory
15. Article City
16. Article Cube
17. Article Alley
18. Buzzle – Must be unique
19. Isnare
20. Amazines
21. Articles Base
22. Article Marketer
23. Article Rich
24. Articles Factory
25. Drop Jack
26. eArticles Online
27. Get Your Content
28. Idea Marketers
29. Best Syndication
30. Niche Article Directory
31. Google Base

Which article directories do you get the best results from? Do you use any not listed?… Add them in your comments below.