Inlinking the old-fashioned way: 5 ways to get real, quality links to your blog

What is a great way to get money in blogging? Well, being popular, getting your content out there and monetisation strategies. None of this can be done well without ranking well in search engines, which means accumulating links back to your site. How do you do this?

1. Write good, solid, link-worthy content. It might take longer, but this is the single best move for spreading the content of your blog for better visibility through the net. Certain types of articles are more “link-worthy” than others. By this, I don’t mean that they necessarily are more worthy of a link, but that people are more likely to spread the link for them. Think of this one as, what articles are you most likely to share a link for? Start by producing content as helpful as that.
2. Become involved in a few key social media outlets. The key to this is not doing it for the sole benefit of spreading your news. Contribute to the community, ask for help, build relationships, laugh, joke, answer questions and learn what you can from your networking. I am personally a HUGE fan of twitter. It’s microblogging, so you are able to make relationships with key players in your field with a minimal time investment, and no nerves approach. By no nerves approach, I mean, sending out a “tweet” to a maven in your field is much less nerve-racking than slaving over the perfectly articulated e-mail. Other social media outlets include facebook, digg, sphinn, stumbleupon, reddit … the list goes on. Check a few out and figure out which best suits you.
3. Offer up some guest posts to another blogger. Time intensive, yes. But if you create good content - point number 1 - then you are likely to make the readers of the blog you’re guest posting on your brand new, shiny faced readers, eager to see what else you have.
4. Comment, comment, comment. On others’ blogs, and make sure your comments are relevant, insightful and engaging. Once again, contribute to the conversation and show others that you are an interesting, impassioned expert on the subject as well. It also shows the fellow blogger how much you appreciate their efforts - they will be grateful.
5. Write articles related to your field in article directories, or on Factoidz, ehow, etc. There are many places to increase your exposure with more content on what you already know so well.

These points are a good place to start, but there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of other ways to build exposure. Please contribute to this conversation by commenting on your favorite points in the comments section.