The best way to determine how to increase quality external links to your website is to examine your competitors and see who is linking to them. To do this, perform a simple Google search on a competitor’s URL and view the search results. In these results you should see a number of sites that are linking back to them.

I tested this on the URL slableakfix.com, the consumer service company I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.  The search on this address returned 10 pages of results. The most popular external sites listed were as follows:

• aboutus.org - Wiki Web directory of small businesses
• businessseek.biz - business directory website
• manta.com - business directory website
• hotfrog.com - business directory website
• top20sites.com - business directory website
• plumbingvia.com - plumbing-specific web directory
• buildzoom.com - contractor-specific web directory
• orangecountybizlist.com - location-specific website directory
• ezinearticles.com - expert article directory
• ebusinesspages.com - business directory website

As you can see, most of these are free listing sites where you can briefly write about your business and easily create backlinks to your site. The standout is ezinearticles.com, where one can write about a topic she is an expert in which lends a business credibility. The one backlink SlabLeakFix does not have is a blog which can also be helpful. 

There’s no getting around content. Content, whether it is just a business listing, is quality words that Google notices and indexes. Link farms on the other hand are just lists of links and as such are not considered legitimate. Always ask yourself if the site you’re listing on should have the honor of including your business. If not, then stay away from it and avoid Google penalizing your site for shabby backlinks. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to backlink on a many worthy websites as possible.