Small businesses quickly discover that the key to success in natural search is gaining quality external links.  Paid-for directories can’t compete with highly relevant, authoritative sites linking back to your business website.  The bad news is that this takes time to establish.  The slightly better news is that with a little creativity, and using your existing real-world business relationships, you can make good progress in a few months.  The first step is to make a list of your 10 or 20 target sites for links and work out what you can trade with them, and how you can translate real world business relationships into quality inbound links.  I’ve listed five approaches that have worked for SMEs I have encountered while running SEO workshops, and for my own business sites. (more…)