There is not a one word answer to this, in theory if you create good quality / valuable content then you will acquire links naturally and that is the Google stance on link building. Like everything about website design / SEO there is never a one size fits all solution so when it comes to acquiring links you can encourage people to link to you by making your site search engine friendly by building social networks and getting listed in relevant trade / business directories. Share your own relevant and interesting news articles and new industry updates but what you shouldn’t do is go and ‘get links’ from whatever source you can. Its better to have one link from a relevant / authority site that 1000 links from un-related spammy sites and now thanks to changes in the way Google calculates your websites trust you can actually get penalised for having these ‘spammy’ links.
Look at this example conversation that demostrates a company’s desire to get ranked higher by getting new links to their website.
[Business Marketin Team] In regards to our conversation yesterday I agree that in terms of traffic the site is performing extremely well and its great that we are getting lots of vists for our key competitive search terms.
However I do believe it is time to start getting found for organically in the local area for other search terms in areas we are not coming up for already. I think the main target area searches should be Southend, Basildon, Thurrock and then whichever other areas are getting enough searches to get a good return from (e.g. Canvey, Rayleigh, Leigh etc.).
It just a case of finding which specific search terms and areas are going to get us the best return and working out a plan of action from there. Was good to hear that you are engaged with us to increase our website visitors / website ranking will be able to help you target your efforts to achieve this. As i stated we are happy to get links to the site to help it rank higher and think this is the best way to improve our ranking initially.
[Website Designers] One word of caution after you discussed ‘getting links’ I think if you as a company decide to act independently to improve your SEO (natural / organic rankings improvements) then you need to be aware that over-optimisation / useless or ‘thin’ content / paid for or ‘un-natural’ links are all factors that could de-value your website’s standing / trust / ranking in the search engines. Trends in SEO and the search engines Algorithms change regularly and what worked previously may harm you today. We know bad or ‘grey’ techniques that we could employ to improve websites immediately but won’t employ them as they are against Google Webmaster Guidelines / best practises and may come back to harm the website.
I 100% agree with you that your website should rank for more local areas with your product or services type search terms and initially would advise using your news section (blog) to create ‘content’ that naturally uses these local areas and your services. Example areas include Thurrock, Westcliff, Benfleet that you should use in page titles and ensure the natural text about your recent projects and that area includes the area name.
There is a list here of recommended SEO tasks that will only improve your website’s visitor numbers if they are done correctly.
in general great content has to be the foundation of any good site, once the content is there it needs to be added to and linked to from social networks (facebook / twitter etc.).
We obviously complete SEO projects as part of our function for clients and will be happy to take on this project completely or partially for you or act in an advisory capacity for yourselves.