I am live blogging an SEOmoz webinar on the “Future of Link Building”.

34 tips for earning signals the search engines want to count

Some of these are very generic, but there are some hidden gems in the list.

• Earn authentic tweets, likes, shares, etc.
• Become a Content Portal – Publish unique research, informed opinions, insights on trends or news, multimedia, expert contributors, quality discussions
• Invest into video content (it’s not competitive right now!)
• Build awesome infographics & visual media
• Build calculators, tools, web based software; engineering stuff that saves people time or money
• Publish reference worthy research
• Leverage current events & news in your content.
• Find amazing designers & pay them. Great designs are liked more by visitors. (Expert Tip: Go to a CSS gallery and find a featured designer with only 1 submission. Likely he is just starting out or doing it on the side, so he will charge less.)
• Be cautious with ad placement.
• Compare how you format text blocks with Panda Update losers.
• Build robust About Us pages. Include real people with real photos, links to social media profiles, what your business does and the why and how, real contact info for real people, and non-generic descriptions. Include a press kit with logos, images, branding material – people do look for these.
• Use real contact details and real people on your website.
• Earn & display testimonials. Give testimonials to others (this will often get you a link). Used LinkedIn for this.
• Optimize your conversion funnel.
• Satisfy the user’s search query. Ask them what they were looking for or want. Ask them what would prompt them to share the page.
• Register your business and address, even if you are not a local business. This is a huge signal of authenticity.
• Build authentic social profiles with your business name.
• Earn branded search traffic. Google probably looks at this. Tweet or share links to searches for your brand.
• Diversify your traffic sources.
• Get your brand name in headlines. If someone has written about you in the past, or written about something related to your business, ask them to cover you now.
• Hard to get links are often the best links.
• File patents, fund research, publish a paper in a college journal.
• Create content about social sites – they love to stoke their own egos.
• Get a great design, then list it on CSS galleries and design inspiration galleries. There are hundreds of these.
• Find where big brands get links.
• Find where relevant pages on .edu, .gov, or .org get links.
• Investigate brand “sention” sources. Search [brand -brand.com].
• Get key bloggers, connectors, and news sites aware of your brand.
• Host, sponsor, and attend events and meetups.
• Earn citations on industry portals, forums, discussion boards.
• Get your brand included on industry brand lists.
• Seek properties operated by trusted entities.
• Use your bio / profile as a link accumulator.
• Use RSS feeds with full content and absolute URLs to your website.