Outsourcing your link building activities is not a good thing if you get an SEO company like the one that J.
C.
Penny fired recently.
An article in The New York Times about J.
C.
Penney's use of black hat methods for link building caused it to lose its top positions on search engine results.
The company's webpages always placed among the top 3 search results for products such as dresses, home decor, bed sheets, and other items, besting millions of sites.
As it turned out, a good chunk of J.
C.
Penney's links came from spam websites that were totally unrelated to its products.
Google dropped the company's webpages from search engine results from its number 1 perch to the cemetery pages after the news came out.
Hiring a good SEO company is a good move for any company if it wants to get high rankings from Search Engine Results Pages.
But you need to make sure they're going about it the right way...
and getting back-links from totally unrelated sites is not the right way.
One of the basic rules of SEO (search engine optimization) is that the web pages you build, their content, and the links you create should be relevant and natural.
Using black hat SEO methods may get you good results in the short-term but it's a risky strategy.
When you create a high number of links and content that are outside the search engine guidelines of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others, you're very likely to get penalized.
Your website may not only drastically drop its rankings, it may be classified as a spam site, or even have its entire domain removed from the search index.
Your brand is your biggest web asset.
Your online reputation is critical if you want other people to do business with you on the internet.
You invest time and resources in building your brand and website, so it's only right to treat them as the long-term investment they really are.
Good link building methods are not quick but the rewards last a long time.
High quality content is the foundation for good SEO.
You can create a multitude of second-rate material optimized for search engine spiders, but if they're not readable to your visitors, or worse to your potential customers, then why spend your time, money, and effort doing it in the first place? Here are some good link building methods you can apply to push your page rank higher in search engine results:

• Network with other web publishers and webmasters in your niche.
  
• If you have a blog or a webpage where visitors can submit their questions or suggestions, then monitor their comments and seriously respond to their questions.
  
• Join professional organizations, trade associations, or forums related to your interests.
  
• Write quality articles that are useful for your target market.
  And do it consistently.
  
• Spice-up your website to give it a professional look.
  It adds to your brand's trust and credibility.
  

These are white-hat link building methods that will add to your reputation and authority for your brand.