I would say that reciprocal link exchange is good as long as you are exchanging links with related web sites. And you have to update the content on your web site every two weeks. Well this is my strategy and it works for me. Good luck

Building backlinks is a slow process  --- do it yourself day by day.  If you don’t know where to begin, starting with local directories is a great place.  You can type something like top 50 local directories into Google search and it will have a nice list to start with.  You need to remember that you need to continually build links to build your business.  After local directories, then move on to other directories.  Trying to get a link from DMOZ is almost impossible.  We have tried to get a link from them for 7 years, so don’t waste your time.  Getting a link from the Yahoo directory is a strong one, but you have to pay $300 a year for this, so you will have to determine if it is worth it.  Next you can search Google for the top 100 directories.  This will give you a nice list to work from as well. Be very careful about letting someone else build links for your website.  Unfortunately there are a lot of SEO “experts” or link building services out there that build links that will eventually get you in trouble with Google.    See another post over here:  http://community.sba.gov/community/discussion-boards/discuss-popular-top... Do yourself a favor and build the links yourself, so that you don’t get banned from the search engines because some company built bad links for you.

Thanks for sharing such a nice information 

Hi There! I work with an SEO team that focuses on real estate websites and often wish I was working in the legal field.  After looking at the answers on this thread I can clearly say that you have to first fix your "on-page" before exploring the "off-page" SEO techniques you are asking for advice on. Furthermore, it is difficult to determine a specific solution without looking at the site analytics and metrics.  The good news is that it looks like you have a nice site, the bad news is that your "on-page" is not ready for SEO back linking.  In fact your page permalinks and titles don't match, then your headlines are altogether different.  Add to it that you have not updated your blog since Nov 21, 2011 leaves you with a recipe for SEO disaster. If you are serious about a solid SEO strategy do the following first: 1. Determine the permalink (web address) on each page matches the Google search you are targeting - do good research on this and not only look at the number of searches, but also the competition.  Sometimes a less competitive search term is way easier to get the top of Google results you are seeking. 2. Make sure your Title tag matches the permalink exactly 3. Make sure your headline matches this too. 4. Ensure you have this exact phrase in your content block at least a few times 5. Write a blog post once per month (minimum) that educates your target on the topic you are targeting - including the phrase you are targeting. 6. For awesome performance, add a YouTube video (1 min or less) embedded in your blog post and make sure the title matches your topic correctly.  You get two for one credit with this - the post and video! 7. The key is to engage visitors with quality information.  Meaning that the quantity of visitors is not as important as the conversion of quality visitors into clients.  Your videos on education and steps to resolve the issues you have solutions for is perfect for.  I can't stress this part enough. 8. Go through your site and work on "inter-site" link building so you have the blogs and pages working well together. 8. After this, it's time for "off-page" campaign - start with the review engines such as Yelp & Google along with Chamber site, and any lawyer referral sites. 9. Develop an superior email list and as for feedback from your closest clients and sphere - do a survey and honor the feedback so you can get them to share and refer your business to others. 10. Now you can sider a linking campaign - whatever the color - but at least by now you have a legitimate site to link to. That's my 2 cents :-) Take care! Steve Hundley

I recently wrote an entire squidoo lense on this topic: http://www.squidoo.com/seo-for-law-firms2 Please take a look and let me know if any of it was helpful. My readers seem to think this is good stuff.

I agree that the distinction between white hat and black hat link building is someone hypocritical (more on that here: http://www.falconberg.com/link-building-search-engines). Both are trying to game the search results by artificially promoting one site over another. What goes by pure "white hat" (which I would call grey hat) is usually not practical for small businesses. The smarter strategy is to use more creative techniques, but do it in a way that minimizes risk to the client website.

It was mentioned once here already but I would certainly highlight guest blogging.  You should of course start blogging directly on your own website, but it will take some time for that blog to get traction.  Doing a guest post on an already established blog will not only deliver refferal traffic, but it will also kickstart your link building (assuming you place a live link).