A tried and true way to boost your search ranking is to have other popular sites link to yours.

However, simply including your link in a big list of links on some other company’s web page is not the best strategy. For starters, Google is on the alert for “link farms,” and knows when some sites are selling the privilege of linking from their pages.

The second sticking point is the importance of choosing which words are the link.

For example, www.alicehohl.com will create a link to my writing and editing web site that works.

However, this is a little bit better: Check out my site with my writing and editing portfolio.

Even better is this: Check out my site with my writing and editing portfolio.

I recently witnessed some very good strategy by a site where I list myself as a freelancer. The site is called Thumbtack. They sent an email to all the people who list their services there, and advised us we would earn points if we include a link back to their site on our own Web page.

They were also careful to spell out the best way to do it: highlighting useful words and creating the link, rather than simply copying and pasting the link.

You can check out my profile (and those of other freelancers) at Thumbtack by clicking on my writing, editing and Web marketing profile on their site.

They also offer cool looking badges for your site, that link back. Like this: