Secrets of Reciprocal
Linking Strategies
by Ed Duvall
Whether you're new to the internet or a seasoned online
marketer, developing a plan to increase the number of
reciprocal links back to your website can help you bring
more highly targeted traffic to your website as well as
improve your ranking in the search engines.
Link popularity is becoming an increasingly important
criteria for better search engine ranking. So the better
your popularity, the better your ranking. You may be
thinking that you'll loose traffic to your website if you
link to other websites. Sure, that can and will happen,
but you should gain as many or more NEW visitors that
you not have otherwise visited your site.
Keep in mind that in addition to more visitors via linking
that another big benefit here is a potential increase in
your websites' Search Engine positioning. As an online
business owner you realize that their are a variety of
advertising and web promotion techniques you have
available to you. Linking to other websites is a well
know but little used tool that can produce significant
traffic for your website as long as it is done properly.
Understanding how to link to other sites is as important
as any advertising you do. The time and energy you put
into developing links to your business can pay off for
weeks, months, even years to come!
**First Rule of Linking**
"Know Thy Self" or at least know what you want to
accomplish on line, whether it's selling products or
services of your own or as an affiliate, distributing or
disseminating information on the Internet or even just
having your own personal webpages.
Unfortunately what I see all of the time are people who
end up jumping around from one program, or provider or
afiiliate program after the other without any focus on
what exactly they want to accomplish, other than make
money online, etc.
Now, not later, is the time to look into exactly what you
want your website focus to be. Decide what primary
category(s) your website will fit into and what secondary
or peripheral sites will compliment it. Once you've decided
your focus you'll be well on your way to using reciprocal
linking strategies successfully.
**Second Rule of Linking**
"Know What Kind of Websites Will Compliment
Yours".
There's been a lot written about how to choose websites
to link to. But I think the one thing that can often be
overlooked is the fact that people all around the world have
diverse interests and although they may be looking for
specific information, etc on one day doesn't eliminate
them from clicking on a link to a website that is totally
different from what they wanted to look at yesterday. They
may not be targeted to your website but their interest brought
them to you.
You would be surprised to find the information you may
be searching for on a website that compliments yours but
does not directly compete with you. It happens all of the
time. This is where your list of primary and secondary
categories for your website will help youdecide who you
want to contact to set a reciprocal link with.
**Third Rule of Linking"
"Know who is Linking to Your Website". You
can do this
very easily by going online to www.linkpopularity.com
It's
FREE. There's no strings attached and it's quick and easy.
Usually it doesn't take more than 2-3 minutes to check your
website links. You may find that you have several links back
to you that you didn't know about, some you like and maybe
one or two you don't. The next thing you might want to do to
help you narrow your focus is to view a comparison of your
site's link popularity to your competitors and other
popular websites at http://64.232.113.195/publinkpop/.
**Enough With The Rules Already**
Before you go contacting webmasters, now would be a good
time to set up your Main Links page on your website. On this
page you are going to describe how a webmaster can add their
link to your Links Pages. You can call this Favorite Links,
Personal Links or something similar.
Basically anything that lets visitors know you have
a Quality links page available.
Your Main Links Page should have several categories
for visitors to choose from. Each category should link to
a separate page on your site where the category links
can be viewed. Remember to set each link so that it
opens in a new window when a visitor clicks on it because
you don't want them leaving your site altogether and forget
where they started out from.
On this page you'll invite your visitors to apply for the
privelege of linking to you. Why should they have to apply?
Because you want to screen their website to be sure it
doesn't directly compete with yours and that it also compliments
yours in some way. You can see my links page at
http://www.cashway.com/main_links.htm
.
You also want to indicate to your visitors that a
reciprocal
link back from their website is a requirement for obtaining
a link on this page. Those who are serious about reciprocal
linking will understand and place a link on their page.
If you want a free automated links page you can download
and set up this simple cgi scriptthat will send an email
confirming the link posted to whoever posted the link and
giving them your link information to post on their web site.
This is a good script to start out with if you don't have time
to screen links.
You can download it here http://www.cashway.com/z/affa.zip
Why not just use a FFA website and link to 1,000's or
millions of webpages?
FFA pages play a small role in your advertising but they
shouldn't be included in a reciprocal linking strategy
because people rarely see the FFA sites or their messages
and the Search Engines don't recognize them in their
criteria for determining link popularity. It's best to stay
away from them as a way to develop reciprocal links for
your website.
**Contacting Webmasters**
Again the best webmasters to contact are the ones
whose websites compliment yours in some way. How
do you find the sites and contact the webmasters?
The simplest way is to go to one of the major search
engines, enter in the terms that describes websites you
want to link to and let the search engine bring up the lists
for you. You can get several hundred email address just
by visiting these sites and contacting the webmaster.
It is always best to send a short email to the webmaster
introducing yourself and stating the reason you're contacting
them. You may want to give the information for them to add
your link to their Link Page or simply start a dialog to see if
there is a mutual interest in linking.
For best results I like to find websites that compliment
mine, then add them to an appropriate link page and then
send the website owner a personal email telling them I
liked their site, have added it to my Quality Links page
and ask if they would link back to my website. I also like
to explain to them of some of the benefits of Reciprocal
Linking and even go as far as helping them set up their
own page if they don't have a good quality links page.
Some willlink back to you and some won't. If they don't
simply delete the link and move on to the next site.
Implementing a reciprocal linking strategy does take
time and effort, but it is easily manageable. Combined
with an overall web promotion strategy it can be a powerful
way for you to develop relevant, targeted traffic to your web
pages as well as help to increase your websites overall
position in the search engines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright
2005 Ed Duvall
Don't waste your time on useless tricks to get more traffic.
Download my Free Ebook - "8 Steps To Claiming YOUR
SHARE Of The 'Enormous Traffic' Available Everyday From
Search Engines...http://www.cashway.com/biz_rm.htm
Resource box must remain as is if republished.
