Secrets of Reciprocal Linking Strategies - Revealed
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 an increasing important criteria for better
search engine ranking. So the better your popularity, the
better your ranking. You may be thinking that you'll lose
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 would not have visited your site.
Keep in mind that in addition to more visitors from linking
with other sites that compliment yours, that another big
benefit 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. You want to keep focused on your target market and make
the majority of your links relevant to your site and its content.
But I think one thing that often gets 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 peripheral
interest may bring 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 you decide what webmasters 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 www.cashway.com . Just click on the
Resource Links at the top of the page.
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 be willing to place a link on their
page.
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 the 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 tell 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 will
link back to you and some won't. If they don't simply delete
the link.
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.
--------------------------
About the Author
Ed Duvall is webmaster for http://www.cashway.com and
http://www.instantnettraffic.com providing internet marketing tools, articles and resourcesto help you with your online business.
Reprint this article as long as resource box remains intact.
Copyright 2005 cashway.com
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