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Link Building TipsWhy Should You Trade Links? There are three major and important ways trading links increases traffic to your site. First, each link pointing to your site opens a new gateway for people to find you as they surf the web. Second, trading links [in addition to a well optimized Web site] gives you better chances of getting listed in paid submission search engines for free. Third, when ranking your site, the search engines do link analysis as part of their algorithms. Your search engine rankings and link analysis score increases proportionally as the number of relevant quality links back to your site increases. How Search Engines Evaluate Links:
Reciprocal Links are the easiest to obtain and will aid in gaining better placement on the search engines, but are not as valuable as One Way Links. Reciprocal Links
If you are making first contact: Visit the other web site Look for a link on their Home page to their Links page. The most common name is "Links", but "Resources" is also quite popular. If they don't have a link that is easily found, you may want to skip them. If you can't find their reciprocal links, chances are no one else, including the search engines, will find them either. Be sure that their reciprocal links reside in the same domain as their site There is no point to having a link to your site on a site other than the one in which you want to exchange links. Examine how they have their reciprocal links configured Are there categories? Are the listings in alphabetical order within the categories? Is it just a free-for-all (another term for "link farm") or are the other links somewhat relevant? You want your link to be in a relevant category that can easily be found. Explore their site's content Is there anything that your average visitor would find objectionable? Is their site in working order? After all, you will be placing a link on your site to this site. Place the other web site's link on your site first If the potential site has passed your inspection, as a show of good faith, place a link to your potential partner's web site on your site first. During your visit, you should have found information regarding their site's title and description as well as the category or theme they prefer. If this is not clear, you should be able to write a little something for them. Properly contact the other web site During your visit you should have discovered how they want to be contacted for a link exchange. If they have a form, use it. Read and follow their directions. Typically, they will ask for a link to their site first. If you have been following my tips, you have already done that. Do not tell them you have placed a link to their web site before you actually do. Many are quick to look and see. If it's not there, your request may be ignored or at least delayed. E-mailing your request If they don't have a form, look for a specific e-mail address they want used for such inquiries. A last resort is e-mailing the webmaster. No matter who you e-mail, be brief and to the point. If they have already included a subject line in their e-mail link, don't change it. If not, simply have it say, "Link exchange" or "Link request." A subject line that isn't clear is bound to be deleted as spam without being read. In that same vein, don't use attachments unless specifically asked to do so. In your e-mail introduce yourself and the web site you represent. Include the full URL: http://www.yoursite.com This makes it easier for the webmaster to copy-and-paste your linking information. Let the other party know you have visited their site. A good way to do this is to complement them on something unique to their web site. Simply saying you were impressed with their site is not unique. Telling them that you liked their black and gold eagle logo is unique. Let them know that you have already placed a link to their site and give them the full URL: http://www.yoursite.com/links/widget.html Now, politely request a link from them. Give them a specific brief title, not simply a list of keywords. Next, include your web site's description. Be brief. Their current links will give you an idea of what they are willing to accept. Be sure to use a category/theme for your site that you have found specifically on their site's link pages. Lastly, thank them and invite them to e-mail you with any changes they wish to have made their link. Be patient Some will respond quickly and others may be very slow. If you don't receive a response, you can try again, politely, or just delete their link and move forward. Receiving link requests The first step is the same: Visit the other site and explore it. If it meets your standards, then place the other web site's link on your site and reply that you have done so. In your reply, be sure to thank them and also give them the full URL of where their link can be found. Usually, the one requesting a link has already placed a link to your site. If there is something you want changed, just ask them. Most are eager to please as they will want the same treatment in return. If they haven't done so, go ahead and place their link. Put your ego aside. You can always remove it, if they don't reciprocate. Declining a request There will occasions where you will not want to reciprocate with the other site. Reply with a brief, but polite reason. Even if you think their web site is the worst thing you have ever seen, you can merely say, "Thank you for the offer, but we are currently not accepting any new links." On the other hand, if there is a reason such as relevancy, a good reply is, "Thank you for your interest in exchanging links. To be mutually beneficial, our web sites need to relevant to one another." Still others may completely acceptable, except for a technical reason such as no link to their Links page from their Home page. A polite reply to this type of situation would go something like this, "Thank you for your interest in exchanging links. We require that your Links page be directly accessible from your Home page. If circumstances change or we have overlooked something, please contact us again." If the request is so off-the-wall, over-the-top or just plain idiotic, you always have the option to ignore it. Don't worry about a link to your site being on theirs. It will have no negative effect on your web site. It's what you control that will have the biggest impact. Let's recap the main points:
One Way Links One Way Link Building Secures Long Term Ranking Results One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results. Why Are One-Way Links Helpful? Link building in general is an important part of making sure your site ranks well in the search engines. Google and many of the other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate the web pages they include in the search engine databases. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the web page. Each individual page acquires link popularity based on the pages that link to it. Google and Yahoo both have toolbars showing the page rank of pages you visit, so you can use these tools to get a good estimate of your pages' link popularity. It is not necessary to get totally caught up in the minutia of which types of links from which types of pages are the most important. The bottom line is this: acquiring links pointing back to your web site, particularly links from sites covering the same or related topics as your site, is helpful in the overall scheme of search engine ranking. The big "plus" of one-way links is that you don't have to worry about linking back to a "bad neighborhood". If your site has links pointing back to sites that serve as "link farms" or "free-for-all" sites, you may not gain, and could actually lose page rank. These sites are rarely focused, and tend to have links to and from all different sorts of sites. Since there is no particular topical emphasis here, it is clear to Google and the other search engines that the sole purpose of these sites is to artificially increase the number of links pointing to your site. Since there is no value added for the search engine's users, they in turn give no value to these links. Another advantage to these focused, one-way links is that they will tend to stay in place. A web site that features a link to your site probably does so because that site's owner thinks that their visitors will benefit from the content your site has to offer. Rather than simply trying to manipulate search results, they want to add to the experience of their visitors; you benefit from having a long term link in place. Sites featuring reciprocal links may simply drop your link when it no longer suits their linking strategy. How Do I Obtain Natural Links? Building good content helps interest your visitors and keeps them on your web site. By becoming an authority on your topic, you will attract more visitors. When another web site in essence "votes" for the quality of your web site by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, FAQs and white papers, etc., the better reason for visitors to link back to your web site because of the quality content. One-Way Linking Sources There are a number of ways to get links from other sites back to yours. The most important principle to keep in mind is that you will get the most links when you offer something significant to link to. Think of what you can provide that people will want to link to:
The extra value of one-way links is the fact that you are also promoting your web site from the listing as well as the active link. Articles, newsletters, white papers, directory and business association links may bring in traffic from visitors who are interested in the description of your web site listing. How Do I Know The Links Are Valid? To gain the most benefit from your links, the link back to your web page should be one that can be followed by the search engine robots. Plain old text links and image links usually can be followed by the search engine robots. More exotic types of links, like JavaScript links, cannot typically be followed by the search engine robots. When you provide suggested linking code, the simpler the better. Don't be afraid to suggest linking formats to owners of sites that link to you. The types of links that serve your purposes best will generally provide their visitors with the best experience as well. Check to see if the page where the link will be located can be found in the search engine results. You can search via the entire web site or by individual page. Different search engines use different syntax in looking for individual pages and links; refer to the advanced search function for each search engine for details. Google Search Example:
Shows indexing of all pages listed in web site
Shows indexing of a specific web page in web site If the page is listed in the search engine results, this means the page has been indexed by the search engine robots. This means the web page is valid for indexing and that your link will be picked up as well. Research And Quality Content Equal Success One-way link building means hard work and long term determination to achieve good link popularity. By improving the quality of your web site, you improve the chance to obtain good quality natural links. Spend a set amount of time each week to seek out quality one-way links to achieve your goal. By using this long-term game plan you will be able to safely build links for optimum link popularity success. Last updated: 05/15/08 
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