An Out of This World Example of Why You Must Have a Reciprocal Linking Stratergy to Succeed

Let me tell you a story set in the future which illustrates why it is essential that any Internet marketer worth his salt will set up a link exchanging strategy. It may seem a bit 'out there' to begin with but I promise it will make sense in the end. Imagine that 1000 years in the future due to global warming man has had to leave Earth. With Jupiter being the largest planet it has been chosen by many to make their new home. If Jupiter were hollow it could contain over 1000 earths (Google has many uses!) so land is no problem and people happily settle down in giant pods to protect them from Jupiter's elements. Some join their pods together to form communities others set up in near isolation. Due to Jupiter's high velocity winds flying is too dangerous. To travel therefore humans have created giant highways that interconnect the pods first joining the large communities and then over time the more isolated settlements. People travel along these highways in their space cars from their communities to visit pods containing shops, services, leisure facilities etc. I hope this you're still with me it will all make sense soon! Within 50 years of colonizing Jupiter there are thousands of settlements / businesses / leisure facilities connected by these highways. They have been joined together into a network - much like the internet is today (see I told you there was a point - thanks for staying with me so far). It is in Jupiter's 55th year as a human habitat that you decide to set up you business on there. You buy a bit of real estate that is big enough to build a living pod as well as a shop pod. Your shop you decide will sell rocket boots. Everything from rocket boots for work, rocket boots for leisure and rocket boots for fashion. You set up your shop (Rocket boots 'R Us') and finish it with a great big neon sign advertising it's presence on the frontage. You open up and wait for hoards of people to arrive and buy your products. Unfortunately very few people come and those who do seem to have come by accident and leave rather quickly hardly even looking at your goods let alone buying them. You're a bit confused as to why no customers are arriving when you have such a great set up with great products. You spend a small fortune on a 'Jupiter business adviser' as business is bad and you need help. The problem is he says that atmosphere of Jupiter is very gaseous and your business can't be seen from more than a Kilometer away. So although highways and other settlements surround you you are in fact an island that few people know about. Due to the gaseous atmosphere your shop is all but invisible and people will whizz along the highways not even knowing you exist. The adviser goes through a list of marketing methods that will bring in customers to your shop. Unfortunately you have used your last money in hiring the adviser and all these methods cost money. You tell him you need a way of bringing in customers that doesn't cost money. The adviser pauses for a moment then tells you something that will go on to change your life. What you need to do he says is to build some highways between you and other pods. At the start of each of these superhighways you can put a bright flashing signpost telling people where the highway finishes (your shop) along with a short description of what the destination pod contains. He says that many pod owners will be happy to build a superhighway connecting your two pods along with one of the sign posts as long as you put a corresponding flashing signpost at your end of the highway advertising their pod. He says he has a another customer who sells 'Rocket Boot' fuel who would be happy to set up a superhighway between his pod and yours as the two products you sell obviously complement each other. He would pick up customers from your customer base and you from his. He gives you his number. You give him a call and after a brief chat you both agree to that setting up a superhighway between your two pods would be mutually beneficial. Within a week the superhighway is built along with flashing signposts at each end. On the first day you get several enquiries from people who when looking to buy fuel for their rocket boots saw the flashing sign advertising your Rocket boot shop and decided to check out your shop before going home. On the second day you get several more and make a couple of sales. You go on to get at least 10 visitors a day from people who having visited the Rocket boot fuel shop see the sign to your shop and follow the highway to check it out. About 20% of these visitors turn into sales. This gets you thinking if you get 10 visitors a day from one Rocket boot fuel shop why not set up superhighways with other shops of the same genre. Looking in you Jupiter directory you find 150 such shops and make try to make contact with their owners. Many owners don't return your call, some do to politely decline but 22 owners reply saying they think it's a good idea. By the end of the month you have gone from 0 superhighways coming into your pod to 23 and the amount of customers has risen by 1000%. Over time you strike up relationships with owners of 'Rocket boot Repair' shops and 'Rocket boot cleaning' shops before you know it you have over 100 superhighways coming into your pod all bringing customers on a daily basis. As your shop becomes better known shop owners come to you requesting a superhighway to link your two pods, some just build a superhighway to your shop without requesting a flashing sign at your end as your shop has now got a good reputation and they are keen to be linked to you. All these incoming highways bring in thousands of customers each day and it's not long before you hire more staff to keep up with demand. 5 years later down the line you have expanded into other fields buying several more pods and start each venture by linking them to other pods in the same way. They grow as did your original rocket boot business As you sit back one day in your luxury habitat pod bought with the profits from your several businesses you recall with a smile the day the business advisor gave you the advice 'the best way to bring customers to your pod without paying money is to link to other pods'. Ok you might ask if the author of this article is insane - the purpose of this article is why you must have incoming links to a website. You may be right on the insanity charge but if I say from my story :- The planet of Jupiter is the internet - the WWW The pods are websites The superhighways are links between websites The flashing signposts on the superhighways are the descriptive anchor text to the links. Then (hopefully) you will see the futuristic analogy I have just described. The simple fact of the matter is that to have a website with lots of targeted traffic you must set up a reciprocal linking program. It is the one best way of getting targeted traffic to your site with no cost except your time. It will also help with your Search Engine rankings. If you don't set up a reciprocal linking program you will either have to pay a fortune on advertising or like the rocket boot shop in the beginning get but a few lost soles who will leave your site as soon as they arrive basically rendering your website a ghost town.