Who You Should & Shouldn't be Trading Links With
Most people agree that a good and free way of getting traffic to
your site is by exchanging links (reciprocal linking) with
fellow webmasters. This is also agreed to be a good way for
moving up the search engine results page for your chosen
keywords.
However webmasters are often confused as to which sites they
should exchange links with. Many read that incoming links from
websites that have the same keywords result in higher rankings
with the search engines. This often results in webmasters
setting up reciprocal links with websites that are in direct
competition with their own.
Now take just 30 seconds to think of any successful business
that hosts advertisements for their competitors. Does the
Coca-Cola website link to Pepsi? Does Ford's website link to
Daimler-Chrysler's? No of course they don't, so why would your
website link to one in competition (unless they paid you a big
fat check for the privilege).
So who should you exchange links with? Try and get inside the
mind of the people you want to visit your site, your ideal
targeted visitor. What would they be interested in as well as
your product?
For example, let's assume that you own a website that sells gold
watches. You could link to other watch selling sites but as
detailed above it could actually harm your site by taking
prospective customers away.
Before deciding which sort of sites to trade links with you need
to think of the sort of people that are going to be interested
in purchasing gold watches. What sort of people will they be?
Try and put yourself in the shoes of your customers.
Gold watches are a luxury item and aren't cheap. The people you
want to visit your site and the people who are most likely to
make a purchase are going to have a good disposable income, and
income they are willing to spend on expensive things. What other
products would they also be interested in purchasing? The first
thing that springs to (my) mind is designer clothing. People who
are interested in buying a gold watch are making a statement.
'Look how much money I've got'. Wearing designer clothes is
another way of making that statement. So find websites that sell
designer gear and exchange links. Remember it's worth their
while too because your customer base is very similar to theirs
and you will both benefit.
You can then go on to exchange links that with sites that sell
other luxury items like luxury cars, holidays etc. Once you have
a better understanding of your target customer profile it's not
so difficult to find linking partners who will benefit you AND
are of interest to your customers.
So when thinking of websites to exchange links with, I don't
think of those that are similar to mine. I think 'who is my
customer and what interests them as well as my product'.
Get it right and you'll have a constant stream of quality,
targeted traffic and less reliance on your search engine
ranking. Get it wrong and you'll be sending your customers to
the competition.