Reciprocal and Non-Reciprocal Links... What's the Difference?
Once your website is up and raring to go, it is important to
start formulating a marketing strategy. The obvious goal is to
attract as many visitors as you can. One of the best ways to do
this is through a "Linking Campaign".
In order to begin your campaign, you must first understand the
difference between reciprocal and non-reciprocal links. A
reciprocal link simply means that two websites are linking to
each other. Both sites generate traffic for each other
simultaneously. This follows the philosophy of, "You scratch my
back, and I'll scratch yours." A non-reciprocal link refers to a
website that links one-way. A good linking strategy is to create
as many inbound non-reciprocal links as possible, with some
strategically chosen reciprocal links as well.
Nowadays, search engines are incredibly smart. The positioning
of your site depends a great deal upon how many people link to
your site. A lot of non-reciprocal inbound links tells a search
engine that your site contains valuable information. After all,
who's going to recommend your site without reciprocation unless
they believe it will benefit their readers?
On the other hand, a website with a bunch of reciprocal links
could indicate that the webmaster solicits links. This means
topics and information may or may not be connected, and the
probability that it's a valuable site diminishes. To determine
this, search engines then look for key word connections between
reciprocal links to determine if the sites are in fact
benefiting each other.
The key is: choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to
websites that contain related information that readers will
enjoy. Spend your time cultivating valuable information on your
site, and then tell everyone you can! If you end up having more
non-reciprocal links than reciprocal links, search engines will
rate your site much higher than those that don't.
Then the question becomes, how do you generate non-reciprocal
links? The first step is to create a site packed with valuable
information. Make your site full of interesting details that
similar sites' readers can't live without. If webmasters see the
benefit to linking to your site, your Marketing Campaign becomes
a snap.
When you begin, try emailing other webmasters. Tell them why
your site will be important to their readers, and make it easy
for them to say yes by including a ready-made link. You'd be
surprised at how many people agree to help!
You can also try writing a nice review of a few sites on your
webpage. Email the sites' webmasters and let them know about
your testimonials. It's likely that the sites will want to
advertise your nice comments to their readers by posting a link
to your review.
Finally, submit your website to as many relevant web directories
as you can. This is one of the fastest, most powerful ways to
make your website known. If you search for "web directory" on
Yahoo!, it returns over 1 million results. You can pick and
choose the ones you'd like to submit to. Unfortunately, this can
be very time consuming. Plus, with over a million results, how
do you know which directories are the best choice?
When I realized how tedious the process can be, I decided to
create a product that would make the job easier. Master
Programmer Paul Martin and I have compiled 280+ of the best
directories on the web. Visit Directory
Submitter. to find out how to instantaneously submit your
website to popular, relevant directories without the hassle.