Should You Get Involved In Reciprocal Linking!
Talk about reciprocal linking on any Internet Marketing forum
and you will be destined to get bombard with intense replies.
There is an ongoing discussion about the benefits and drawback
involved in reciprocal linking and both sides make persuasive
arguments. So, should you or should you not get involved in
reciprocal linking? In conclusion, the decision is yours but
here are some rules:
1. The principal plan of any linking method is to get more
targeted traffic to your website. Reciprocal linking can work
for or against you in this matter depending on the site that you
exchange links with. If you exchange links with sites that
receive high traffic, some of that traffic may be diverted to
your site. On the other hand, if you exchange links with a low
traffic site, you may deflect some of your traffic to the other
site without seeing a similar return. The answer is to exchange
reciprocal links with a site with a page rank no lower than one
level below yours and to try to exchange links with many sites
with a higher page rank. Ideally, you would seek to exchange
links with sites that have at least a PR 4.
2. Never exchange links with everyone that asks. What value is
there in exchanging links with a site that sells shoes when your
site is about Internet Marketing? Anyone that visits the shoe
site will be looking for information concerning shoes, not
Internet marketing and very few will click on your link
regardless of how high the page rank is for the shoe site. The
key here is to exchange links only with sites that are relevant
to your site or to your keywords.
3. Avoid exchanging links with sites that have a massive link
directory. If your site is listed on page 31 in your category of
another site's link directory, few people will ever see your
link. Although a link will be generated to your site for the
search engines, you will not receive much traffic from the link
exchange. Try to exchange links with sites where your link will
be displayed on the first, or at the most, the second page of
another site's link directory.
4. Establish online relationships. Exchanging links with other
relevant websites is a grand way to start building partnerships
with other webmasters and may open the door for future joint
venture requests.
5. Grow your link popularity. Search engines view sites that
have several links to them as being important. So, the more
links your site has, the higher your site might rank. Then
again, make sure that all reciprocal links are relevant to your
site or the search engines will penalize you.
When you do decide to get involved in reciprocal linking, join
only good authenticated link exchanges, which permit you to
approve or disapprove the link. Shun link farms or link
exchanges that will automatically exchange your link with their
entire database regardless of the relevancy to your website.
The best way to set up a link page is to enter all links
manually. It is time consuming but when you are starting out,
this is the best way to do it.
You would first need to set up a page on your website just for
your link categories. You can name this page anything you like
such as Links, Links Directory, Link Partners, My Link Partners,
etc. Set up this page with the major categories and
subcategories that are theme to your site. Then, set up a page
for each subcategory that will contain the actual links. Test
and make sure that whenever anyone clicks on a subcategory that
they are taken to the right link page.
Write a short 3 - 5 line ad about your website or your product
and include the URL to your website. It should be in HTML code
for easy uploading. Each linking webmaster have their own
procedure, every time you inquire to exchange links, you'll need
to copy and paste the other website's HTML code onto your link
page under the correct category and subcategory. You will then
need to upload the updated page to your website.
Once this is done, let the other webmasters know on which of
your pages they can find their link. Once the webmaster approves
the link exchange, they should add your link to their link page
and notify you on exactly what page you can find it.
Check to make sure that your link has been added to their site.
If they have not added your link, you have the choice of
contacting the webmaster as to why or of removing their link
from your site.