Links
Exchange And Its Benefits
Every website needs a link exchange program. Every
week, set aside time to work on your link exchange program to build up
the quality and number of your text links out on other websites within
your niche market.
Why not exchange banners? Search engines are fueled by
text. Key words and links are what you are creating out on other
websites. Website visitors do indeed check link pages and your text link
on quality sites will generate some degree of traffic for you. You may
like the look of your banner but when it comes to creating a strong link
exchange program - build your website description with good key words
and strong title with your URL.
What should your link exchange information look like?
A link exchange program starts with your own unique
text ad under 200 characters full of your key words, don't need
sentences, put most important key words early in the text ad, check
spelling, no "ALL CAPS" set up in this order:
Title
Description
URL
Your title - A descriptive title for your website, not
necessarily your domain name but the name you are branding your site
with. There are very strong websites that use a title that describes the
site rather than the domain name, again, using strong key words. Others
have opted to use a title that starts with a number or letter "A" so
that on another website - their text link will appear early in the page.
Website Description - Use Overture's Keyword Selector
Tool to refine your text for your website description. The more thought
and planning you put into your title and description, the more powerful
your link exchange will have on search engines.
Categorizing your own text link - To save time and
energy, think about what categories your text link would work on (i.e.
work at home recourses, parenting, home decor, time management - the
theme of your website) because some sites will want you choose the
category that your website will fit in!
Once you have designed your own link description, you
are ready to set up your own link exchange program for your website. As
you will be asking other website owners to put your link information on
their "links" or "resource" page, you need to set up your own page for
you to place their link exchange information. This is called reciprocal
link exchange.
Reciprocal Link Exchange - In essence, you are
"swapping links". It is an even trade. Your text link on one of their
links pages with your URL pointing to your homepage and you place their
text link information on your links page while setting up their link to
connect with their homepage (index page).
Before you can offer a reciprocal link exchange with
another webmaster, you will often need to show them you have already put
their link information on your website.
Designate at least one page for your link exchange
program. As your link exchanges grow, you will expand your pages into
different categories. Make sure your link exchange program is linked to
your main page and every page of your website. Alphabetize and
categorize your listing of reciprocal links.
Just starting your link exchange program?
Have your page all set up for links from other
websites plus have the information others need to exchange links with
you.
Once you have designed your own link information and a
resource page to put up the links information from your link partners,
it is time to start asking other website owners to put Your Link
Information on their own links page.
Choosing your link partners for reciprocal link
exchange
Think niche. Your website has a theme, a specialty- a
marketing niche. Choose link exchanges with websites that have similar
themes. If your website is about handmade candles then focus on websites
that offer handmade, handcrafted products. Explore websites with candle
accessories, home decor, gifts and aromatherapy.
Websites that offer what you believe your visitors
would enjoy are where you focus your link exchanges. Choose sites that
are complementary to your own, not competitive. The more closely related
the subject of your link partner's site, the more relevant your own link
description will be to their visitors and to search engines.
Page Rank - the higher the page rank of the site that
you exchange links with, the more impact on search engines. That does
not mean that you should not exchange links with websites that only have
a page rank of 3 or higher but the majority of your link exchanges
should be with websites ranking well with top search engines.
Test your own link popularity - you have already
exchanged links with some websites and now you want to know if it's
helping you with search engines. I found UpTimeBot usefully for getting
a handle on what's happening with your link exchange program.
Its disheartening that Google is slow to catch up with
your link exchanges but be persistent in your weekly time to set up
quality reciprocal link exchanges.
The other major search engines will help you with
traffic and link popularity until Google does it's own bit. Persistence
with your link exchange program does pay off!
In the end, Google DOES catch all the hard work and
you will start getting the traffic and page rank your website deserves!
Tammy Ames works daily online building WAHM Work at
Home Connections and helping other work at home families market on the
internet. Tammy publishes a weekly online newsletter Work at Home
Connections Ezine. Subscribe to spend time each weekly learning to
succeed online.
