How to Make Your Site Attractive to Potential Link

How to Make Your Site Attractive to Potential Link Partners

by: TC Thron

Every now and then, I receive a link exchange request from someone who wants a link from my directory (my highranking directory directly accessible from the index page), and in exchange, they’re willing to link to my page from one of their zillions of link pages about 18 jumps away from the home page. Needless to say, the proffered page has a Google PageRank of 0, and chances are itกs not even indexed by any search engines.
What an enticing offer.
If you want people to trade links with you, thus increasing your PageRank and traffic, you must offer them a valuable link in return. Not all links are created equally. Here are some tips for making your site attractive to potential link partners:
Build a directory of links pages sorted by categories that relate to your web site. Avoid putting all of your links on a single page. Avoid putting tons of links on any one page in your directory. Avoid naming your links page กlinks.htm(l)ก.
Put a link to your directory on your index page. Every page in your subdirectory should have a link from that directory page and in turn link to that directory page. This helps spread Google PageRank more evenly to all your links pages and your directory page. Link pages with high PR will attract more link offers.
Avoid impersonal link managing services; give your links directory a personal touch and manage link exchanges inhouse. If cutting and pasting a link onto one of your directory pages takes more than 30 seconds, you need to go back to webmaster school anyway.
Avoid tricks meant to keep from transferring PageRank to other peopleกs sites.
Don’t hide the link to your directory page.
Don’t force links to open in a new window. Most surfers have popup blockers that make this a pain to work around. I know you want to keep visitors from leaving completely, but letกs face it, if they’re browsing a links page, they’re already bored with your site. Get over it. Someone else will come.
Thatกs it. Follow these steps, and not only will people be more willing to link to you, but youกll get a lot of offers as well. Itกs more time efficient if people come to you than to hunt links on your own.

About The Author

TC Thorn wmakes a living from affiliate marketing and advertising. This article first appeared at Webmaster Articles.

This article was posted on June 22, 2004

by TC Thron

The Basics of Asking for a Reciprocal Link

The Basics of Asking for a Reciprocal Link

by: Marc Singer

Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice on the Internet. Webmasters have been asking other webmasters for reciprocal links since the beginnings of the Internet. The very nature of the web is linking websites to one another. It is of even higher importance, now that AltaVista and others have changed their ranking algorithms.

If a webmaster considers your email spam, then he can report you. If your emails are unique, without commercials, and are personalized with unique personal information about the webmasterกs web site that you are emailing, then it would be hard to call your email spam.

All webmasters must be responsible in their asking for reciprocal links. This includes following simple rules and guidelines in choosing web sites to include in your link directory.

Organizing a TightlyThemed Vertical Link Directory

Reciprocal links do increase your search engine positioning if used properly.TightlyThemed Link Directories get high ratings from search engine robots, but only if they are true resources of organized knowledge. Search engines are getting very smart in their query result rankings. They include all kinds of advanced calculations pertaining to how the links point to you and away from you. They can include keywords in their algorithms, and now they know how tightly linked your Themes or subjects are. Don’t try to fool them into better positioning by including a lot of web sites that are outside your web siteกs real Themes in your Link Directory.

Your Link Directoryกs Themes must match the Themes of your web site. You must not let your zeal to email, and perhaps get a reciprocal link overpower your need to create a true web resource. You don’t want to create a directory that includes all the knowledge of mankind and also sounds like a soft drink. You should be happy with organizing a tightly Themed Vertical Link Directory. Be the best in your area, linking only sites that relate to you.

A smaller, tightlythemed Link Directory will grow much faster than a diluted, looselythemed, large bulky one. Your web siteกs traffic will quickly increase, not only with visitors from your Reciprocal Link partners but will also increase from Search Engine visitors, once their robots quickly find your Link Directory pages through your Link Partners!

Email General Guidelines

If you are including web sites in your Link Directory just because you want to send an email and possibly get a link, then you are spamming in mind and spirit. The webmaster who receives this kind of email is not a happy camper. He or she is proud of his achievements in creating traffic to his site over the last few years, perhaps millions of hits every month, only to receive an email asking him to link to a web site that in no way can remotely match his web site or be useful for his visitors. This is spam. Remember the phrase reciprocal links? Please change it to Reciprocal Themed Links. This is important !

DO NOT commercialize your email in any way.

It shouldn’t look like spam or people will think it is. Do not include ANY links in your email signature area except links to your web site. Keep it short and to the point. Ask for a reciprocal link and thatกs it.

This message should only be a few lines, and not a long narrative with rules and guidelines. Save that for your information on your link directory. Use a unique email reciprocal link message.

It is possible for webmasters to receive the same basic message from another webmaster. Each reciprocal link request MUST look different by being fresh and original.

Do not use Letกs Trade Links as your subject. Letกs trade Links is probably the most used email subject line on the Internet today, as there are thousands of webmasters using this phrase. If you keep this subject line, then you are sending the same one as everyone else. It will not be accepted or worse, it will look like spam.

Personalize every email message

Include a personal comment in the email message to each of your selected email addresses. You could include something like: กI really like the animations you had on your home page.ก, ก.. and loved your background imageก or กI loved the content on …… pageก. This personal comment should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that you personally visited their web site.

Use logic when selecting those to receive an email.

Before you can send a reciprocal link request, you need to explore their web site to decide if you want to include them in your link directory. You need to also use some thought in who you send a message to. A super large web site will probably not trade links with you in the beginning, perhaps you should save those for later. If you cannot find a links page, they are not going to trade links either. Think before sending email.

I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

About The Author

Marc Oswald Singer

CEO WSP Advertising Inc.

http://www.wspromotion.com/

This article was posted on August 07, 2004

by Marc Singer