5 Reasons No One Will Swap Links With You

5 Reasons No One Will Swap Links With You

by: Matt Colyer

Many webmasters simply don’t understand how to request a link exchange in way that is not titled or viewed as กspamก. In this article I will list five reasons why no one is trading links with your web site.

1) Robots No webmaster that has worked hard on his (her or their) web site wants a robot coming around asking for a link exchange. In fact many consider this as spam and they are often offended by this.

2) Watch what you say! When emailing the web site owner you should never make mean comments or sound cold, like a robot. Make it more personal and that you are real a person and not an automated system.

3) Make it clear! When contacting the webmaster you should be clear and to the point. Only tell them what they need to know and forget the rest. If they need to know something they will ask. Tell them where their link will be listed at and suggest where you would like your link to be placed at.

4) Your site In order for someone to be interested in exchanging links with your site you need to have a decent web site. The more content you have the better. Is your service that you offer useful? Or maybe you sale things. Does your products have a good description and pictures of the products?

5) Why should they? Tell the webmaster why it would be in their best interest to trade links with your web site. Tell them how many visitors you get per month. Also tell them why your site would be a great resource for their visitors.

About The Author

Matt Colyer is the owner of the http://www.superiorwebmaster.com. He also is a php, CGI and ASP developer.

This article was posted on February 28

by Matt Colyer

Keep Them Coming Back Update Your Site

Keep Them Coming Back Update Your Site

by: Richard Lowe, Jr.

If you are anything like me, your website is a reflection of yourself. It contains your thoughts and communications, exposed to the entire world at all times. Look at virtually any noncommercial web site and you will get a glimpse at the person behind the monitor.
I look at web sites all day long, and I am constantly amazed by the things that people reveal about themselves without saying anything. Is the website well organized or just a jumble of images and text thrown up at a moments notice? Is the site alive with color or just dull and lifeless black and white? Is the site exploding at the seams with content or is it just a collection of ads, banners or links?
All of these and many other clues tell me more about the webmaster than any of those 50 question psychological quizzes.
One clue that tells me more than anything else is whether or not the site is kept uptodate. Sometimes I will see a beautiful web page a work of art that comes from the heart and soul of a human being. I fall in love with the page and want to learn more, then click on a link and bam, page not found. I shrug, as every webmaster has a bad link now and then. Click on another, and another, and more than half of the links are dead. I sigh, then move on.
Or Iกm reading wonderful stories about a personกs life experiences and find, well, these are all years out of date. A little looking around the site and I find that nothing has been updated since 1997. I always feel a little sad when I see this itกs as if something inside the webmaster died. I wonder, did she grow tired of it all? Get married and lose interest? Perhaps even died? Who knows, there is no clue on the site at all. Itกs just … abandoned.
Another clue to a neglected site the person created a webring and got several hundred people to join. The ring is obviously a creation of love as itกs not easy to get so many sites to join up. The ring graphics are wonderful, the join page is beautifully written, and I am actually very impressed. I start to surf the ring and quickly find that over half the sites no longer exist. Another dozen have removed the ring code. How sad. Itกs one thing to lose interest in a webring … but to just abandon it? I wonder what changed in a personกs life caused this work of love and community to just be discarded so easily.
Or it could be that a person and simply doesn’t update their site very often. There is a wonderful comic book site which is simply beautiful, yet sometimes months go by without a single update! Itกs so frustrating as I really am intrigued and want to come back to visit this guyกs private world. I haven’t checked in a long time why bother, since the site is updated so infrequently?
My feeling is simple. Create the best website that you can with the knowledge that you have. You will never be finished, as there will always be more to say and show. You are a living, breathing human and you are learning more every day. Thus, there should always be something of value that you can add to your web site.Presumably, youกve created your web site to communicate something to the rest of the world. It could be that you want to write up your life story, explain about the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or simply compile a list of the best blonde jokes. Itกs possible that you even want to make a few dollars now and then by selling a nice product. Why settle for just getting someone to read what youกve got to say and move on? Why not continually update your message so that your readers come back time after time to find out what new and wonderful things youกve posted this week.
Think youกve said everything that can be said about your subject? There are many options to this method of continual updates. You could add a message board to start virtual conversations with your visitors. Or perhaps you could add a weekly column (and associated ezine) to get people to come back. Even if youกve said everything there is to say, perhaps you can add pictures, sound and videos or change the layout or presentation.
Be sure and let people know whatกs new by including a "Whatกs New" section right on your front page. This serves to your visitors right to the new content immediately. It also lets them know that you are updating the site all of the time, which means they will want to come back again and again just to see what you have written or changed.
A periodic ezine is another way to stay in contact with your readers, letting them know whatกs going on at your special website. Another great way to get people to come back is to become active in newsgroups or email discussion lists (such as egroups and topica). By posting useful information at these places you will get people wanting to come to your site to find out what else youกve got to say.
Which, of course, leads back to the original premise of this article. If you want people to come back to your site, you had better be keeping it uptodate, accurate and adding new content all of the time. Otherwise, your readers will grow tired and move on to greener pastures.
And thatกs the saddest thing of all … an abandoned creation of love and passion.

About The Author

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internettips.net
Weekly newsletter: http://www.internettips.net/joinlist.htm
Claudia ArevaloLowe is the webmistress of Internet Tips And Secrets and Surviving Asthma. Visit her site at http://survivingasthma.com

This article was posted on January 17, 2002

by Richard Lowe, Jr.

How To Verify And Monitor Your Search Engine Listi

How To Verify And Monitor Your Search Engine Listing On Google.com?

by: Christoph Puetz

Being listed in search engines and ranked high on searches is the overall goal a webmaster is trying to achieve when dealing with search engines. Search engine optimization is probably one of the most commonly used words among webmasters. In the Internet market becoming much more critical to business success this is almost natural.

While the professionals know how to verify search engine rankings and listings, the normal user or startup webmaster might not know how to verify these things. The often just type their domain name into the search engine of choice and are happy if they get a result back that includes their domain name. But there is a little more these startup webmasters should know about.

Every page indexed by a search engine is a possible landing page for visitors to enter the website. As more pages get indexed the higher number of possible entry points to the website. But how can a webmaster verify how many pages are currently in the index of a search engine?

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site=omainName.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=site=omainName.com

Replace กDomainName.comก with the actual domain name that needs to be verified. A webmaster should also run the following variation to get an impression of what is really out there.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site:www.DomainName.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.DomainName.com

The next thing a webmaster should check is to see how many other websites are linking to his/her website at all. As almost everyone knows nowadays the higher the number of links pointing to a website (incoming links) as higher the possible search engine ranking on search can be (and we all want that number 1 spot, right?!). The problem is that Google will never show you all incoming links to a website. But even a ball park number can be helpful in finding out if the SEO work of the past paid off. So, how does a webmaster can get this ball park number of incoming links?

http://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.DomainName.com

This command will show the กball parkก number mentioned above. It will give the webmaster a hint how successful the website is and how many people/websites are linking to it.

By researching the information of how many pages and how many links to/for a website are registered/indexed in a search engine a webmaster can gain important knowledge. This knowledge makes it easier to see what works and what does not work when it comes to search engine success for a website.

About The Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful entrepreneur and international book author. Examples of his search engine optimization work can be found at http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com and http://www.highlandsranch.us.

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 06

by Christoph Puetz

Awards Program Debate

Awards Program Debate

by: Richard Lowe, Jr.

Daily article:
One of the most debated subject among webmasters is the whole concept of web site awards. Iกm sure youกve seen the little graphics on many different sites, announcing it is the "best", "coolest" or "most wonderful" or whatever. Sometimes youกll see terms like "bronze", "gold" and "silver" to describe the award.
Whatกs the debate about? To put it briefly, are web site awards worth the "paper they are printed on?"
"Whatกs the point?", some webmasters will say with a smirk (the smirk always seems to be there, oddly enough). "Whereกs the money in awards? These are just graphics that anyone can make up, they are given out by the boatload and they do not prove anything."
Au contraire. I beg to differ. Winning an award can be one of the most fulfilling achievements that a webmaster can experience. Yeah, some of the awards are given away by autoresponder (and these, I agree, are worthless), but others are very, very difficult to earn.
You see, the point is that in a true awards program you are getting a peer (another webmaster) to review your site against a set of criteria. You have to work to win some of the better ones, and the very best require an incredible effort.
But who wants a peer review anyway? I mean, isn’t the real payoff in dollars or number of visitors or hits or whatever? Why would anyone care about the opinion of another webmaster?
Thatกs easy. You see, web sites can always be made better. It does not matter how good of a job youกve done, if you stand back and look at your accomplishment objectively, you will find something to improve. What awards programs do is speed up this process.
You begin by reading the criteria of the award. One common requirement is fast load time. You check your site and find the main page loads in 5 minutes … and thus you will not win the award. Okay, so you fix that and check the next item. Hmm. Clean navigation … fixed that, whatกs next? Readable text perhaps, or good content, or simply a way to turn off the background music. You see whatกs happening. You want that award so you MUST improve your site to achieve it. You have to spend a little more time checking it out, so that when your site is examined you will earn the prize.
What does that buy you? A better web site will translate into more visitors who come back more often, and if you are selling something, they may buy it.
So before you turn up your nose at that pretty awards graphic, read the criteria. See what the webmaster had to do before he earned that picture. If the criteria says "just take it and display it" … the award is useless. On the other hand, if it states some stringent rules, then perhaps you should be impressed … and maybe see if you own site measures up.

About The Author

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internettips.net
Weekly newsletter: http://www.internettips.net/joinlist.htm
Claudia ArevaloLowe is the webmistress of Internet Tips And Secrets and Surviving Asthma. Visit her site at http://survivingasthma.com

This article was posted on February 4, 2002

by Richard Lowe, Jr.

Selling Merchandise On Your Website

Selling Merchandise On Your Website

by: Suzanne Power

A viral marketing tool and a potential moneyspinner. Suzanne Power looks at the options and believes Spreadshirt can take over the Cafepress mantle

If you take away poker, dating, and naked ladies, custom merchandising is the big success story of the Internet. The ultimate combination of ecommerce and affiliate marketing, millions of websites around the world turn to online merchandising companies both to market their URL and to extract some cash from loyal visitors.

The key to the success of the industry is ondemand printing, meaning website owners don’t usually incur setup costs and do not have to carry inventory.

The business model usually works like this. The webmaster signs up for free – or for a small monthly fee – at the merchandising company site. Having uploaded his/her own designs – often logos, catchphrases or drawings, the webmaster can then place these designs on the range of products offered by the merchandiser. Usually, the merchandise company places a base price on each product, to which the webmaster adds his/her own commission or markup. In some cases, the webmaster can then create a shop which can be integrated into their own site.

The merchandising company normally handles creditcard processing, printing, shipping, and customer service while the webmaster incurs the slightly less arduous task of collecting and banking the commissions.

Beginning to see why its so popular? Letกs have a look at some of the industryกs big players:

Cafepress

The daddy of the bunch. Founded in 1999 in California, Cafepress was one of the first companies to exploit the massive custom merchandise market. It now sells products on behalf of over 2 million website owners, mainly in the USA.

For all its longevity and wide reach, Cafepress has yet to solve many of the original problems that still bother its users. Despite the clamour from customers, the company has yet to find a way to offer black, or even dark, garments – still relying on the old white and grey staples and a rather odd collection of pastels. Nor has the company embraced internationalisation, and website owners outside of the USA still baulk at hefty shipping charges and US Dollar pricing.

The free Cafepress service offers limited functionality to users, with only one version of each product allowed. For a monthly fee, Cafepress allows unlimited selling. However, excessive branding makes it rather difficult to integrate the Cafeshop into the look and feel of an existing site.

http://www.cafepress.com

Zazzle

Another Californiabased company that launched a similar service to Cafepress in 2003 and has a substantial share of the US market. Again pricing is only available in US Dollars. And while Zazzleกs range of garment colours is stronger than Cafepress, printing on black or dark shirts is still not supported.

Zazzle does not charge a monthly fee but webmasters will find it rather more difficult to integrate their shop into the look and feel of their own site.

http://www.zazzle.com

Spreadshirt

This one looks interesting. Spreadshirt was founded in Germany in 2002 and boasts over 60,000 partners across Europe, winning the Hewlett Packard Business Innovation Award in 2004. Unlike its American competitors, Spreadshirt caters for both European and US customers, using regional shipping companies and allowing webmasters to price products in Euros, Sterling, or US Dollars. Shops can also be automatically translated into eight languages.

Spreadshirt has also solved the thorny กblack shirtก issue, offering over 50 products in a full range of colours. However, itกs probably the different printing options that sets the service apart. In particular, Spreadshirtกs กflockก printing – creating a raised felt finish – produces a result much more impressive than regular digital print.

Finally, hats off to Spreadshirt for managing to keep its branding on the product but still allow webmasters full control over the look and feel of their shops. Already a dominant force in the European market, Spreadshirt could be set to give Cafepress a run for their money in the US.

http://www.spreadshirt.com

http://www.spreadshirt.co.uk

EShirt

EShirt is another European company – this time Italianbased providing an almostidentical product range to Cafepress ie no dark shirts. Euro, US Dollar and Sterling pricing is available. However, the only print option available is digital hot press printing – not the longest lasting technique.

The most inconvenient aspect of EShirtกs service is shop integration. You must register as a Tradedoubler affiliate before you can even apply for an EShirt shop. And even then, it is not possible to recreate the look and feel of your own site.

http://www.eshirt.it

About The Author

Suzanne Power is the editor of GrandWebDesigns.com.

This article was posted on March 01

by Suzanne Power

Some Useful Common Site Ideas

Some Useful Common Site Ideas

by: Richard Lowe, Jr.

In my web surfing adventures, Iกve found a few site elements which make surfing easier and more enjoyable. There are no concrete, hard andfast rules to follow these are just observations of some things which I virtually always look for in a site.
So without further ado, here is my list.

I often look for a way to contact the webmaster. I may want to tell him something about his site (privately), propose a link exchange or just drop him a line. I feel an email link or a link to a form is something to expect to find on every single page. If you are running a commercial site this is essential your customers want to be able to tell or ask you things and if you want their business you had better make it easy for them.
I like guestbooks. When I run into a site that I find enjoyable, I want to tell the webmaster. Give him or her a compliment I think itกs a good exchange. The webmaster worked hard and provided something that was entertaining, informative or useful. Itกs nice to let him know in return. So please put a link to the guestbook on every page.
A good navigational system is very important. A menu of some kind, with a link back to the home page, needs to be on every page of the site. Sometimes this may consist of a simple "previous" and "next", but please always add a "home" link in this case. If Iกve surfed a ways on your site, I want to be able to get back to the index quickly without using the "back" button.
Nothing makes me leave a site faster than finding one of those silly little "right click" scripts which attempts to disable the rightclick functions. Not only do these not work, but they are rude and violate some of the primary tenets of the internet free, sharing, and community. Also, you are modifying my browser controls which is not a nice thing to do. If you display something on your page I guarantee you that it can be taken, no matter how many scripts or functions you install.
Speaking of browser control don’t modify my screen size, buttons, menus, cursors or anything else that my browser does. You want me to leave fast resize my browser to fit the whole screen and remove the menu. I will be out of your site in a second!\
Whether your site is personal or professional, tell me a little about yourself, your wife, your kids, and your pets. I find it much easier to like someone and be receptive to their message if I know something about them. Just a quick page with a few paragraphs is fine. If you are going to ask me to fill out a form, please let me know how you are going to use the information. You want my address? Why? Phone number? What do you need that for? More importantly, how safe is this information?
I know many people like to put banner exchanges on their sites, but please keep it to a minimum. First, banner exchanges don’t work very well. Second, they make the pages load slowly. And third, if there is more than one or two banners on a page itกs pretty tacky. If you are going to insist on putting background music on your site, please give me an obvious way to turn it off.
Please don’t expect me to go searching through your whole page for a little dot hyperlink. Iกve found sites which bury the link to the next page in the strangest places in someoneกs eye, for example. Normally, I am just going to leave instead of trying to find out how to navigate.

Well, thatกs a start. I hope these ideas are of some value and help you make a better, more friendly site.

About The Author

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internettips.net
Weekly newsletter: http://www.internettips.net/joinlist.htm
Claudia ArevaloLowe is the webmistress of Internet Tips And Secrets and Surviving Asthma. Visit her site at http://survivingasthma.com

This article was posted on February 4, 2002

by Richard Lowe, Jr.

ExactSeek Explained (Part 1)

ExactSeek Explained (Part 1)

by: Mel Strocen

This article takes an indepth look at some of the innovations introduced at ExactSeek.com (http://www.exactseek.com), including, most recently, the implementation of a unique ranking algorithm that factors in Alexa traffic data.

Search engines basically cater to two audiences webmasters and web searchers. Although there is an obvious overlap between the two groups, the latter dominates in numbers and most search engines bend over backwards to keep web searchers happy by continually tweaking search result algorithms. Webmasters, on the other hand, are more or less left to fend for themselves.

ExactSeek was founded 2 years ago on the premise that webmasters/site owners are the driving force on the Web not in numbers, but in terms of ideas, development, enthusiasm and innovation. The goal for ExactSeek, then and now, was to build a major engine that catered to this audience and web searchers more or less equally. Part 1 of this article deals with ExactSeekกs focus on webmasters.

FREE SITE LISTINGS

ExactSeekกs belief in the importance of the webmaster audience to search engine growth and traffic resulted in the rapid introduction of three types of free site listings, each geared to helping webmasters give their websites maximum exposure within the search engine.

Hereกs a short explanation of each:

Standard listings: As the name implies, this site listing is just a basic website listing in the ExactSeek database, comprised of Site Name (taken from the Title tag), description (taken from the Meta Description tag) and Site Link (the website URL).

These basic listings show up numbered 1 to 10, etc. in ExactSeekกs search result pages. Any webmaster can obtain a Standard Listing simply by filling out the form at: http://www.exactseek.com/add.html

Enhanced listings: Not strictly a website listing really more of an enhancement to the standard website listing. In brief, an enhanced listing consists of a small icon residing next to a websiteกs standard listing which when clicked opens a 150×150 javascript window with additional information about that website. The cool thing about the enhanced listing is that webmasters can add up to 800 characters of text or HTML code to the content of the window, allowing them to:

Embed audio, video or Flash.

Include logo, product or service images.

Include links to secondary site pages.

Use font enhancements (size, color, style).

Include more detailed information about their websites.

Simple examples can be seen at: http://www.exactseek.com/enhanced.html

Priority listings: Introduced for those webmasters who wanted something in return for adding an ExactSeek search form to their websites. These listings appear in the first 10 to 100 ExactSeek search results, highlighted against a light blue background. Visit the link below to see an actual example: http://exactseek.com/cgibin/search.cgi?term=perl

Obtaining a priority listing is a simple 3 step process outlined at: http://www.exactseek.com/add_priority.html

The three types of listings noted above offer any half way knowledgeable webmaster a means to maximize site exposure with minimal effort. Best of all, any site meeting ExactSeekกs submission guidelines is added within 24 hours. No pointless weeks or months of waiting. In 24 hours, websites are either indexed or not. If not, the most common reasons are:

The site submitted lacked a Title tag. The ExactSeek crawler ignores sites without Title tags.

The site submitted was pornographic or contained illegal content.

The site submitted was dynamically generated and its URL contained nonstandard characters like question marks (?), ampersands (&), equal signs (=) percent symbols (%) and/or plus signs (+).

The submitting webmaster failed to respond to the submission verification email message sent out by ExactSeek. Or, as is becoming more and more common, the webmaster failed to receive the message due to sp@m and ISP filtering and, thus, could not confirm submission. Webmasters using AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo email addresses may soon find it impossible to have their websites added to any search engine using a verification system.

THE DOITYOURSELF APPROACH

One of the most irritating things about many search engines is that it can take weeks or even months for free website submissions to be indexed. And once sites have been added, it can take weeks for changes to content and/or tags to be reindexed and for webmasters to see if those changes had a positive effect on site ranking.

ExactSeek opted to put a measure of control back in webmaster hands by introducing a doityourself approach. Early on, two simple online tools were made available which allowed webmasters to quickly check the positioning of any website in the ExactSeek database for any keyword(s) relevant to that site and then, if necessary, do something about it.

(a.) Site Ranking Tool

Tracks the top 10,000 site rankings for all keywords in the ExactSeek database, allowing a webmaster to find his site ranking for any keyword(s) relevant to his website.

(b.) Web Crawler Tool

Allows webmasters to schedule recrawls of their websites as often as once per week. Selfscheduled recrawls and instant site ranking checks provide webmasters with a quick read on which optimization strategies work and which don’t.

Both of the above tools can be found with additional explanation on the following page: http://www.exactseek.com/srank.html

DOITYOURSELF THE NEXT STEP

More recently, ExactSeek implemented a simple free membership system that takes the doityourself approach one step further. Any webmaster who has successfully submitted a website to ExactSeek is automatically a member and can obtain a Member ID and Password for login purposes by using the appropriate form at the ExactSeek Member Login page. (http://www.exactseek.com/member.html)

After logging in, webmasters can access a Member Account Manager which allows them to edit, enhance, delete and/or recrawl their site listings as often as they like. Revolutionary? Maybe not, but a big step away from total reliance on search engine scheduling.

Part 2 of this article will look at how traffic data from Alexa Internet was incorporated into the new ExactSeek ranking algorithm, the algorithmกs impact on delivering quality search results and at how ExactSeekกs new paid inclusion program stacks up against other paid inclusion and PPC programs.

About The Author

Mel Strocen is CEO of the Jayde Online Network of websites. The Jayde network currently consists of 14 websites, including ExactSeek.com (http://www.exactseek.com), SiteProNews.com (http://sitepronews.com) and SEONews.com (http://SEONews.com)

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 11, 2004

by Mel Strocen

30 Minutes Free Report Reveals The Arts Of Link Ex

30 Minutes Free Report Reveals The Arts Of Link Exchange!

by: Dave Tan

Dear Internet Friend,

Greetings, I will cut to the chase if you have founded this page that could only mean one thing…you want a proven web marketing technique that will attract more targetted web traffic to your web site and you want to do it all for FREE (no hidden charges, no fee, no affiliates). Who doesn’t? 🙂

So whatกs Link Exchange anway?

Link exchange is also known as reciprocal link exhange, link swap, link trade you place my link information on your site and I will place yours on my site. Itกs like a barter/trade of exchanging links you scratch my back, and Iกll scratch yours…sounds familiar?

The best thing about this form of web promotion is that itกs literally FREE and is the most costeffective way to improve your link popularity.

Note: Link exchange will NOT boost your page rank… link popularity and page rank is two different stories. I will reveal two excellent tools to determine your link poularity and page rank later…

Link exchange will NOT bring you an immediate surge or flood of web visitors rushing to your web site. Itกs more like a long term advertising, slowly building up the momentum by increasing your link popularity.

Link exchange can also be thought of as a FREE form of quality advertising for your site. Imagine this, your link partnerกs visitor visit his/her page, couldn’t find what he/she is looking for, click on the links page to search for more resources…and your site is included in the link page. What does this means for you? Exactly, FREE targetted visitors for your web site!

WARNING: Exchanging links with unrelated web sites can be HARMFUL & DANGEROUS to both your site and even your business reputation!

Oh, exchanging links is NOT riskfree? Well, itกs riskfree or at least safe if you follow the guidelines below:

Always find for Quality, Complementary, Matching, Related and above all Responsible & Ethical web site/webmaster as your link partner.

NEVER, ever exchange links with web sites that contain porn, violent, racists, hatred materials. Period. Sites that encourage illegal, immoral, irresponsible, unethical activities or contents will ONLY give your customer a bad impression of your business or web site use your own judgement here! 🙂

AVOID swapping links with the following kind web site:

Web site that contains NO apparent content, web site that are so full of affiliate links that it make no sense at all!

Web site with very poor presentation or unacceptable web design (apparently the webmaster doesn’t care about his/her site, let alone your link?) Especially if the site don’t have a clear naviagation system or way to the links page.

In other words, you can’t easily find the links page or your link simply because the webmaster tries to hide it from his/her visitors!

Web site that do NOT categorize their links, especially if they have more than 50 links. Would you like to see your link buried deep within 50 or 100 noncategorized links? Never do the same thing to your link partners too! :p

Web site that appears to be a link farm or linking to one (including FFA Free For ALL sites). Same as above, only difference is that such web site will link to almost any kind of web site (including but not limited to illegal and porn sites!), swapping links with such web site will do you more harm than good… avoid it at all costs!

Web site that uses third party link exchange service to manage their links you will notice this when you get a link back from them.

If the link is NOT directly from the website you’re exchanging links with, rather from a third party site (different domain), then delete his/her link IMMEDIATELY (okay this sounds a bit harsh, but do you really want to be penalized for linking to a linkfarm? Besides, this is like cheating. Anyway, third party site uses script to verify your link…). You can always contact the webmaster….

I have traded links with this kind of web site before, and frankly, I feel so cheated! (those links are not very valuable…) 🙁

Above all, web site that is under construction and even worse, always offline and unavailable, you know those scary 404 errors page not found (your link will be offline too!)

There are some web sites/webmasters that are really picky about which sites they will exchange links with. They will basically ONLY exchange links with site that meets a certain page rank…

These web sites may or may not have a high page rank or link popularity…I will reveal two excellent tools that will expose their page rank and link popularity now. 🙂

How do you check a web siteกs Page Rank and Link Popularity?

To know another web siteกs or your web siteกs page rank, just download this nifty Internet Explorer addon:

Google Toolbar: http://toolbar.google.com/

When youกve installed it on your computer, the Google toolbar will reside nicely on top of your Interter Explorer browser. Be sure to enable page rank view.

To view another web siteกs or your own web siteกs link popularity, you simply insert the to the appropriate URL right after the q=&url=

Alexaกs Link Popularity Checker: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=

For example:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=http://www.yoursite.com/

Visit alexa.com: http://www.alexa.com/ if you have any questions or simply want to know more about link popularity.

Is Link Exchange difficult?

Is writing a simple friendly email difficult?

There are basically two ways to exchange links. Before you start exchanging links, make sure the web site meets all the neccesary requirements to be your potential link partner.

More importantly, make sure the webmaster is interested in link exchange (Visit that particular web site and find the links page).

Add your link and wait for reply…

Usually thereกs a กadd your linkก or กsubmit your siteก link. These are script that the webmaster written or installed to facilitate the process of link exchange.

Itกs an easy way to exchange link, you just basically fill in your name, email address, link information, and the reciprocal URL. After youกve submitted your link information, simply wait for the webmaster to reply your request.

It usually takes around 12 days, but Iกve also experienced webmaster who takes more than a week (in some cases, two weeks!) to approve a simple link request…hmm, either they are simply too busy or don’t care!

A good rule of thumb is to allow up to a week (7 days) for a web site to reciprocate. If they do not reply within a week, you know what to do… 🙂

Email the webmaster personally…

This approach to link exchange is far more better and effective (in my opinion) because it is more personal and genuine. It may sound a little bit of a hassle and in some cases difficult but heh, quality does come with a price!

For those who don’t know how to write a friendly email requesting link exchange, don’t worry…I will give you a simple yet effective email template.

Visit that particular web site, try to find the webmasterกs name and jolt down what interest thing you find in his/her site and tell him/her that his/her site will be a great resource for your visitors.

Hi Jimmy! Iกve visited your site: www.jimmysite.com and I really like it. Your site looks very professional and interesting.

I think your site will a great resource for my visitors so I have included your link information on my site:

http://www.yoursite.com/links_1.htm Hereกs my site for you to review:

http://www.yoursite.com I have included my link information at the bottom of this message.

If you’re interested in exchanging links with my site, please send me an email including your link information and where youกve placed my link I will send you an email confirming I have posted your link.

Well done on providing the web users with useful and quality information / services! I hope you will consider this reciprocal link exchange and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

John P.S. If for any reaons you are not interested in exchanging links with me, please just reply me with the a simply no thanks or Iกm not interested in link exchange.

General Information:

URL: http://www.yoursite.com/

Title: Offers some products some services

Description: We offer the best X products and Y services…

There! Itกs as simple as that! Iกm sure you can come up with a better or more creative email template! 🙂

As a golden rule, always mention who you are (your name more personal), where (which web site) you are from and that youกve included his/her link!

Most webmasters are more inclined to include your link this way…Always make it easy for your potential link partner to find his/her link (provide the exact URL, which category, etc.) and use less than 6070 characters per line it will make the email easier for anyone to read.

What if your potential link partner REJECT your link exchange request?

Yes, it is quite possible but if your site meets all the neccesary requirements of a quality link partner, chances of your request been rejected is minimal.

However, as Iกve mentioned before, they are some web sites that are ONLY interested in swapping links with web sites that has a certain page rank…If you really want to exchange links with these sites, you can always try it later when your site have a higher page rank.

Where do you find potential link partners?

Finding quality link partners is becoming quite a challenge, especially if youกve traded more than 100200 links. If you’re looking for a quick and list of sites that accept reciprocal linking, here are some of the sites which Iกve used and would gladly recommend:

http://linkpartners.com/

http://www.linkexchanged.com/

http://www.linkalizer.com/

Remember, always and ONLY exchange links with related web sites, that way your chances of getting reciprocated will greatly improved.

Some final thoughts…

One more thing before we wrap this up nice report…although link exchange is a free form of advertising and a great way to boost your link popularity, it does require some efforts and patience to maintain it this is especially true when you have more than 50 links.

You can save yourself a lot of confusion and trouble if you categorize your links neatly, this will also add some กappealก for other webmasters to exchange links with you.

Thatกs all for this report, I hope you had a wonderful time reading it!

Happy Linking,

Dave Tan

Webmaster

www.ebookok.com

P.S. Please visit my site: http://www.ebookok.com/ today, browse my fine online eStore and check if thereกs any particular ebooks that can solve your marketing problems, all at special irresistible prices.

P.S.S. If you’re a webmaster who want to exchange links (if you’re a reponsible and ethical webmaster), I will be more than happy to trade links with your website site. 🙂

Permission to reprint if:

the report and resource box stay intact

links and email must be set as hyperlink (website)

may NOT be used in SPAM (optin email ONLY)

send me a copy of your URL/ezine/newsletter/eBook 🙂

HTML version available at: http://www.ebookok.com/resources/art_of_link_exchange.html

For autoresponder version, send an email to: [email protected]

About The Author

Dave Tan is the webmaster of www.eBookOK.com an online eBook eStore that provide only the Highest Quality of Internet Marketing eBooks.

Report © by webmaster Dave Tan, http://www.ebookok.com/. Providing you the best info ebooks for starting an online business, creating your own auction empire, increasing your web traffic & sales and publishing your own ebook. Subscribe today: http://www.ebookok.com/subscribe_now.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 26, 2004

by Dave Tan

Reciprocal Linking Techniques

Reciprocal Linking Techniques

by: Rick Rouse

Building a successful web site is a process that works best when done in a deliberate, logical stepbystep manner. The first step is to build a top quality web site that is packed with interesting and useful content.

Next, you need to submit your site to the major directories and begin a well thought out advertising campaign.

But the single most important step is getting a top ranking in the major search engines, most notably Google and MSN.

When ranking the sites in their index, Google places a very high importance on กlink popularityก, that is the sites that have the most highquality incoming links generally rank higher in Google. Getting links to your site from other sites is an absolute must for a top ranking in Google and the other top search engines (top 10 at a minimum).

The question that you may be asking is กHow do I get these links?ก. There are many ways to attain links to your web site, but it can be very difficult for new sites to get other sites to link to them.

Thereกs a simple way to jumpstart the process however. Itกs called ‘reciprocal linkingก. This is how it works: You search for sites that are in the same general topic area as yours (but not sites that compete directly). After you find a list of suitable link exchange partners, you place a link to their site on your site. Then you email the webmasters of the other sites and ask for a link exchange.

Do not send generic copies of the same email to each webmaster however. Rather, take a few minutes to browse each site. Then write a personalized email to the webmaster explaining what you liked about the site (be specific) and why you think a link exchange would benefit both parties.

Be sure to address the webmaster by name if at all possible. Also, be sure to give him your link exchange information. This should include the title of your site, a short description, and the URL that you want his site to link to (this doesn’t have to be the home page). And be sure to include the URL of the page that already has his reciprocal link on it.

After you have sent the emails, expect a few rejections for various reasons. This is normal and expected so don’t be at all discouraged. You will also quickly get a few emails from webmasters accepting your offer. Verify that your reciprocal link is in fact on their sites and then send a ‘thank youก email.

A great way to find potential link partners is to do a Google search on one of your main keywords or phrases. You will most likely have many pages of sites listed in the search results.

Here is a simple way to find out which of these sites actively exchange links: Go to the bottom of the Google search results page. Click on กSearch within resultsก. In the text box type in กAdd URLก. This will return only the sites in your original search results listings that have an กAdd URLก link on their web site. You can also do a search for กlink exchangeก.

If you aggressively pursue link exchanges on a regular basis, within a few short months youกll have built up good rankings in the search engines with a steady flow of targeted traffic to your web site!

About The Author

Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Webmaster Resources and the author of กSuper Webmaster SEO Toolkitก which gives step bystep instructions for getting a top 10 listing in Google & Yahoo. Visit his web site: http://www.rlrouse.com/SEO.html

This article was posted on July 29, 2003

by Rick Rouse

Successful Pay Per Click Ad Copy

Successful Pay Per Click Ad Copy

by: Christoph Puetz

Writing outstanding ad copy for payperclick advertising campaigns is critical if a webmaster wants to be successful. Why waste money on clicks from people who aren’t going to buy what a webmaster has to sell? To be as targeted as possible descriptive titles and effective ad copy are needed. Since the webmaster is paying for each click itกs very important to have ad copy which conveys the right message to the right person. The challenge is the small area available from most advertising networks like Google (AdWords) or Yahoo! (Overture).

Successful PPC advertising campaigns should be made of at least 34 different versions of an ad for the same product. Advertising via PPC is not a กone size fits allก procedure. A webmaster should make sure he/she defines the right target groups before getting into the process of writing the ad copy. Studies have shown that if important keywords are included in the ad title and the body the conversion rate is going to be higher. This is going to be a challenge in many cases as the ads in payperclick search engines offer limited space. Google AdWords as an example allows for the following character limitsก

Headline = 25 characters

Line 1 = 35 characters

Line 2 = 35 characters

Display URL = 35 characters

Other advertising networks have very similar limitations in place. The art of writing successful ads is also the art of fitting a message into these limits. The key to writing successful PPC ad copy is to write something that will stick out from the competition. An ad should prequalify the visitors. Well written ads are clear enough so that a potential visitor can already decide if he wants to click or if the offer does not really apply to him. The webmaster would waste a lot of money if the ad does not allow to make a decision if the advertised product or service will be of interest for the potential visitor. This prequalification through the ad copy may lower the click through rate, but a webmaster will be getting higher quality visitors in return.

Each PPC ad should be combined with a targeted landing page. A webmaster should not send visitors just to the homepage as the homepage could be too generic. Using the homepage as landing page has been proven to get lower conversion rates. A landing page should be the matching counterpart of the PPC ad. Highly targeted and filled with keywords and information relevant to the ad and the product a webmaster is trying to sell. The landing page should be easy to navigate and the กsales messageก needs to be highly visible. If a visitor needs more than 35 seconds to find what he is looking for, the chance to convert the visitor into a sale is going dramatically down.

About The Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful entrepreneur and international book author. Homepages: http://www.webhostingreport.net.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 2

by Christoph Puetz

Guide To Getting Linked

Guide To Getting Linked

by: Erich V Winnecke Jr.

Getting links from other websites pointing to your site can sometimes seem very hard and time consuming. There are several ways to get people interested in your site, youกve just got to be creative with it and think more in terms of putting yourself in the other webmasterกs shoes figure out what the advantages are for them to be linked to you!

One thing that you often hear is that to attain a high Page Rank thru Google, (which, letกs face it, is the Big Daddy of Search Engines) that you have to link to other high PR sites. This is not necessarily true. No one is 100% on the relevance of PR rank affecting a link exchange. Link to as many nonlink farm sites that are similar to your site as you possibly can, because the more inbound links pointing to your site that you have, the more search engines will look at your site as an important site in the business or opportunity that you are promoting or selling. So don’t look down on sites that have low a low PR, everyone at one point or another has a zero PR, doesn’t mean that they don’t get traffic, you just never know. Just because someone has a low PR doesn’t mean that they don’t get monster traffic to their site, whether itกs through payperclick advertising, or other means, so no one should turn their nose up at anyone who doesn’t have a great PR.

If you are a new webmaster and have just started a new website, sell the fact that you’re new, and that you’re going to be focusing on putting quality CONTENT on your site. Because, A Number 1 as far as Google is concerned is to have relevant content on your site relating to your business or opportunities. Making a business grow and succeed is based solely on the ability of a webmaster to make his/or her site relevant to search engine spiders, whom look every day for great content.

Another idea is to promote what you are advertising to a webmaster, showing that the product/or opportunity is viable and is something that makes your website worth linking to. Either by having testimonials, or by having them sign up as an affiliate to see results for themselves, showing how much you believe in your opportunity might show a webmaster that you are committed to making your site everything it can possibly be, and thus, possibly giving their website more exposure.

Even with the hassles that go along with linking to other sites it really is a great way to show that your site does have importance. Being partners through links with others in your online business makes for long lasting business relationships, and support for others that are getting started. Thereกs room for everyone to succeed online, and helping others along the way is as important to the growth of online business as anything else. Hereกs to your success!!

Copyright @ 2005 Erich Winnecke, Jr.

About The Author

Erich Winnecke, Jr. is a webmaster who authors articles and his website is geared for people who are interested in finding an online work at home opportunity or starting a low cost or free Home Based Business, if you have any questions visit his website at: http://www.business4me.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 11

by Erich V Winnecke Jr.