Madison Business Internet Guide

Madison Business Internet GuideIf you're looking for a low-cost, yet effective way to build long-term sustained traffic to your Web site, then be sure to read David Callan's article on reciprocal links. There's more to efficiently procuring quality reciprocal links than you might think.

 

Increase Your Site's Traffic With Reciprocal Links

By David Callan

 

IN THIS ARTICLE

 

HOW IMPORTANT ARE RECIPROCAL LINKS?

In my opinion reciprocal links are second only to search engines as a way to get traffic to ones site.

Reciprocal links are links with other Web sites, preferably sites that are related or complimentary to the theme of your website. The concept is simple: you link to site, and that sites webmaster returns the favour and links back to your site.

This method of traffic building is very important and it's free, it's simply a matter of contacting the right webmasters and getting the right links. However a full blown 'link-hunt' can be time consuming but the benefits it can bring are huge. Among them are:

Since the visitors that come from related Web sites are highly targeted, you have a much better chance of selling them your product or service, because they have come to your site through a link on a related website so it's likely they would also be interested in what your site has to offer.

Also it is worth mentioning that it is very unlikely that once your link is placed on someone's site that it will be taken down. This means that once a link is up, chances are it will be sending you free visitors for a long time, free visitors = free sales = more profit.

Reciprocal linking is my personal favorite form of marketing, even though a good Search Engine campaign will bring in much more traffic than any number of links can. Reciprocal linking is ideal for sites just starting out or who have little to no budget as you can see the visitors (AND SALES) coming in within days of contacting webmasters for links.

Apart from getting visitors from the linking site itself, more recently some major search engines are using the number of links to a site as an important factor in establishing a site's relevancy. The idea behind this is that the more links a site has, the more popular it must be. Look at it as natural selection for Web sites. Also this method of using the number of links as a relevancy factor helps the search engines defeat gateway/doorway pages. Why would anyone link to 'bare-bones' keyword filled doorway page? - Simple answer - they wouldn't. And the search engines know this.

Google is the most prominent search engine to use this method, and it has brought me a lot of visitors to my hobby site. Hobby site? you may ask. I am also the webmaster of www.irishboxingnews.com and have been for 2+ years.

The last time I checked on Altavista I had 169 sites linking to Irish Boxing News.com, and I am ranked number 3 on Google for the search term 'boxing news'. I get about 25 - 40 visitors a day from Google for this search term alone.

Before Google introduced the number of links to a site as a relevancy factor I wasn't even in the top 20, now since I have so many quality sites linking to IrishBoxingNews.com the googlebot feels I deserve position 3.

More search engines are likely to come around to this method of ranking as Google has shown with its tremendous growth that its a very effective method of establishing relevancy.

I think you now can see why reciprocal linking is so important. My IrishBoxingNews.com site gets about 150 visitors a day, not bad for a site without a budget plus it's a niche information site, and doesn't have broad appeal, anyway most of them come from search engines but about 50-60 come from links on other sites. Just Multiply them numbers by 4 or 5 for a site with mass appeal like an Internet Marketing site and you can really start to see the power of developing links with other sites.

WHO TO TARGET AND HOW

Follow these tips to maximize your success with Reciprocal Links:

CAREFULLY TARGET AND CHOOSE THE SITES YOU LINK WITH

What you need to be doing is focusing on linking to similar high-traffic, quality sites, which will interest your visitors and complement your site, not compete with it. Sending visitors to a competing site with a similar product is a big mistake because your visitors may buy their product instead of yours.

AVOID 'DOWN-LINKING'

Try not to down-link which is what I call it when a site links with a site with far less traffic than it. Always aim to up-link with a few high traffic sites, rather than a bunch of low traffic sites. The results are much better. It's the old 80-20 rule, 80% of your traffic will come from 20% of your links.

BECOME A TRAFFIC SIPHON

My favorite and first thing to do when looking for sites to target is to try a siphon away traffic from my competition, I do this by visiting altavista.com or any other engine that will tell me which sites link to which.

Say for example you knew your competition was WWW.XZY.COM. You would go to altavista and type in link:competition.com (leaving out the http://www. part). So to follow the above format you would type in link:xyz.com and do the search, altavista would return all the sites in its database that link to www.xyz.com. These are the first few sites you want to link to because you know they are sending traffic (and business) to your competition and you want a piece of action too. Chances are if these sites link to your competitor they will link to you as well.

Try not to be too specific with your search term. For example if I was doing this I wouldn't enter 'Internet marketing articles' because chances are most results would be competitive sites, I would enter in 'Internet marketing' because it's a wide area but still which is related to my website theme and not necessarily competing with me. The sites that show up for these results are prime targets. Ask for links with these guys, next you can target the guys who have links to them. The possibilities are endless.

GETTING QUALITY RECIPROCAL LINKS

OK now you know how important reciprocal links are and who you should target when looking for links, but when you have found your targets what's the best way to actually get them to link to you? What should you say in the email or phonecall that will increase your chances of being them linking their site to yours?

PERSONALIZE

Always personalize the email you send to any webmaster, this means actually visiting the site and finding the correct email address and name of the webmaster if possible.

This shows you are serious about exchanging links, that you really do value a potential link with them and separates you from the non-serious people who couldn't be bothered to personalize and might as well be emailing hundred's of sites with link exchange proposals (which could be interpreted as spam, which likely will cause your proposal to end up in the recycle bin).

If you do personalize you will see a much better response than if you didn't and you are making the webmaster feel special. Look at it this way - if you don't care enough to find out the name and send a personal email to your prospective linking partner, why should he or she care to link with you?

OFFER YOUR HAND FIRST

Many webmasters (particularly on high traffic sites) are weary of others trying to get something for free from them. Unfortunately, when you email them your proposal their first impression might be to think you are one of these people. So what can you do to put them at ease and to show them you are offering a fair deal?

Simple. Always put a link to them FIRST, do this even BEFORE contacting them! This shows that you are more genuine and that you do really value their site as you have just linked to it. Another advantage of this would be the fact that they might already have seen in their logs that you are sending them traffic and want to make sure this continues by linking to you.

ASK THEM TO REVIEW THEIR LINK

A simple URL isn't as good a link as a one or two line explanation along with the link. When you tell a site you have just linked to them include your stab at a 1 or 2 line blurb and offer to change it to their liking but you'd also appreciate a link back in return. Offering some complimentary words about their site won't hurt either. These tips will certainly increase your chances of getting a link from them.

SHOW THEM WHERE IT'S AT

Clearly give them the URL of the page where you placed their link so they can find it. Also make sure you mention how easy it is for people visiting your site to find your links or resources page.

GIVE THEM A COUPLE OF BENEFITS

Have a line or two explaining how exchanging links will benefit their visitors as well as their site.

MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM

Give them the 'extra push' by including the exact HTML code needed to add your link to their page, including a blurb describing your site.

FIT IN

When you provide the blurb about your site, make sure it is consistent with other listings on their links/resources page. This not only shows you've done your homework and are fair, but it takes away a reason for them to reject your proposal.

DON'T FORGET YOUR MANNERS

Last but not least thank them for taking time to read your email, and say you hope to hear from them soon. Include your email address and phone number.

Following the above format usually brings a 50%-80% success rate, which is really good, it's best not to rush in and email 100 or 200 sites at once, you should be seeking to add about 10 good sites to your links every week or so, this usually requires emailing about 30 or 40 sites depending on your site's properties like content, traffic etc.

One thing is for sure though it will take time usually from 1 month to up to a year to develop really good traffic from reciprocal links, but it's well worth it as you as securing free long-term traffic for your site.

Reprinted with permission from David Callan

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