Basic linking strategies
Link promotion - Exchanging links with other sites is an excellent way of getting good traffic to your website. Sites that are inter-connected perform much better than those standing alone. Follow the guidelines below to ensure success:
- Find sites that have similar content to you, but are not so similar that they are in direct competition. Try and find pages that offer complementary products or services to yours.
- Aim for sites with similar visitor numbers so that you both benefit equally from the exchange.
- Only pick sites that you think are well-made and useful. If the site has excellent content, it will probably refer more valuable visitors. Content on the site should be relevant to yours - for instance www.home-security-uk.com might look for links from insurance companies.
| Having more incoming links to your site will increase your ranking in many search engines, including Google, Altavista & Inktomi |
Get a link exchange:
- Email the webmaster (usually webmaster@theirdomain.com) of the site you want to get a link on explaining your wishes - let them know some details about your site (include the url of your default page), explain that you like their pages and think your visitors would too.
- Suggest an exchange of links, or put a link on your site to their page and ask them to return the favour.
- If they accept your proposal - congratulations! You successfully made a link exchange. If you are rejected or do not receive a reply, don't worry - there will be plenty more sites who will be happy to link to you. Find them and start over.
- After you have both exchanged links - check the site to see if they have correctly linked to your page. Some unscrupulous webmasters put a link up to your site for a few days, and then remove the link once they think you have checked it. Have a look every few weeks or so to make sure this doesn't happen. If it does, remove your link to them and find yourself a better partner.
- If you need to remove the link to their site, email them and let them know - you would prefer it if they told you, wouldn't you?
