Getting Links For Your Website

Step 9 - Getting Links For Your Website

There is a right and wrong way to request links from other website owners; If your site has something to offer, then you are well on your way to gaining link popularity fast.

Here are the most effective methods to make sure potential link partners will actually read your link request emails.

Link exchanges the right way

If you had found a great resource based on merit alone, it should not matter if they link back to your site or not.

The web marketing community is divided on the value of link exchanges and what, if any, ranking increase can be gained.

The point here is—you should not use link exchange exclusively to build your site's link popularity. as a rule the search engines should not find more than 20% of all your links reciprocated.

The basics of link request emails

You can greatly increase the chances of your link request emails being read by potential link partners with a few simple to follow tips.

Follow these tips for email initiated link exchanges:

Build a site that delivers value to its visitors with a "contact us" link on the home page. The site must have relevant and unique content. It should be indexed by search engines before sending link requests, additionally it should have a Google PageRank. A Google PageRank will greatly increase the chances of getting a webmaster to reciprocate your link. You should also create a contact us page and publish your physical address to show evidence you are running a real business, and you are not hiding behind an email address only.

Create a categorized link page accessible from your home page.

Link to your link exchange partners first. As a courtesy you should link to your potential link partners first since you were the one approaching them first for a link exchange in the first place.

Don't place more than 50 links on a single link page.

Don't place your link partners' link on a third party site that has nothing to do with your website's topic.

Don't name your link pages with "links" in the file or folder names, use "resources" or "partners" instead to avoid any link farm suspicions

Don't use the obvious link exchange email subject lines "link exchange" or "reciprocal links." Most automated link exchange tools come with a set of predefined templates. In the next section we'll help you come up with more persuasive subject lines that can easily triple the opening rates of your link request emails.

Provide some evidence you have at least checked the home page of the potential link partner's site. Generally, people take great pride in their websites, and stroking the owner's ego is a great way to get them on your side. The more, sincere compliments you can give them about their website the higher your chances of getting a favorable response to your link request.

Specify in the email your exact link format requirements; if possible provide an HTML code example.

Proofread your emails. It is important to spell check your emails before sending them.

Set your expectation based on the perceived value your site can deliver to your link partners. If your website already has a decent Google PageRank, maybe a 4 or 5, you can expect a 10%–15% reply rate to your link request emails. The lower your site's Google PageRank, the lower the number of replies you will receive to your emails. If your site is brand new without any PageRank at all, don't expect a higher than 1%–2% response rate. If you begin to feel discouraged, we suggest you keep on building up your website's content and quality. Submit to some high PageRank directories, or start an article distribution campaign to increase your site's Google PageRank.

Link partner selection criteria

When it comes to link exchanges, your most important focus should be to seek out link partners that run real businesses and not just a link page directory of unrelated junky sites. The Google PageRank and the website's age are also very important considerations, but above all, you should always aim to exchange links with closely related sites.

Here are some of the top selection rules for link partners:

You should not exchange links with porn, adult, gambling medical, drug, pharmacy sites. Unless your site falls into one of these categories don't exchange links with these sites, otherwise you are risking your own site being penalized.

The theme of the link partner site and the main keywords you are targeting should be similar, but not your direct competitor. There are others sites with similar themes that are link partner candidates for your site.

Choose sites that match your site's main language and geographical location. Finding link partners in the same country or locality matters a great deal if you are targeting "geo" focused keywords i.e. "Florida fishing charter boats" "New York real estate attorney" etc.

Don't exchange links with sites that use pop ups, have too many ads, and other intrusive advertising.

The Google PageRank of the linking page should match your own Google PageRank. your links to be placed on resource pages that have a Google PageRank of 1 at least. A zero Google PageRank site could mean one of two things. The site has been penalized by Google, or it's brand new and has no inbound links yet.

Don't accept links from third party sites called 3-way link exchanges. The link must be placed on the site you are linking to.

There should be no more than 50 other total links on the same page.

Check for fake Google PageRank. Be very careful exchanging links with relatively new domains having unnaturally high Google PageRank, it could very well be fake.

Verifying link exchanges

Periodically go back to your link partners' resource pages and check on your links. It doesn't have to be every day, but you should schedule a link check at least once a month.

Paying for links

An effective method of increasing your link popularity is the purchase of one-way rented or permanent links. Search engines give one-way links much more weight in their ranking algorithms than reciprocated links.

You should pay for links when it makes economical sense and other promotional methods are not a practical route to take.

Here are the top sites selling links: Text-Link-Ads, and Text Link Brokers, also check out Link Adage, a well known link auction website.

Conclusion:

It's a fact. Exchanged links don't have the same link popularity building power as one-way links. The sites you select for link exchanges should be based on merit and relatedness, and not the value of their Google PageRank alone.

One of the most important pieces of advice we can give you about link exchanges is to exchange links with sites that have a real business behind them with their contact information clearly displayed on the site. Verifying that the link partner's site is a legitimate business will steer you clear of link farms and low quality link networks that solely exists to distribute links and Google PageRank.

In some cases paying for links is the only alternative to exchanged links due to a site's high profile or partner relationships. All the criteria used in selecting link exchange partners also apply to buying paid links, but beware of one additional factor. The paid link detection algorithms used by the search engines can discount links from known sites selling paid links. You could be paying for links that don't deliver any link reputation to your target site.

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