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A Better Way To Trade Links
By Parker Garlitz
©2004 All Rights Reserved
According to ActivMedia Research, Link Trading between websites is second only to search engines in terms of the way people find information on the web. This means that link trading is crucial to the promotion efforts of any website. Websites that do not have an effective link trading strategy are missing out on an every increasing amounts of qualified site traffic.
Link trading does two important things for you. First, it brings qualified traffic in a short amount of time. When you trade links, you look for other websites that share your traffic demographics, but that do not necessarily compete with you. For example, if you have a site that sells flashlights, you might look for law enforcement sites, outdoors sites and emergency preparedness information sites, and request link trades with them. By reciprocal linking with qualified sites, you will increase the qualified traffic to your own site. Second, link trading helps to improve your link popularity. Many search engines rank sites according to how many other sites link to them. It is kind of a rich-get-rich, poor-stay-poor approach to relevancy listing. Trading links with other sites improves your link popularity and as a consequence improves your rankings in many search engines.
The big challenge with link trading is that it is time consuming and tedious. Finding link trade partners is slow, adding and managing links is burdensome, and policing link trade partners to make sure they are linking to you can be frustrating. Notwithstanding, link trading is worth the effort, because it works!
LINK TRADING STRATEGIES
1- If you don t have one yet, you will need to set up a link trade page. This is a page on your website where you list the links to your link trade partners. You have no doubt seen hundreds of examples on the web. Your link trade page should include a visible invitation to trade links with other sites in the categories you specify. Provide an email address so interested link trade partners can email you to request a link trade.
2- Finding potential link trade partners is not hard. Here are some ideas on finding the best candidates for link trades.
- a. Look at the link trade pages of sites similar to yours. These pages will list many sites that are already in the habit of trading links. It stands to reason that sites that are already in the habit of trading links will be more apt to trade with you.
- b. Use Webring member directories to find potential sites. You can find Webring member directories by category at www.webring.com. Webrings are a very intrusive form of communal link trading, because they require members to place a webring navigation graphic on the front page of their site taking up valuable real estate, and some would say, cluttering the site. Sites willing to submit to this are typically more willing to trade a simple link.
3- Now that you have a link trade page, you need to start with what I call the old surf-n-swap . Basically, find sites on the web that share your traffic demographic, and send them an email requesting a link trade. Be sure to personalize the email so that the recipient knows the mail is not part of a mass mailing. Here is a sample link trade request letter you might use:
Greetings, my name is ______________, and I m the web master for (name your web site). I came across your (name their web site) while surfing and it occurred to me that we could both benefit by a reciprocal link exchange.
I have found that trading links is one of the best sources for increasing qualified traffic to my site. If you have any interest in exchanging links with me here is my information. (Give the title and URL of your web site. Give the source code for a link back to your web site.)
If you would like to exchange links use this information to place a link to our web site. Then email me with your information and I will arrange and immediate reciprocal link to your (name the web site.)
I look forward to hearing from you.
Your Name Webmaster
Start sending this email to as many sites as you can. Perhaps to 10 or 20 sites a day if your time permits. You can expect six or seven out of ten link trade requests you send to be ignored. You can expect two or three out of ten responses in the negative. You can expect a successful link trade with one or two out of ten requests you send. So in order to get 20 link trades, a typical site would have to send out between 100 and 200 link trade request emails. This takes time and effort.
THE HARD REALITY
Many website owners and webmasters give up on link trading quickly. It is easy to see why. Even though the results often justify continued effort, many people get discouraged because it takes lots of time and effort.
A BETTER WAY
A new company called Links4Trade, at http://www.links4trade.com has built an exciting new tool that automates the process of finding, adding, maintaining, and policing reciprocal links. Setting up dozens or even hundreds of links with qualified sites can be done in a matter of minutes, not days.
When you signup with Links4Trade you create a link trade page that is actually remotely hosted on the Links4Trade servers. You link to the link trade page from the main page of your site, just as if the link trade page were hosted with the rest of your site. You can customize the remotely hosted link trade page so that it has the same look and feel as the rest of the pages on your site. You can also import your pre-existing links. Every member of the Links4Trade service has a remotely hosted links page just like you do.
Once you have created and linked to the new link trade page, your website profile will be added to their large directory of member sites. Other sites can find you in the directory and request a link trade with you by clicking a button on your profile. You will be notified of the link trade request by email, and you simply log in periodically to review the requesting site. You accept or reject the trade by clicking a button. The accepted reciprocal links instantly appear on both link trade pages. You can even set your account to automatically accept link trade requests from sites in categories you specify and matching your specific criteria.
If you want to be more pro-active, you can surf the directory and request links with as many other sites as you like. It only takes a few minutes to set up dozens of links with eager link trade partners.
LINKS4TRADE
completely automates the entire link trading process. Finding link trade partners is fast and easy, and adding and managing the links is totally automatic. Because Links4Trade controls both sides of the link trade, there is no need to police for dead links, or link trade partners who are not holding up their end of the bargain. You also get detailed statistics about the performance of your link trading efforts, and much more. Links4Trade is currently accepting pre-registrations for beta-testers to do a limited beta test of the site and the link-trading engine. To promote their site, they are offering a drawing for a free HP laptop. You can enter the drawing by becoming beta tester. You can learn more and register for the beta at
http://www.links4trade.com
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