How to Get High Quality Inbound Links
The amount of quality inbound links to your site is one of the most important criteria used by search engines to rank your pages. Therefore,
a well conducted link exchange campaign is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies you can follow.
Remember that to search engines not all links are created equal: some links are more important and will have more value than
others. The best links are those from high quality, highly ranked pages with a topic related to your site.
These are the steps you must follow for a successful link exchange campaign:
- Create a Links page on your site, where you can place links to all the sites that link to you. Make sure to provide clear instructions on
how to link to you, including the exact HTML code you want your link partners to use.
- Download the Google toolbar: The Google toolbar is an addition to your Internet Explorer browser that will display the Page
Rank of every page you visit. Page Rank is Google's way of telling you if a page is important and ranks well. If a page is related to the topic of
your site and has a high Page Rank, you definetely want them to link to you. To download the Google toolbar, go to http://toolbar.google.com and follow the instructions.
- Go to the major search engines and search for your target keywords (the words you think people will use to find sites like yours). Click on each of the
results and see if the site:
a. Is complementary (non-competitive) with your site
b. Has a good Page Rank
c. Has a links page.
If it does, put it on your list of selected sites.
- Write to the webmasters of the selected sites and ask them for a link exchange, following these guidelines:
- Place a link to them on your own site before contacting them.
- Start your letter by explaining the nature of your site, how does it relate to theirs, and how both would benefit from the exchange.
- Give them the URL of your links page, so they can see their link and make sure that their link information is OK. The fact that they
see their link on your site will make them more inclined to reciprocate.
- Give them the exact HTML code that they should use to link to you. By all means, include your main keywords in the
link text since that will give you a boost with the search engines. For example, if you own a pet supplies store called Petmart, and assuming that your
main keywords are "pet supply store", it is better to make the link text: Petmart - The Pet Supply Super Store, instead of just Petmart.
- Keep track of what you're doing: maintain a spreadsheet where you can write down the name of each target site, their webmaster's email
address, their URL, the URL of their links page, the date you first contacted them, and the date when they finally placed the link to your site. If you don't
see your link after a couple of weeks, send them a reminder. If you don't get a response in another week, remove the link you originally placed on your site
and move on.
Another way to find suitable link partners is by finding out who is linking to your competitors. You can use a free tool like the one in
http://www.bcentral.com/products/link_finder.asp. Just type the URL of your competitor and you
will get a list of sites that link to them. Write to the webmasters of those sites and ask for a link.
If you are interested in reading further about search engine optimization and the importance of quality inbound links a very good resource is The SEObook by Aaron Wall.
How to find responsive link
partners?
Link exchange proved to be very helpful in building valuable business contacts and getting better ranks at search engines. But those who already tried the
traditional link exchange strategies have faced a very sad statistics - only around 10% of link exchange offers sent to relevant web sites get replied. And the
number of sites that exchange links (out of that small 10% portion) is even smaller.
How to overcome the 10% response link exchange barrier?
The truth is that the market of link exchanges is overwhelmed. Those who think that is it possible to get few hundreds of reciprocal links and get 1st position
within a couple of days by sending emails that beg for link exchange are wasting their time and efforts. Most of these emails are treated like spam and go to the
trash bin, even if they have a good link exchange offer from relevant site.
Still, quality links are a good boost to any web site that is why giving up on link exchange is not reasonable. The solution is on the surface - increase the
conversions of link exchange via finding more responsive partners. Go to secret gardens where web sites are eager to do link exchange. No link farms, no link
pyramids, no link MLMs. Use the link exchange potential that has been at your hand all the time.
Remember a few years ago Internet market had a boom of automatic link exchange directories? Hundreds of thousands of web sites grabbed the unique opportunity to
automate their link exchange. And now almost every niche has web sites that use different automatic reciprocal link exchange scripts or software.
And these sites are super highly responsive to relevant link exchange offers. Plus with many sites you can get your link on their link exchange page within a few
minutes, automatically and without any begging emails. These web sites have strong benefits for link building:
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(1) Increased motivation for relevant link exchange.
(2) Big number of web sites in any niche.
(3) Quality medium where your link will be placed (nice PR, relevant content in the category).
(4) Huge potential for automating all links building routine.
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When making the test on building links with these sites I got 70 link partners having spent less than 30 minutes on it. And have not sent a single email. Some of
the sites rejected the link, but this is normal.
The huge mass posted my link within hours! And this is definitely better than only 10% that will open your beggy email. Using alternative link building
strategies you can turn your link exchange campaign into a real success.
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