by Vishal P. Rao
You are Being Lied About Reciprocal Links! © 2004 Vishal P. Rao Exchanging links has been an important part of generating The vast majority of web site owners think that exchanging The most important benefit of a link exchange is the traffic Search engines are highly unpredictable. They keep changing I don't say you should neglect search engines. However, your Furthermore, your links page can serve as an excellent So how do you identify sites that can send you more of 1) Look out for sites that have good content. Content is the #1 reason people go online. If a site has 2) Look out for sites that display a prominent link to their When I say prominent, I don't mean a link with h1 font size! Many web masters, particularly those who want links to help Say your web site has a 1% conversion ratio. That means for a) Go back to the previous site. b) Visit your links page (if you have one), hoping c) End their browsing session. So which do you think is the best option? I would definitely Now this exchange would only happen if we had a prominent -----Side Bar-----
traffic since the concept of Internet marketing was first
established, but at least 90% of people looking to trade
links don't understand the real benefits and, therefore,
fail to make the most of them.
links is only helpful because it can boost their rankings in
search engines such as Google.com. They are however, useful
for this purpose since the number of links back to a site is
figured into ranking calculations. But according to
WebSideStory's StatMarket Web site optimization service,
search engines account for only little more than 13% of an
average web site's traffic.
resulting directly from these links. That same StatMarket
research found that 21% of site visitors get there via links
which means the links themselves are more useful than the
search engine listings!
their algorithms every now and then. Your site is on the
top 10 results today but it may not be so tomorrow.
main concern should be getting traffic from direct links.
Search engine ranking should be your secondary concern.
resource for your visitors. As any Internet marketer will
tell you, it's the content that makes a successful site.
When you provide useful links for your visitors, your site
becomes more credible, more helpful, more likely to be
bookmarked for future visits. All of which adds up to a
steady stream of traffic.
direct traffic? Here are some pointers to consider while
exchanging links:
good content, more number of repeat visitors it'll have.
links page on their home page as well as on the rest of the
pages.
What I mean is that the link should not be less prominent
than the rest of links on the site.
only their search engine ranking, will hide their links
page or place it only on their home page, some where at the
bottom with a -1 font size. The most common reason for doing
this is a fear of losing visitors, but that fear is
absolutely unfounded when you really understand how the
Internet works.
every 100 visitors that visit your site, you make one sale.
Now what about the rest 99. They are looking for something
else, isn't it? So what do they do? They have 3 options:
that they would find the information on sites listed
there.
want my visitors to go to my links page and visit my link
partners rather than go back. Because I know that my link
partners would send some visitors in the same way to my
site.
link to our links page on all the pages of our site, should
our visitors decide to leave us any time.
There are some sites that have their links page designed for
link partners rather than for their visitors!
They'll use the following texts to link to their links page: 3) Look out for sites that have tightly themed and Sites that trade links solely for search engine rankings Whereas sites that have their links categorized are more Conclusion There is no point in looking for quality sites when YOUR About the Author
Vishal P. Rao is the owner of: http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/ - An online community of people who work at home.
"Let's Trade Links", "Trade Links" and so on... Such sites
are more interested in finding link partners than providing
information to their visitors. The end result is link
partners visiting each other's site.
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categorized links page.
have links to sites on almost all the subjects on their
links page. Typically ranging to hundreds of them on a
single page. These pages are never going to be visited by
those looking for additional information.
user friendly and are more likely to attract visitors.
links page is designed without keeping the interests of your
visitors in mind. Only when we start thinking of our links
page as a service to our visitors rather than a tool for
higher search engine ranking, we'll be able to make the
most from reciprocal links.