Link Exchanges

Why Should I Exchange Links?

Links brings interested visitors and potential customers to your website. Links also help in increasing your popularity and are helpful in gaining better search engine positioning as search engines lay great emphasis on link popularity. The World Wide Web is a huge network of websites and it is impossible to browse the web without appropriate links. By displaying links on your website and by getting your link displayed on other websites, you are helping expand this web.

Types of Links

Links discussed here are of two types:

1. Text  Links: A written description of your website, with a hypertext link to your site.

2. Graphic Link: Banners or buttons hyperlinked to your website.

For many reasons, text links have an advantage over graphic links. Text links do not take any time to load and are quickly indexed by search engines.

The first thing you need is a good text link. A good text link is one which describes your website, its content, products or services in a simple and easy-to-understand manner, in minimum possible words. Write out a simple, yet effective copy for your text link. It is advisable to keep 4-5 different texts ready so that you have different text links all over the web. Exactly similar text links on many websites may cause you to get banned from certain search engines.

Where to place links?

Ideally, you should have a separate page for links or resources which should be linked to, from your index page. It is not advisable to place links on your homepage as we do not want our visitors to click on links and leave our websites as soon as they enter!

Finding Sites to Exchange Links With

Link exchanges are most beneficial when websites are of similar nature. For example, if you sell handbags, a customer looking for handbags on another handbag website is more likely to be interested in visiting your website than a customer of a website selling drill machines. Here is how to find the appropriate websites to exchange links with:

1. Search for websites on search engines. Type in the main keywords of your business (for e.g. handbags) and you will get a list of websites in the same industry. Visit their websites and see if they have a 'links' page. That page will also contain information on how to request a link exchange.

2. If you find a 'links' page on a website, take time to visit all the websites that are linked. If those websites have exchanged links with the website you are visiting, they are sure to be interested in exchanging links with other websites i.e. yours.

3. On your own 'links' page, mention info about how people can request link exchanges with your website. Mention a specific email address where they can contact regarding link exchanges or use a contact form. You will start receiving link exchange requests and it will be up to you to decide which websites are worthy of linking to.

4. Ask for link exchanges in the message forums and newsgroups you visit regularly. Owners of similar websites will be glad to respond.