Link Building

In today's world, optimizing your site for keywords is no longer enough. You NEED reciprocal links to increase traffic to your site and boost your rankings with search engines.

To be successful, you must adapt to this reality.

The search engines have one job... to provide the best search results they can. So they are constantly developing better ways to make their results more relevant.

Recently, reciprocal links have become increasingly important because search engines consider them an endorsement, of sorts.

Makes sense... would you link to a site you didn't like?

This concept is known as "link popularity." Based on links pointing to your site, search engines either increase or decrease its relevancy for particular keyword searches.

Make Your Links WORK! (MYLW!) is a msut-read. It shows you what produces success in the most time-and-cost efficient way possible — now and for the long term.

MYLW! does more than focus on link popularity. It presents the vital bigger picture required for building targeted traffic (now and for years to come) and for building long-term online profits

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You can download a copy here...

If you are a do-it-yourselfer, you might want to consider the following approach. It's time-consuming, but it works.

10 Steps for Building Reciprocal Links

1. Set a Goal

Link building takes time, but it's very effective and worth the effort. Decide on the number of quality reciprocal links you want.

A general rule of thumb is to set your goal at 4-to-6 times higher than the number of links you actually want to receive. This is because many sites will not respond to your request.

2. Make Sure Your Site is Worth a Link

Your site must offer something of value so that other sites to will want to link to yours.

If your site sells a product or service, create some high-value content to go along with the sales copy. Examples include how-to articles, product reviews, tools, tips and so on. Quality content will not only encourage others to link to your site, it will also improve the overall value of your site.

Write about something you know that relates to your site. Sites containing high quality, original content will be in demand, especially if your site ranks well in the search engines.

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3. Determine the Types of Sites That Would Make Valuable Reciprocal Link Partners

Consider this carefully. Decide which sites are worth seeking reciprocal links with. Focus on sites that are related to your target market, but not in direct competition.

Here's a good example...

Your site sells luxury linens. So...approach sites that sell mattresses and bedroom furnishings, but not linens. Once reciprocal links are established from those sites, develop content on sleep quality and mattresses, then request links from all of the sites you find that address this.

Eventually, a significant number of reciprocal links will be created for your target market. Plus, you will have added several pages of valuable content to your site...a benefit to visitors looking for information...and the best way to increase traffic to you site. Traffic will help search engine rankings.

4. Evaluate Link Partners Carefully

Don't waste time seeking reciprocal links from sites that have poor page rank and low traffic. Determine these rankings by installing both the Alexa Toolbar and the Google Toolbar.

Both toolbars integrate with your browser, but each has a different focus. Alexa Toolbar delivers important site traffic information and helps you find sites related to yours. Google Toolbar shows you page rank, Google's measure of the importance of a page.

The higher the page rank the better. One strategy is to try to link with sites that have pages ranked as high as or higher than your own.

5. Finding Quality Link Partners

There are many ways of doing this, but the BEST way to find quality link partners quickly is to signup for Value Exchange.

Value Exchange is a link exchanger that works...and it's free.

Another method is to visit Open Directory and Yahoo!. Open Directory and Yahoo! are good resources for three reasons...

These directories are difficult to get listed in so potential link partners will likely be higher quality than those found elsewhere.
A listing in Yahoo! and Open Directory greatly boosts a site's link popularity. A reciprocal link from a site listed in one or both of these directories will help boost your standing even further.
Links you build on your site won't help link popularity unless search engines know about them. Yahoo! and Open Directory crawl listed sites on a regular basis, so starting your reciprocal link campaign there should help the search engines find new links quickly.

Locate link partners by using Search It!. You'll find this handy tool invaluable in your search for keywords or phrases related to your site's theme.

6. Stay Organized

Keep it simple. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of the following...

Full name of site owner or webmaster.
Email address of the site owner or webmaster.
Home page URL of link partner.
URL of the page where you think your link belongs and why you think it belongs there.
Page rank of the page where you think your link belongs.
Something unique that you liked about the site.
Date of initial link request.

For many sites, much of this information will not be available, but gather as much of this information as you can.

7. Make Contact

Once you have a list of potential link partners, send each site owner or webmaster a personalized email requesting a reciprocal link. Your link request should include the following, most of which should be on your spreadsheet (Step 4)...

Something you liked about their site — compliments go a long way.
Why you think your link belongs on their site.
The URL to exactly where you think your link fits on their site.
The URL of where you'll be placing their link on your site.
How you would like them to link to you. Provide a sample link and description. The easier you make it, the more likely they will post it.

8. Check for Live Links

After you send your request for a reciprocal link, follow up to see if your link is live. Remember...everyone is busy and it's easy to forget. Also, your email may not have reached its destination. Give them a reasonable period of time to respond.

9. The Cream of the Crop

The cream of the crop are those sites with the highest page rank and traffic. These are the most valuable link partners, so make these folks a priority.

10. Set a Schedule

Make link building a priority. If you don't use Value Exchange or some other link builder, consider setting aside 30 to 40 minutes each day for this task. Building QUALITY reciprocal links takes time, but quality and relevancy will make all the difference.

As I said earlier, this method is tedious and time consuming. Do yourself a favor instead...

...download a free copy of Make Your Links WORK! (MYLW!).

Do this and you'll save yourself a lot of time, plus increase your success rate.

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