So far in this series of lessons we have focused on reciprocal link exchange
-- exchanging links with other websites that share your area of interest, and
are likely to send you traffic. We've pointed out how exchanging links with
other websites will not only generate direct traffic, but will also enhance
your online presence, and will usually improve
your ranking with the search engines.
But, the truth is, while reciprocal links are
relatively easy to get, they're also usually a kind of "poor man's"
link. If you look carefully at most link pages, you will see that these pages
often have no real content other than the links themselves. This means these
pages get very little traffic, and do not have much chance of impressing the
Search Engines such as Google with their relevance or importance. These pages
are too often what I call "spammy, content-less link pages".
The Power Linking Alternative
In order to have an really effective link program you must move beyond
ordinary reciprocal link exchange to what I call Power Linking. In the
next few lessons I will outline several power linking strategies — and
with a bit of effort you will easily come up with new ones of your own. Each
of these strategies share the following characteristics:
1. A reciprocal link is not usually required.
2. Each strategy requires creating some web content and strategically taking
advantage of that content.
3. You can create literally hundreds — even thousands — of powerful,
relevant inbound links this way.
In the next four chapters I will discuss four of the most important power
linking strategies, but before doing so I want to mention an important
"hybrid" technique that is half-way between reciprocal link exchange and power
linking.
The Power Exchange
This is what I call a "Power Exchange". A Power Exchange requires that you
open your webmaster's mind to exchanging links on pages other than your
typical "spammy content-less link pages". This means you have to break out of
the straight jacket of only putting links on "links pages". It requires that
you go looking for partners who are prepared to trade links on actual
content pages — like your home page, for instance.
In other words, you find a website with a high PR page and you make a specific
offer to the webmaster to exchange links with your equally high (or higher) PR
page. The most obvious candidates for such an exchange would be the home pages
of the two websites. In my experience, many webmasters are hesitant to do
this, because they seem to think this implies they are specifically endorsing
the sites they are linking to. And since they have no control over the content
of those sites, they have no way of knowing if the sites are worth endorsing.
To my mind, the obvious way around this is to consider links of this sort as "free
advertising" — as "text ads" rather than endorsements. We don't think that
the editors of the New York Times or The Toronto Star endorse
every product listed in their classified sections, or even the products of the
advertisers who place ads on their front pages. Ads are not endorsements.
Advertisers are just renting space, and everybody knows it.
And so it should be with link exchanges — at least with "power exchanges".
Developing Pages for Power Exchanges
Another way to approach the Power Exchange is to develop content pages
specifically for the purpose of (eventually) using these as link exchange
pages -- what you might call "link bait". An example of this is my own
Linknet Pages.
You start by building a series of pages with real content. Then you work on
developing as many inbound links as you can — links from other sites pointing
to these pages. And eventually your link exchange pages will develop a healthy
Page Rank of their own. This makes them a valuable commodity for you, because
they have become candidates for valuable link exchange with other high value
pages on other sites.
This takes you well beyond what I have called "spammy, content-less link
pages". These are content pages that have value, are worth reading, and are a
resource that will gain traffic of their own. This moves your site to the
"next level" where other webmasters consider it a resource worth paying to
advertise on — if not with money, at least with a link from one of their own
valuable pages.
Problems with Power Exchanges
There are at least three problems with this kind of "Power Exchange", which
probably explain why they are not all that common. First, it is relatively
difficult to find webmasters with quality pages they are prepared to put links
on. This makes finding useful power exchanges a relatively difficult and time
consuming process.
Second, developing content pages specifically for link exchange purposes seems
to be relatively rare among webmasters. Many webmasters — especially the ones
with valuable content developed over a long period of time — see their
websites as reflections of themselves, and are not interested in turning them
into "advertising media".
Third, since many of the more active websites change quickly and often, it is
hard to count on your link remaining in place for any length of time. By their
very nature, link exchanges tend to be informal arrangements. So there will no
easily found record of the agreement that resulted in a specific link ending
up on a specific page. You many find your 'reciprocal" agreement turning into
a one-way agreement more often than you think. The link you thought you had
coming in from that high value site may have been removed many months ago.
My advice is that you keep this "power exchange" strategy in mind as a
technique you can employ when the right opportunity arises. I think it is
easier, and usually more effective to use the "Power Linking Strategies"
outlined in the next few chapters. But it never hurts to develop a number of
pages that have valuable content, and that you can use to attract potential
link partners.
In the next lesson we will discuss the first of four "Power Linking"
strategies — writing and distributing "articles". See you then.
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