Link Building Strategies, Link Exchanges, Getting Back Links The Old Way

Link Building Strategy – Two Way Or Reciprocal Link Exchanges
(The Old Fashioned Way)

(Following our previous post) In the beginning SEO link building strategies, people acquired links by contacting other site owners – personally – and exchanging links with them (reciprocal linking). Over time, software was created to send out pre-written letters to other site owners requesting a link exchange. Of course, this automated process turned a lot of site owners off, and the emails ended up in the SPAM filters.

You can still get links the old fashioned way, but it isn’t easy, unless you are shooting for numbers, instead of quality links. If you contacted the most popular site in your niche – according to the search engines – and requested a link to your site, whether it is a one-way link or a reciprocal link – that site owner, or company, will most likely ignore your request.

Remember that the most popular girl in the neighborhood gets to pick and choose which parties she will attend. (GRINS) Same with the biggest and most popular sites.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask, but you actually need to see if you can get the link on the site yourself, without asking, first. This will be discussed later, but if you find that you must request a link, there is a right way and a wrong way to do so.

First, never use automated software to request a link.

Again, this turns many website owners off – and if you are contacting a quality site, they probably already have several emails in their inbox identical to the one that your automated software will send them. They usually hit the trash or spam file without ever being read.

Next, make sure that you have built a quality website. Take a look at the site that you want the inbound link from. Is the content on that site relevant to your own? Are they linking to other websites like yours?

If so, which ones area they linking to? What is your own page rank, as compared to theirs? Many authority sites won’t link to sites that have low page ranks.

If this is the case for you, make note of the site you want linked to you. So don’t take it personally if they don’t want to link to you. You can come back to them later, when your page rank has gone up a bit.

At the same time, make sure that you ask and get a negative response before moving on! This is a mistake that many people make. They think ‘this is an important site, and my site is virtually unknown. There’s no way they will link to me!’ This is the wrong way to think.

Think positive and go for it, all they can say is no. Don’t make the mistake. Ask for the link! Don’t just assume that the site would never exchange links with you. A ‘no’ now does not mean a ‘no’ later, especially after you have done some more work.

Next, learn to think like that other site owner. When you request the link, the first question he is going to ask himself is why he should link to your site. What does your site have to offer his visitors? Why should he provide a door – away from his website – for his visitors?

See who he is linking to, and look at those sites. Is the information relevant? Do they have something that you don’t have? Do you offer something that they are not offering?

You must keep all of this in mind, and address these things when you write your email requesting a link. Note, however, that most sites of this stature are not going to give you a link unless you’ve given them one. In fact, in most of these cases, you need to put a link to their site on your site before you request a link to your own site.

When writing your email, make sure that you avoid phrases such as link exchange, link trade or trade links, or reciprocal link. Also, make absolutely sure that you use an original, personal subject line, and that you have used proper grammar and spelling. Provide a link to your website so that the other site owner can check your site out.

Again, these types of links will most likely be reciprocated on your end – and what you want is one-way links for the most part. At the same time, however, it does not hurt you in the search engines if you are linking to authority sites.

It will, however, hurt you if you are linking to sites with low page ranks too often – just as it will hurt that other site owner to link to low ranked sites too often. The quality links must always outweigh the other links – whether they are inbound or outbound.

But, as mentioned earlier, the chances are very good that you won’t have to reciprocate the link – or even contact the owner of the site. The chances are very good – in our Web 2.0 world – that you can get your link on that authority site all by yourself, without asking anyone’s permission. (Have I got your attention yet?)

There is also a way to get authority site owners to put your link on their sites, without actually requesting it, which will be discussed later.

Note that getting links in this manner can be time consuming, depending on how many site owners you plan to personally contact, and how many of them agree to put your link on their page. There are much faster ways to build inbound links – and they will all be one-way links. But . . . that’s for another post . . . see you later.

More on linkbuilding . . .

• Increase Website Traffic with Links Back To Your Website
• Link Building Strategies – One Way Link Building For Website Link Popularity
• Link Building Strategies – The Best Ways to Get Inbound Links
• Link Building Strategies, Basic Link Building Explained
• Link Building Strategies, How Many Links Does It Take?
• Link Building Strategies, Link Exchanges, Getting Back Links The Old Way
• Link Building Strategies, What Kind Of Inbound Links Do You Need?
• Link Building Strategies, Plain Or Text Links Best?