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Reciprocal Link Exchange
The most common way to build link popularity is through a reciprocal link exchange. The idea behind reciprocal links is simple: an agreement is made between two websites to exchange link information.
Link Popularity is based on the number of links pointing to your site from others. Search Engines consider your site more important and rank it higher if other sites link to your site. The quality and quantity of links with other web sites allows you to increase your link popularity. Sites that score high in link popularity enjoy higher search engine rankings, than sites that have a lower link popularity. High Rankings means more traffic.
History
Google was the first major search engine to use link popularity. Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed a formula called PageRank which is named after its founder Larry Page. Their algorithm counts the number of sites that link to a page and assign it an importance score on a scale of 1-10. The greater the number of sites that link to a page, the higher its PageRank.
Selecting SitesSelecting the right web sites to trade links with is a time-consuming task. A list of good keywords can help you to find the sites you need to build your link pages. Make a list of good key words that are relevant for your web site. Visit some web sites of competitors and try to find the keywords the webmasters of these sites use. In a well-designed web site you can find the keywords in the text of the index or home page, mostly at the beginning.
Link FarmsIn selecting sites to exchange links with, avoid the “link farms”. There have been many articles written about link farms. Search engines will penalize or ban sites that use link farms. So exactly what is a link farm?
A link farm is a web page (or even an entire website) that is set up for the sole purpose of allowing webmasters to exchange links with each other for search engine ranking purposes only. These links are usually unorganized and many have little or no relevance to the topic of the website. Many times there are countless links on a page.
So the tricky part of all this is being able to tell the difference between a legitimate links page and a link farm.
It might be a link farm if:
- The link pages are unorganized, not categorized, not structured well.
- There are links and links only; there are no useful titles or descriptions.
- Pages are not laid out to be read by humans; links are just listed for the search engine robots.
- There is no connection to the subject matter between the links and website.
- Pages that have a Google PageRank of 0.
If you get a request to trade links with a link farm…JUST SAY NO!
Develop Your Plan
Develop a plan for boosting link popularity, and then stick to it. Pledge to request a certain number of new links each week. This could be 10 or 100. If you give, you will receive. It is a time consuming task to build a good quality reciprocal links campaign but the rewards are worth it.
Remember that a well-structured links page is an asset to a site because it provides the site's users with links to additional sources of related information.
A good link trading program looks for websites that are related and important. Consider what other fields are related to your particular industry and focus on getting links from those areas. Find other sites that are similar or complementary in content to your site. Put a link on your site pointing to them. Email the site and ask for a link back to your site. Yes, this will be the time consuming part.
The text in your link title and or description should contain your keyword(s). While exchanging links with popular sites, be aware that with Google, the more outgoing links you have, the more your link popularity score may be reduced. Don't share the same IP address for multiple domains. A domain that has it’s own IP address will rank better with the search engines.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that link popularity isn't important or necessary. High link popularity combined with some basic keyword optimization is sometimes all it takes to achieve top rankings. It's crucial, in many cases, to the success of an online business.
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