Web site promotion through the use of reciprocal links

Web site promotion is a complex process, and one of the oldest ways to promote a web site is by the exchange of Links. Link exchange is the original web site traffic generation system. In the "old days" before the rise of search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN ( and all the others that have followed since ) the only way to find a web site that you hadn't already been to was to follow a link from another web site. Therefor if your site didn't have many links pointing to it, it didn't get much traffic. Search engines still use links to find new sites and to help with the calculation of a web sites importance or value. So the exchanging of links is still a very usefull way to promote your site and increase its importance to the search engines. There are three main types of link exchange. The first type is the reciprocal link, where you literally exchange a link with another web site. They put a link to you on their web site, you place one to them on yours. The second type of link exchange is not really an exchange at all. A visitor to your site simply decides that they will put a link to your site on their site. Maybe they like the information that is presented on your site or they like your product etc. These one way links are considered to be more important by the search engines than reciprocal links are. This leads us to the third type of link exchange. This method of link exchanging is an "artificial" type two link exchange. How can that be? Aren't type two links voluntary links placed by a visitor? Yes they are, but that effect can be simulated by doing the following. Basically the idea is to create a "triangle" of links - and it requires at least three web sites for it to work. Picture( or draw ) a triangle with a web site at each of the three points of the triangle. The web sites are any three sites, and they each only link to one of the other sites. So if the sites were to exchange links in a clockwise direction around the triangle they form an "artificial" set of one way, voluntary links. So thats the three main link exchange types, now how do you go about the actual process of link exchanging? Well its really quite simple. The best way to exchange links is to ask the other web site if they are interested in do so. Usually the request is sent via email or a form on the site you wish to exchange links with. Regardless of how you contact the webmaster of the other site, remember to be polite and to give them all the information they may need to complete the exchange. For example, briefly introduce yourself and your site, with a link back to your site so they can have a look at it. It is good practise to have their link on your site before you contact them for an exchange. Once you start exchanging links you will soon work out what to say and how to say it. Unfortunately many sites are very slow to respond to link exchange requests, so it can take a long time to create a link directory - but it is still well worth doing. There are "rules" for creating a link directory that should be followed if you want to get the most benefit from it. The rules are very simple and they go something like this. 1. Only exchange links with sites that are relevant to your site. Why? Isn't any link a good one? Yes, to an extent all links are good - but some are better than others. If you concentrate your link exchange efforts to sites that are relevant to yours, then your site will be seen by the search engines as more important to your topic than if your links went all over the place. It is also better for your visitors to have a link directory relevant to the topic of the site they are currently on. 2. Don't make your directory pages too long. In other words, if your directory pages scroll for more than 2 or 3 screens they are too long. Why? Because very few people will scroll further than 2 or 3 screens. So if your link is at the bottom it will rarely be found and that doesn't encourage a webmaster to exchange links with your site. A common limit is 25 links per page of the directory. If you have more links than 25 for any particular catagory a numbered "sub" page is the best way take the extra links. For exanple if you have a directory page called "Software. html", then once you fill that page with 25 links, the new page could be called "Software-2.html" etc. Remember to include easy navigation within the link directory - its not there just for the search engine spiders.. Thats about all there is to it, other than using link exchange sites and finding some link exchange software to make the job a bit easier. Happy Linking!

Three way link exchange

Website promotion is getting easier everyday because of the many methods you can do to advertise sites. One new strategy is what we call three-way link exchange. Asking a webmaster to trade links with you, or also known as two-way link exchange, is now common to most people. But this new strategy that we’re talking about is not yet used by many. Let us first review some common terms and its definitions. Two-Way Link Exchange (or simply called as link-exchange) is simply looking for other sites that is somehow related to your website and ask its webmaster to place link from their website to yours and in return, you will do the same. This is now done by almost all of the webmasters in the world. This means increase of inbound links plus of course helping your site visitor to look for other sites, which might be helpful to them. Three-Way Link Exchange is somehow similar to two-way link exchange but the difference is instead of putting a link to another site on your own site, you will place its link on the other site you have. Sounds complicated? Let me discuss it furthermore. Three-Way link exchange is a cultivated term not a generic term. This term is used in case when more than two pages are involved in linking. It means that Page A is linking to Page B and Page B is linking to Page C. But Page B is not linking to Page A and Page C is not linking to Page B. This is usually done when you own two websites. One website has already many back links and page rank and the other one don’t have many back links and/or don’t have page rank. You put a link to another site on the website that has already many back links and/or page rank and in return, your link exchange partner will put a link of your site that doesn’t have any page rank yet. This type of link exchange is best done when you have a new website and you want to have a good page rank as soon as possible. Of course, that still depends if your link exchange partner has established a good page rank already. So be sure to choose a good and well optimized website before you ask to trade links with its webmasters. Some webmasters are also using Four Way Link Building methods, however, this is not yet advisable since it’s already complicated and it’s already hard to keep track of your inbound links and link exchange partners. So in the meantime, be free to use the common link exchange strategies since it’s already tested.