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Reciprocal links are when two or more sites agree that they will link to each other for mutual benefit. This article discusses strategies for seeking quality partnerships based on link reciprocation and how beneficial this marketing technique can be to the success of your website. If you are about to start a link popularity campaign, we can thoroughly recommend you get hold of an excellent free e-book giving you free advice on how to optimise your linking campaign and get the best results possible.
The Benefits of Reciprocal Links
Increasing your link popularity  is a very important factor in increasing traffic to your site and something that the search engine spiders take special note of. The spider software is expert at analysing not only how many links point to your site, but also the quality of those links. High quality links are considered to be ones which
a) focus on the keyword phrase which your site focuses on
b) come from sites in relevant categories in major directories and industry specific portals
BEFORE YOU START PROMOTING
Before you start following any of our advice on promoting, without wanting to sound too obvious, you must ensure your web site meets some quality criteria. You may wish to read our article on Principles of Good Web Design.
THE MOST HIGHLY RATED TECHNIQUES TO PROMOTE YOUR SITE
Technique : Search Engine Positioning
Indexing your web pages well with the search engines is the most effective way of increasing your traffic. Did you know that :
85% of all new web traffic comes from Search Engines?
90% of all of that traffic comes from the first two pages of results?
Our article called "Why Submitting To Loads of Search Engines Is Not Enough" will tell you all you need to know on using this technique.
The article does not go into extensive detail about the intricacies of the search engines, because there is a great product on the market called  WebPosition Gold. The product enables website owners and managers to systematically improve their web site's relevance for keyword and phrase queries in the major search engines. Rather than pour over long articles and learn about all the search engines and how they work, this product offers all the elements needed to generate, improve and maintain search engine rankings. Here are some more statistics proving that getting a high ranking with the search engines is the best thing you can do to increase your traffic. According to a GVU Users Survey, 84.8% of Internet users look for websites by using Search Engines. And in ActivMedia Research's study (issued in September 1999), Search Engine Positioning was ranked as the No.1 Website promotional method used by eCommerce sites. Furthermore, a CommerceNet/Nielsen Media Research survey revealed that search engines are overwhelmingly the No. 1 Web-navigation tool, with 71% of regular users saying they find out about sites through search engines.
Technique : Opt-In email
A highly effective way of promoting your site is to e-mail people selectively i.e. people who have opted to receive particular categories of e-mail. Hence such e-mails will not be considered to be unsolicited (spam), and you can target an audience who has a very high chance of being interested in your subject matter. The direct marketing industry has developed targeted e-mail lists you can rent consisting of people who have agreed to receive commercial e-mail messages. Opt-in e-mail is an effective paid advertising strategy, though you would need to be selective in choosing your list. Once you have chosen your list, target this audience with your Newsletter or e-zine.
Technique : Viral Marketing
Any scheme whereby news about your web site is passed on from person to person (an on-line form of word of mouth) is labelled Viral Marketing. Not all the techniques are recommended e.g. chain-letters are rather dubious (they have a reputation of spreading misinformation). There is also quite a craze on with Browser Start-Up schemes (which fall into the Viral Marketing category). Popular examples are TrafficSwarm, HitHarvester and MoMoreHits. Other examples of viral marketing include e-cards and tell-a-friend services.
Technique : Offline Advertising
Just because of the existance of the Internet and the emphasis that seems to be being placed on all the technology that surrounds it, offline advertising should still be seriously considered. Here are some suggestions a) Include your URL, email address, slogan on your stationary, business cards and all other promotional material. b) Include your URL wherever you are publicised such as in the phone book, on all print advertising and in any articles you publish. c) Publicise your Web site at conferences and meetings (and include your URL on all handouts). d) Be alert and take note of all forms of advertising that catch your eye, and think of ways you could use such techniques for promoting your own business.
Technique : Press Releases
This is a traditional and well known method of promoting products and services. A press release that includes a media message that is newsworthy, factual and interesting is bound to get attention. A good resource for tips on writing effective press releases is : Internet News Bureau
Technique : Banner Advertising
Ad banners have become the most common unit of advertising on the Web. Advertising is an inevitable driving force, even on the Net. Banner ads are everywhere. Some thought needs to go into banner ad campaigns because how to use them (and whether to use them at all) all depends on the goal of your site. You may want to simply direct more traffic to your site, but on the other hand you may only be interested in encouraging people to buy your product. There are numerous pricing models out there for banner ads. This ranges from free to very expensive. One of those free methods is to exchange banners with webmasters who run sites which compliment your own. Or you can consider joining a link exchange program where you agree to place banners on your site knowing that other members have agreed to place your banners on their web sites. You may also choose to join a paid advertising network (e.g. Value Click) whereby you are guaranteed to reach a large pool of potential customers from a broad range of sites very quickly. Types of payment for the latter vary e.g. pay per period, methods based on number of impressions or numbers of click throughs. There are also hybrid systems.
Technique : Discussion Forums
Including a discussion forum on your site is an ideal way of building up a community. It encourages visitors to interact with your site, takes some of the pressure off the web master in the sense that the visitors are contributing content to the site. However, the forum will need maintenance and the posts / discussions will need to be monitored. Posts including blatant advertising and bad language will need to be deleted especially as it may turn away some of your most active forum members. Forums act as good lead generators i.e. you can build trust with your visitors who are then more likely to buy from your site. Webmasters will also be able to see what kind of audience is being attracted to the site, find out about their needs and guide them to relevant parts of the site.
How to choose candidates for Reciprocal Links
Establish such an arrangement with the wrong sites and reciprocal linking could have a negative impact on bringing you traffic. Obviously you do not want to drive visitors to the competition, so the aim is to find sites who offer complementary products and services. Another consideration is that it is far more effective to have a few quality links to complementary sites than to have many links to ad-hoc or unrelated sites. Having said that, increasing your link popularity is a very important factor in increasing traffic to your site and something that the search engine spiders take special note of. The emphasis is on the word partnership because you should consider sites that you want to work with i.e. actually encourage your visitors to visit. A banner exchange is not really a partnership because the link out from your site, in this case, is by way of their banner i.e. using their wording, slogan etc.
You will also want to find quality sites that are linking to your competion but who are not linking to you. One free (but slightly laborious) way of doing this is :
a) Maintain a list of your competitors' web sites (track your competitors by typing in your keyword phrases into one or more of the search engines) and then
b) For each of the above sites, cut and paste the URL into the 'Find pages that link to the page' field on Google's advanced search page.
c) Look through the list that is returned for sites you might like to arrange to link to you.
You can also do the above for AltaVista*, MSN Search**, AOL Search**, HotBot** and AllTheWeb*** (see corresponding notes below).
* : Type "link:url" in the search box, then click to search.
** : Type "linkdomain:url in the search box, then click to search.
*** :Type "link.all:url in the search box, then click to search.
How to go about obtaining suitable Reciprocal links
There are four main ways of getting reciprocal links : i) Contact a webmaster and ask him for a straightforward exchange (but read the advice that follows) ii) Offer a webmaster useful content for his site (such as one of your articles) but in exchange for a link iii) Include a form on your site which people can use to request a reciprocal link iv) Make it easy for people to link to you by including the code for the link and any graphic inclusion. Before asking a webmaster for a reciprocal link, add a link to his/her site. Make contact with a personal message, use his or her name and state the site in question (in case they have more than one site). Say exactly what you liked about the site and state the reasons why it would be mutually beneficial to link to each other. Provide details on where you've placed your link, giving the other party the opportunity to adjust how the link is made. Finally suggest where and how the link to your own site should be placed.
Tracking down these candidate sites and contacting the webmasters can be quite time consuming. Fortunately there is a top rated product available called Arelis. This is a fully-featured product which will help you build a powerful business contact network. As well as performing the tracking and contacting, it automatically creates link pages for your site, scans your directory pages for broken links and checks if the other web sites really link back to you. Another route to consider going down, is using a service such as GoTop Link Exchange
Finally, you may want to have a look at our Link Exchange to see how we go about persuading people to link to use.
If you've enjoyed this article we'd like to remind you about the excellent free e-book we mentioned earlier. This will take you beyond the surface that we have only scratched above, and is a fine accompaniment to your reciprocal link marketing campaign.
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