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  Link Exchange

Part 3 of an 8 part guide to driving traffic to your web site

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

  Here for Free Link Exchange Program by LDfacts.com

Link exchanges have been around seemingly forever.  And for good reason.  They work.  Search Engines, especially Google, will rank a website higher if other web sites link to it.  Web masters saw the value in this and then began offering to exchange links with other web masters specifically to increase their rankings in Google.

This has created a entire industry just for managing links.  Web masters must find sites willing to exchange with them and then monitor to be sure that the other web masters keep their link online.  This can be a daunting task if attempted manually since in some cases you may have hundred of links to monitor.

This has led to several companies that will manage link exchanges for you.  I have used www.LinkPartners.com with some success on one of my websites.  

However,  my opinion of these link exchange services has been greatly diminished.  The reason that is, is so many web sites create "link farms", page after page after page of nothing but links.   Google seems to have stopped paying any attention at all to sites using these exchanges.  Although you will greatly increase the number of links to you, traffic is minimal and Google often doesn't even count it as a valid link.

The trick is to find web sites willing to exchange links that can be placed in roughly the same category as your site.  For example, www.LDFacts.com can be categorized at "Telecommunications".   This is a fairly broad category including cell phones, and web hosting.

Another site www.AskUncleRalph.com can be placed in the "Humor" catagory. 

In both cases, it is best to try and swap links with sites that are in the same category as your site.

When you add links to your site, it is important to categorize them also.  If you examine the Linking Partners page of www.LDFacts.com, you will see an example of how to categorize your links.   Looking at this page, you will see that I do link to other web sites that are out side of my category.  Notice I did not say: "Do Not Link".  What I said was: "It is best to link with website IN your category."

Above all, do not create a "link farm" of unrelated links.

I highly recommend that you read the ebook from www.GorillaWebSiteMarketing.com.  It is easily the best "How to" ebook on link exchanges that I've seen.

In general, if you would like to exchange links with another webmaster, just send them an email with the subject of "Link Exchange Request."   Not everyone will exchange links with you and you shouldn't feel obligated to exchange links with other.   For example, I will not exchange links with Adult sites, Gabling sites or sites with material that I find objectionable.  Just say "No thank you".

How to find link exchange partners.

Finding link exchange partners is actually easier than you might  think.  Just go to your competitions web site and email the web masters that have already exchanged links with them.  Here you will find people who have already shown they are willing to exchange links and since they are already on your competitions web site, they should already be in your category.

Other Useful sites for Link Exchanges

Other Articles on Link Exchange

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If you would like to exchange links with www.ldfacts.com, please visit this page.