5. Finding and Trading Links
There are companies out on the web now offering software that will search around sites and cull email addresses and send out a form letter asking for a link swap between that (somewhat randomly chosen) site and yours. I get a few dozen of these requests every week. They read like impersonal form letters by someone who has obviously NOT reviewed my site, and I delete them (and probably add the person's name to the Junk Email list.)
Save the time and trouble of scripting out something that you can do yourself (if you're doing your job, anyway, of cruising the web to see what the Competition is up to!) Besides keeping you up to date on what your competitors are doing, de-automating this task could keep you from getting banned or getting LOW-LOW rankings in the search engines.
Remember in our first Email we said that RELEVANCY of your links ranks you higher in search engines. A link on your website about Kittens that points to a Kitty Litter site is a more relevant link than to a Sledgehammer site.
When indexing your site, search engines are going to look at links in AND (in a few cases) out to rate your pages, so remember to have links going out to other sites, too. Here's a VERY easy way to find and secure links to you without filling people's email boxes with form letter spam:
Go to your Favorite Search Engine and do an "add link" search on your top 2 or 3 search terms or phrases. Suppose your Kitten site specializes in Siamese. Do a search on "Siamese kitten add link." The results will drive you to sites that are similar to yours, and have a "links" page with information on how to swap links with the webmaster, or add a link to your site on their page. The key is to focus on your MOST IMPORTANT search terms to maintain Quality links. (Remember you'll have to edit your choices there based on how directly-competitive the site is to yours: You might not want to develop a linking relationship from your Full Price Kittens site to a Half Price Kittens site!) This topic may become more important in the near future as Google speaks of "on topic" links on your pages (linking to kitten-related sites would score higher than links to puppy-related sites, in our example.)
Look for a counter that sends traffic back to the sites they've listed. If you're going to use a counter anyway, find one that may drive some traffic to your site in return for running their ads on your pages.
Send out a press release. Because Press Releases are text-heavy, having your PR on someone else's site will cause you to show up more often in the search engines (make sure when you are publishing a text file such as a Press Release or an Article, that you work your key words/phrases into the text whenever possible)
Join an online community and post messages, representing your website. Besides making friends and learning a lot more about the ins and outs of the internet business, your replies may also get picked up by search engines.
The secret is to take some time and look around. Keep in mind that the more QUALITY links you have pointing toward your site, the more traffic you'll have, and the more chances to sell your product/tell your story. There's plenty of free places on the web to get your name out, develop some linking relationships back to your site, and places that are important enough to your niche that you should be linking out to them. Here's a quickie list to get you started on your search for better links, suited to your particular site:
