Reciprocal Linking

20.2 Reciprocal Linking

Many people focus on linking in order to improve their search engine rankings. That’s important but don’t forget that the links themselves can be one of your biggest sources of traffic!

Probably the easiest way to invite links (apart from searching out related sites and writing to each one) is to add a “link” section to your pages where webmasters can choose a banner, button or text link to place on their site. On the same page, they can also submit their own site for linking. That should help you swap links without being swamped by sites looking for free placement.

The most critical factor when requesting a link though is where the site places it. Links on the home page always do better than a link buried on one of the internal pages and a good banner or graphic link on a site with content related to yours will usually get more clicks than a text link.

If you find that your links aren’t appearing on the pages you want, there are a couple of simple remedies that you can use.

The first is to ask for a better position! If you have a good relationship with the webmaster or if it’s a small site, there’s a good chance that they’ll agree. It certainly won’t hurt to ask.

Not everyone is so generous though, and another option is to offer something in return. A link in a similar position on your own site can make a good deal if your sites are of similar size but you can also offer content or even a special page for that site’s users.

If you have a site about furniture for example, and you want a link at a top directory for home furnishings then you could create a special welcome page for users of that site to draw them deeper into yours and deliver targeted ads. You might even want to go as far as creating a sort of co-branded version of your site for their users to click into. As long as you’re getting paid when the users click on the ads, what do you care whose design they’re looking at?