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first thing to do is to type your key
words or phrases into a search engine and
see what comes up. The sites you see on
the first few pages have made it to the
top of the search engine rankings. Go to
these sites and look around on the home
page for the phrase “links
exchange” or sometimes just
“links.” Some sites now use
“resources.“ They will have
instructions for how to place a link to
their site on your site, and instructions
on the information they need from you in
order for them to place a link to your
site on theirs. Some have a form for you
to fill out; others want you to e-mail it
to them. Have your information (your site
Title, URL (your home page where you want
them to point their link), Description,
and the URL of your links page where you
have placed their link, your name and
e-mail address) saved in a document ready
to cut and paste into both forms and
e-mails. It will save you tons of time.
Always remember that the Golden Rule
applies here. You want them to place a
link to you on their site so you need to
reciprocate. If you are uncomfortable
with the content of their links page and
would prefer not to be associated with
that site, then just move on. There are
plenty of others. Some of the
higher ranked sites will have non-content
related restrictions about with whom they
will exchange or will not links. They
will only exchange with you if your site
and/or links pages have achieved a
certain Google PageRank. (To download the
Google Toolbar click here.) Even if you
do not have such a page rank yourself,
you can request an exchange with such
sites but do not be surprised if they
decline or ignore you. If your site is
new, be sure not to stop looking after
the first page or two in the search
engines. There are many wonderful sites
not on the first few pages and most of
them would be more than happy to exchange
links with you.
Repeat
this search frequently because nothing is
static on search engines; you might get
different results every day searching for
the very same word or phrase!
Once you
have exchanged links with a site check
out the other sites on their links pages.
Some sites have links pages loaded with
other sites that would be a good match
for you. Go ahead and offer to exchange
links with them, also. Beware however
that some sites may not have been very
discerning in their choices of exchange
partners. You, however, will be very
discerning and will choose wisely the
sites with whom you will exchange links!
Be careful not to be too narrow, though.
Remember that you want to exchange with
sites that have content your visitors may
find interesting and useful. If you only
exchange with clones or near clones of
your site, nobody will be interested for
very long. For instance, if your site is
about a particular breed of dog,
don’t limit your exchanges to other
sites about that breed, or even other
breeds. Try sites that deal in dog food,
dog care in general, grooming products,
training methods, dog accessories, shows
and other events, etc. Set your site up
so that each category has its own page or
set of pages, and alphabetize the links
on each page by site title if your
software does not do that automatically.
What you want to avoid are sites that
have nothing whatsoever to do with the
main topic of your site. In our example
of a site about a breed of dog, avoid
exchanging links with sites offering
bargain vacations on the other side of
the globe, casinos, real estate, music,
etc. You get the idea. Remember that
people who visit your site are looking
for dog related information, not that
other stuff.
Now that
you have accumulated several pages of
links, you need to be able to keep track
of them so that you don’t request
exchanges from the same webmasters more
than once. It would be embarrassing for
them to respond to your request with
“I exchanged with you 2 months
ago” or something like that. So,
what do you do if your software does not
do it for you?
Set up a
simple spread sheet. Don’t worry
about setting it up to print out on neat
pages, because you shouldn’t have to
print it out. Make the columns as wide as
you need to. You will need to set them up
as follows: Title / Description /
Category /URL / Reciprocal URL. You can
add optional columns for webmaster name
and e-mail if you want. Your categories
in our hypothetical site would be food,
training, accessories, etc. As you add a
link to your site, add it to the bottom
of your spreadsheet. You can then
alphabetize your spreadsheet by whichever
column you need. Not only will you know
which sites you already have, but you can
see at a glance where on your site you
have put it! I have used this system
extensively and it works extremely well.
One last
thing. Please don’t ever refuse to
exchange links with someone without a
high enough page rank because they are
new. Everyone was new once and started
out with a page rank of “0”
including those who are now at the top of
the list for their chosen key words and
phrases. As people help you to get
started when you are new, turn around and
help others behind you as they get
started. In case you might be wondering
how to tell the difference between a new
site with a page rank of “0”
and a link farm with a page rank of
“0”, the new site with have a
cached page and the link farm will not.
The link farm will have a bizillion links
and the new site will have few if any. To
find this information look for the icon
on the Google Toolbar that looks like a
blue circle with a lower case white
“i” in the middle, located
right next to the little green bar that
shows you your current page rank. When
you click on that icon you will see a
drop down menu that includes both
“cached snapshot page” (what
your page looked like last time Google
checked out your site) and “backward
links” which shows how many links
Google shows point to your site from
other sites. If when you click on one of
those drop down menu choices you find
that Google has no record of that site,
it’s best to wait to exchange links
until you find our why there is no
record. If the site has been up for more
than a few days, there should be at least
a cached page. If there isn’t, the
site may have been banned, and you should
not associate with banned sites.
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