BuckWorks Marketing Articles

Reciprocal Links

Simple but Effective Way to Build Traffic

Building traffic to a new site is one of the web's biggest challenges. Reciprocal links can help.

by Elisabeth Archambault, BuckWorksOnlineShoppingDirectory

One of the biggest challenges on the Internet is building traffic to a new site, especially if you don't have much money for advertising. Trading links with other quality websites (reciprocal links) can be an effective way to start bringing visitors to your site.

Reciprocal links are simple (which isn't quite the same as "easy"):

• You look for other sites that you think would be of interest to the visitors who come to your site.
• You contact the webmasters and ask if they would like to trade links.
• If they agree (many won't, but some will), you place a permanent, plain-vanilla HTML link to their site somewhere on one of your pages, and they do the same for you.

Many sites have a special page to showcase their link partners; you should consider this too. If your site is well designed your visitors will check your site thoroughly and will only visit your links page when they're ready to move on anyway. You won't have much to lose, but the benefits of trading links can mean much to gain. (HINT: For top-notch advice on designing your site to turn visitors into customers, you'll want to own the 2002 update of Make Your Site Sell. It's practically the BIBLE of Internet marketing!)

When sites trade links, they both benefit by:

• sharing some traffic directly
• getting noticed more favorably by the search engines.

Some link exchanges can send hundreds of visitors a day, while others might send one or two a month. The second type is far more common, but even those are worthwhile as long as they're from relevant sites. Why? Because more and more search engines are considering "link popularity" as a factor when they decide how to rank pages in their search results.

In other words, if they notice other quality sites linking to one of your pages, they will "like" that page better, all else being equal ("link farms" don't count - in fact they can work against you). The assumption is that a link pointing to your page is like a vote of confidence in that page. More links = more confidence! Even a few links can make a worthwhile difference to how well a page is ranked. This article focuses on trading links with other sites, but don't overlook the fact that strategic cross-linking within your own site(s) can be well worth while, too.

If you have useful or entertaining content your site will eventually attract some links in any case, but if you take active steps to develop reciprocal links you can build link popularity more quickly. Your main investment will be time, rather than money. Finding link partners is not a strict 1-2-3 process, so you can approach it in various ways.

Here are some thoughts on getting good results for your efforts.

1. Make sure your own site is in order. Whatever your topic, your site must be of a quality that other sites will feel okay about linking to -- good content, presented without glitches. Think about the keywords (or phrases) that you want to target for your pages. Weave them carefully into your titles, headings, and body copy. Even if you're no expert in the voodoo art of search engine optimization, you can at least make sure the search engines can clearly discern that "This page is about widget prices," or "That page is about widget repair."

2. Look for sites that you think would be good link partners. Do some research to find sites with themes similar to yours. Links between sites that are about similar topics seem to be worth more to search engine rankings. One problem, though, is that such sites often view you as a competitor, and won't consider trading links.

So, don't stop there: look for sites with different topics but some logical connection that would make them of interest to your visitors. Example: if your site was about making your own wine, you'd look for similar sites to trade links with. Also look for cooking sites, cheese sites, and so on. If you sell maps, you could look for travel sites, luggage sites, history sites. Use your imagination! As long as there is some logical connection between the topic of your site and theirs, mutual links would be of interest to both site's visitors, and the search engines will take note, as well.

Another way to find link partners is to check who's linking to the sites that you consider to be your competition. If your competition isn't actually paying for the links, such sites might be willing to mention you as well. (Sumantra Roy's article Measuring Link Popularity tells how to find out who's linking to whom!)

3. Contact the webmasters and ask if they would like to trade links. If they agree, you're in business. It could be a graphic link or a simple text link, woven into a content page, or placed on a special "Links of Interest" page. There can be a lot of flexibility here, but keep in mind that search engines have the best chance to discover the links if they're located no more than one or two clicks off the home page. Remember that they must not be hidden behind a redirect or buried in a javascript or something.

4. Be persistent. I have seen comments from people who do a lot of work developing reciprocal links, that you will likely need to contact a hundred webmasters to end up with five or ten inbound links actually in place. In general my own experience backs this up. This is not as hard as it sounds, because once you write your first letter and polish it, you can use it as the base for more letters. Don't just copy the same things over and over, though. Invest the time to include something personal to each webmaster. You need to convince them that you're not just a random spammer; you are proposing a win-win partnership! Be aware that your personal touch is extremely important, because there is software out there which attempts to automate the process and probably does more harm than good.

Some webmasters will not respond to you, and others will agree but then not actually do anything about it. Don't lose heart from this: each reciprocal link you do achieve is worthwhile, especially if you're promoting something in a non-saturated category. Example: For one of my pages, a couple of dozen quality inbound links made the difference between a Google ranking of #44 the first time it was indexed, and #4 a month later, for the same target key phrase. It has gone up and down in the months since, including some time as #1. A bonus is that it also rose in the ranks for some other searches besides the phrase I actually targeted.

The Art of the Link Letter

5. Give careful thought to the letter you write to each other site. Making a good impression doesn't guarantee good results, but a bad impression guarantees no results. Here are a few thoughts on making that first letter more effective:

For starters, if you already have the other site's link in place when you contact the webmaster, they are more likely to take you seriously.

Introduce yourself, say where you're from, briefly describe your site and provide the URL. (Remember the http:// part so it will be clickable -- I'm astonished at how many people forget that, even in their signatures!) If something in their site is worth a compliment, say so! Also (strongly recommended) provide the URL to the page where they can find their link on your site.

Explain in your own words why trading links would benefit you both, and ask them to consider linking back to you. Do not make grand predictions about increased traffic, but do point out that reciprocal links will help both of you get noticed better by the search engines.

The next point is probably the most important of all ...

5. Make it EASY for the other webmaster to work with you. The easier you make it, the more likely it is that they will actually follow through and link to your site. You also increase the chance that the link will be set up with your preferred wording (more on that below).

Provide all the information they need to post your link with little fuss. Give your URL, the page title, a description, and (if appropriate) a suggestion about where your link might fit on their site.

Better still, provide a code snippet that they can simply copy and paste, or link to a page where you provide code snippets, and perhaps some banners.Tailor your suggestions so they will fit the style of the page where you would like your link to be listed.

I recommend trading text links rather than banners. They load faster, and if they are worded well they give the search engines a bit more to work with when they are ranking your pages. Also, you want plain-vanilla HTML links, not hidden behind a redirect or in a javascript.

Consider whether a link to a page other than your home page might make more sense for the other site. Example: I have recently been in touch with some sites for whom a link to my Webmaster Articles page http://buckworks.com/webmaster-resources/ is a better fit than my home page http:/buckworks.com/, which is about general consumer shopping.

6) Give some thought to the wording you suggest for your links, because search engines such as Altavista and Google give a bit of credit to your page for words that appear in the actual text of an inbound link coming from another site. If you're providing code snippets for the other webmaster's convenience, you can write them to take advantage of this.

Example: I have a fairly new page that lists sites where you can shop online for men's clothing, including hard-to-find sizes. If another site linked to that page in this manner...

To find men's clothing merchants online, <A HREF="http://buckworks.com/mens-clothing.html">Click Here!</A>

...it would come out like this:

To find men's clothing merchants online, Click Here!

I'd get a "link popularity brownie point" for this, but it wouldn't add weight to any keyword in particular (except "click" and "here").

On the other hand, if the link were set up like this...

BuckWorks lists sites where you can shop online for <A HREF="http://buckworks.com/mens-clothing.html">men's clothing</A>.

...it would come out like this:

BuckWorks lists sites where you can shop online for men's clothing.

This would provide the same link popularity boost, and -- here's why this can be important -- it would also add some weight for how well this page would be ranked in someone's search for "men's clothing". That is a phrase that I'd be glad to have this page found for, so every tiny bit of extra support in that direction is A Good Thing. If in my travels I discover sites where a link to my men's clothing page would be a good fit, I'd be wise to provide a code snippet structured like the second version, or maybe a variation like "men's clothes" or "menswear".

There's a bonus here: A link set up this way is more meaningful than a "Click Here" link to someone surfing with the help of an audible browser "reader." For that matter, almost anything you do to make your site more accessible will also be meaningful to the search engines. (For anything you ever wanted to know on how to make your site more accessible, check the Web Accessibility Initiative at http://www.w3.org/WAI/.)

Be sure to suggest the most descriptive link you can, that still fits the style of the page where your link will be placed. Some sites won't use a description like the examples above, they'll just give you a single plain text link. In such cases, I would provide a code snippet something like this:

<A HREF="http://buckworks.com/mens-clothing.html">Men's Clothing Stores: BuckWorks Online Shopping Directory</A>

Mens Clothing Stores: BuckWorks Online Shopping Directory

and hope that they would use it all.

An interesting wrinkle is that if a search engine finds a term in the text of another site's link to you, this can sometimes get you ranked for a word that doesn't even appear on your page! (mensware??)

Some sites will just show your URL in the link and that's all. In the case of many home-page URLs this would not be very informative, although it would still help your link popularity. However, if you choose your file names carefully when you create interior pages, you can end up with an URL that is meaningful to both the search engines and the humans who see it, when someone links to you this way. Some examples:

http://buckworks.com/womens-clothing.html

http://buckworks.com/sporting-goods.html

http://buckworks.com/shoes-footwear.html

http://buckworks.com/articles/pay-per-click-search-engines/

Keep these thoughts in mind when you're creating code snippets for the convenience of other webmasters. As well, remember them when you're adding the other site's links to your own pages. You might be able to suggest changes that would help the other site get more benefit from the link you're giving them.

Remember, this is a partnership, even though it's a small one, and anything that helps the other site will help you.

Happy Linking!