Should You Get Involved In Reciprocal Linking!

Talk about reciprocal linking on any Internet Marketing forum and you will be destined to get bombard with intense replies. There is an ongoing discussion about the benefits and drawback involved in reciprocal linking and both sides make persuasive arguments. So, should you or should you not get involved in reciprocal linking? In conclusion, the decision is yours but here are some rules:

1. The principal plan of any linking method is to get more targeted traffic to your website. Reciprocal linking can work for or against you in this matter depending on the site that you exchange links with. If you exchange links with sites that receive high traffic, some of that traffic may be diverted to your site. On the other hand, if you exchange links with a low traffic site, you may deflect some of your traffic to the other site without seeing a similar return. The answer is to exchange reciprocal links with a site with a page rank no lower than one level below yours and to try to exchange links with many sites with a higher page rank. Ideally, you would seek to exchange links with sites that have at least a PR 4.

2. Never exchange links with everyone that asks. What value is there in exchanging links with a site that sells shoes when your site is about Internet Marketing? Anyone that visits the shoe site will be looking for information concerning shoes, not Internet marketing and very few will click on your link regardless of how high the page rank is for the shoe site. The key here is to exchange links only with sites that are relevant to your site or to your keywords.

3. Avoid exchanging links with sites that have a massive link directory. If your site is listed on page 31 in your category of another site's link directory, few people will ever see your link. Although a link will be generated to your site for the search engines, you will not receive much traffic from the link exchange. Try to exchange links with sites where your link will be displayed on the first, or at the most, the second page of another site's link directory.

4. Establish online relationships. Exchanging links with other relevant websites is a grand way to start building partnerships with other webmasters and may open the door for future joint venture requests.

5. Grow your link popularity. Search engines view sites that have several links to them as being important. So, the more links your site has, the higher your site might rank. Then again, make sure that all reciprocal links are relevant to your site or the search engines will penalize you.

When you do decide to get involved in reciprocal linking, join only good authenticated link exchanges, which permit you to approve or disapprove the link. Shun link farms or link exchanges that will automatically exchange your link with their entire database regardless of the relevancy to your website.

The best way to set up a link page is to enter all links manually. It is time consuming but when you are starting out, this is the best way to do it.

You would first need to set up a page on your website just for your link categories. You can name this page anything you like such as Links, Links Directory, Link Partners, My Link Partners, etc. Set up this page with the major categories and subcategories that are theme to your site. Then, set up a page for each subcategory that will contain the actual links. Test and make sure that whenever anyone clicks on a subcategory that they are taken to the right link page.

Write a short 3 - 5 line ad about your website or your product and include the URL to your website. It should be in HTML code for easy uploading. Each linking webmaster have their own procedure, every time you inquire to exchange links, you'll need to copy and paste the other website's HTML code onto your link page under the correct category and subcategory. You will then need to upload the updated page to your website.

Once this is done, let the other webmasters know on which of your pages they can find their link. Once the webmaster approves the link exchange, they should add your link to their link page and notify you on exactly what page you can find it.

Check to make sure that your link has been added to their site. If they have not added your link, you have the choice of contacting the webmaster as to why or of removing their link from your site.