Lifelines : Establishing Long Term Links & Finding Good Link Partners

in your efforts of finding other sites to establish links with, you need to answer a few important questions first. This will ultimately save you hours & hours of establishing links with sites that will not benefit yours in one way or another. You have to look at long term benefits : - is the site I want to link with, relevant or similar to the information or theme of my site ? (no point in getting a link to your fishing site, if the other site is about furniture manufacturing).
- is it an established site, or just another come & go one ? (you want the links to stay in place for many years to come, otherwise you will have to constantly establish new ones to counter the ones lost).
- does the site you want to establish a link with receive many visitors ? (no reason to get a link on a site that hardly receive any visitors - you simply will not get many, if any visitors from them. The point is to get visitors in order to make sales).

Where to find link partners

the best place to find relevant link partners, is to make a few searches on the major search engines. Use your site's most important keyword phrases and do a search. Bookmark the top 10-20 sites and visit them. Most of these sites will have very good links established to them, and of cause many relevant outgoing links. This is where you start. It will be like taking part in a chain letter of links - a never ending stream of possibilities will emerge !!

What if they don't want to link to me ?

don't despair, not everyone will want to exchange links with you - the ratio is around 3 : 1. For every 3 requests send out, you might get one to exchange links with you. Linking is a long term commitment, and you need to be patient - in the end quality rather than quantity will count. You also need to convince the other person that linking to your site will benefit his. A good catch-line might improve your success and ratio, so too a friendly & courteous request !

Who to link to :

... link to related sites. It does not have to be exactly the same as your site, but similar in a way. A good example is : if you have a freshwater fishing venture, you can link to related freshwater fishing sites, saltwater fishing sites, sites selling fishing gear & sites selling fishing boats. You can even include sites listing & detailing good fishing spots. As long as the sites are related to yours, the links will be relevant. The search engines value relevant links very highly, and you will do wonders for your search engine rankings. Your links can also be with international sites, not just local ones. Fishermen like to try our spots all over the world, and getting a link on a related site in another country, might bring you lots of extra business in the long run.

How to establish links :

many sites have a form where you can fill in your details and submit your site's relevant link details. This is not a bad idea, but many site owners don't even have the decency to reply, or to establish a link, but they request on the form that you first establish a link to them !! We have found that a simple introduction & link exchange proposal email works better. It's like making personal contact with the other person. Do not SPAM, but rather send out personal emails one by one, and if possible, address it to a relevant person. If you SPAM, your email address might be blacklisted, and your link exchange program will be stopped in its tracks !

Protect your site's lifelines - check links at least once a month :

... there are many sharks out there ! Many people will except your link exchange proposal, but after a week or two they simply remove your link. It is very important to check reciprocal links to your site at least once a month. Links are a website's lifelines and you need to look after them ....