You're not linking, they're not coming!

A link is anything that mentions your web address on another. It can be a straightforward www text link, a banner or a button. It's getting hard these days to be in the top 10 on the search engines but most search engines base their position of your site on their listing by the way you appear on most sites. Well, once you give something, it will all return back to you. Why not give your link? Trade links with them and they'll will all come.

So if you're hesitant to give away links, you're missing a lot of traffic. On traditional marketing you make every effort not to mention something about your competitors, but on the web, you'll need to link to the same kind, meaning your competitors. For example, if you're on web design business like me, you would trade links with them and appear alongside in the search engine. The secret is linking. Now the question is who's among the famous web that contains millions of links: Altavista, Lycos, and Hotbot. It's simply because they took the time to link.

They are basically two types of links: reciprocal and non-reciprocal.

Reciprocal links are links based upon an informal agreement between site owners to display each other's links on each one. The agreement will last as long as each one continues to reciprocate or return the favor of the link. It can be a week, a month or a year.

There are ways to do a reciprocal link and they are as follows:

1. Web Rings - are small group of sites that revolves around a certain button or icon displayed on each participating sites. Each one takes turn randomly in displaying a link from different sites. By this way you are able to get an exposure right from your same category site. go: Nabaza.com Webrings

2. Banner Links - It can be a 426 x 60, 213 x 30 or a vertical banner. A good site that offers banner exchange is this one myBigMoney.com Banner Exchange A lot of viral business exchanges can also be yours go here: Nabaza.com Traffic Exchangers

3. Link Button - sized at 88 x 96 pixels and is usually animated. It signifies that your site is either "Powered By", "Managed By" or "Networked Sites of." Others runs each links on a contest, if you win you get 500+ additional exposures. go here: Nabaza.com Directory

Please refer to my "Highlights section".

4. Text Links - This one is easy. I see webmasters now are creating multiple web sites that are in a series of links to each one. You can also reference your links in this manner: http://www.Nabaza.com

It's a good and ethical way of referring a web site to anyone if you like yourself to be credited. You can create any reference id you like as long as there's no space inserted.

5. Self-replicating Links:

Above links will take you to a sign-up page that will lead you to create your unique URL in a snap. It implements the principle of (MLM) multi-level marketing which I have discussed in my other article: "Multi-Level Marketing on the web" and also it would be an honor for me if you join me as your upline. :-)

6. Award Links - Award-giving web sites that promises their icon without any cash equivalent. It's a good way to decorate your site and boast of your excellence.

7. Ad Swapping - These are for those who are writing and publishing their own newsletters. It's an agreement or kind of payment that if you accept my ad for free I'll display your ad as well. I accept ad swapping from publishers.

Non-reciprocal links, on the other hand, can be a good source of hits for your site as well.

You need to actively encourage your visitors to link to your site by giving them instructions on how to do it. On your site, provide a "How to Link to Your site?" page. Create banners, buttons, or a cgi script that will make their life easy. On your part, you have to constantly develop and maintain a good site and give a reward to someone who will link to you, one example is this:

If your site is really excellent in design, very useful and is always updated; chances are, people will really link to your site even without your knowledge. On my site, I accomplish this actively by constantly submitting articles like the one's you're reading. Also, most importantly, is you religiously submit your site to search engines and directories. Submit it in one easy way.

Advantages of Linking:

If you do this one, you'll be surprise at the extra traffic that links from other sites can generate.

Whenever, I do a search on any search engine, I see sites that always refer back to my site. These sites have subscriber base of 140,000 and up. Thanks Newslinx.

You need not encourage duplication but you need to be linked.

How to do it?

Send individual emails, not mass mails. I won't exchange links with sites that sends out an email containing a header: Hello, Fellow webmaster or one that has a mail extractor signature. I need someone on that same category. If someone doesn't take his time in writing me a customized email then it's not that important.

1. Target

I need competitors that will become co-op sites with me. I know that I've gathered everything essential to the web but there are sites out there that have gathered even more so I need to exchange links with them to complement my site. Don't be afraid to lose your visitors, if your content isn't good enough to get them to return. You never really "had" them in the first place.

2. Do unto others what you want them to do to you.

Be polite in your e-mails. Don't assume that you know it all when it comes to a particular site. Treat everyone as your friend and potential customers. Who knows? It might be even before you finish your personalized email, someone already linked to you. Give and it shall be given to you.

3. Dedicate a place for all links.

Not unless you want to fill up whole first page with links and exceed that 24K ideal file size, you can have a whole page of links that will accommodate all of them. Aside from your FFA page, create a page for them complete with categories and description. Tell them politely that their link will go to this special page just for them. For example, I have FFA page, Merchant Links, and Premium Links. Premium Links section is the page intended for reciprocal link.

4. Don't associate with bad sites.

Protect your reputation online and do exchange links with the same category as your site. If you exchange links with someone different from yours, you might end up getting customers that will be dissatisfied with your page. However, you can still accommodate them in your "Web Directory" or "FFA" page.