Mention reciprocal linking on any internet marketing forum and you will be sure to get a barrage of heated replies. There is a continual debate about the advantages and disadvantages involved in reciprocal linking and both sides make convincing statements. So, should you or should you not get involved in reciprocal linking Ultimately, the decision is yours but here are some guidelines:
1. The main goal of any linking strategy is to get more traffic to a 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 a lot of 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 divert some of your traffic to the other site without seeing a similar return. The solution 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. Dont exchange links with everybody that asks. What advantage is there in exchanging links with a site that sells wedding favors when your site is about dog training Anyone that visits the wedding favor site will be looking for information concerning weddings, not dog training, and very few will click on your link regardless of how high the page rank is for the wedding 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 huge link directory. If your site is listed on page 43 in your category of another sites 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 sites link directory.
4. Build online relationships. Exchanging links with other relevant websites is a great way to start building partnerships with other website owners and may open the door for future joint venture requests.
5. Build your link popularity. Most search engines view sites that have many links to them as being important. So, the more sites that link to your site, the higher your site might rank. But again, make sure that all reciprocal links are relevant to your site or the search engines will penalize you.
If you do decide to get involved in reciprocal linking, join only well established link exchanges that allow you to approve or disapprove the link. Avoid link farms or link exchanges that will automatically exchange your link with their entire database regardless of the relevancy to your website.
The optimum way to set up a link page is to enter all links manually. Yes, 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 call this page anything you like such as Links, My Partners, Link Partners, My Link Partners, etc. Set up this page with the major categories and subcategories that are relevant to your site. Then, set up a page for each subcategory that will contain the actual links. Test to be sure that whenever anyone clicks on a subcategory that they are taken to the appropriate link page.
Prepare a short 3 - 5 line ad about your website or your product and include the URL to your website. This should be in HTML code for easy uploading. Each linking company has their own procedure, but generally, each time you ask to exchange links, youll need to copy and paste the other websites 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 website know on which of your pages they can find their link. If the other website owner approves the link exchange, they should add your link to their link page and inform 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 option of contacting the website owner as to why or of removing their link from your site.
Ricardy Banks is a Certified Internet Consultant with WSI and has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry.
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Placing Google adsense ads on your website has to be one of the easiest ways to generate income with your site. Signup is free and all you have to do is put the ads on your site.
But easy does not always mean simple.
Google makes it easy to sign up, generate an ad and put it on your site, however, its not always so simple designing your site for interest, finding high paying keywords and placing your ads so that they attractmaximum clicks.
Here are a few surefire tips that will help draw interest to your site and your ads while helping you get the clicks that will make you money.
1. Build content rich sites
Content rich sites do several things for you. They keepviewers on your site because you are providing information of interest. Its also important to keep the information refreshedperiodically with up-to-date and current content. This is not only useful for your viewers, the search engines like it as well.
Sites containing useful content will also help establish you as anexpert in your field allowing viewers to respect your opinions and suggestions. But most importantly, good content will keep your viewers coming back to your site. They will bookmark your site more often and notify their friends a lot more.
2. Research and use higher paying keywords.
Develop site pages using topics that contain high paying keywords while keeping the keywords relevant to your topic.
The Overture website has a free keywords bid tool that is excellent for showing you what advertisers are paying for keywords.
For example, using this tool I can see that the keywordpet medication has a maximum bid of $1.51 while the keywordpet name has a maximum bid of $.11. If I were looking for informational pages to add to my pet site, the clear choice here would be to develop a page about pet medications and optimize that page for the keyword pet medication.
3. Place your ads in the upper left hand quarter of your website.
Studies show that people almost always scan your site from the top left working down. Placing a vertical skyscraper ad in that section can help increase your click through rate from 2% to as much as 30% or higher.
4. Dont use horizontal banners or ads.
Google recommends that you use vertical as opposed to horizontal ads. Web surfers see lots of horizontal banners and ads and they almost instantaneously avoid them.
According to Google, wider ad formats such as the large rectangle and inline rectangle also tend to perform quite well. This is probably due to the fact that they are more reader friendly allowing you to read more text at a glance without having to skip a line and return to the left margin every few words.
My experience is that positioning these ads just before or just after your main content can increase your clickthrough rate substantially.
5. Avoid the Dead Zones
Google research has shown that there are zones within your site that wont generate clicks. These areas are the top right of your site, the bottom right-hand corner and the very bottom. Ads in these areas are often ignored. Keep your ads to the upper left, and center or just above or below your primary content.
6. Coordinate the ad colors to match your site colors.
Google adsense offers an array of colors that you can use to display your ads. Choose the two main colors of your site and use those colors for your ad. Keep the URL link of the ad in blue since this is the link color that most viewers are use to. The idea is to blend your ads with your site content so as to invite more clicks.
7. Follow the adsense program policies to the letter.
Google keeps a close eye on how their ads are displayed and they will cancel you immediately if you break the rules. Google adsense is an excellent way to bring in some extra revenue so dont risk losing a good thing.
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