There’s an endless supply of tools available for webmasters to help make their site a success; of these a powerful and effective one is reciprocal linking. Reciprocal links have been around a long time. Since before the wild-wild-west was won. Unfortunately, they are an often overlooked or under-used method these days. How many times have you searched for a link partner to find that many websites do not even have a links page? Of those that do, few have an area on their website that actually welcomes you to request a link trade. It seems these websites are just islands unto themselves. They miss the beauty of the World Wide Web’s strange, yet brilliant web linking system.
Perhaps it’s because it takes so long to build a quality website and the owner is not at all interested in promoting anyone else’s enterprise. Or maybe it’s just too much work. Maybe they are in a hurry to see immediate profits. Therefore instead of putting in the effort and taking the necessary time to build a web presence, they look to search engines to solve all their troubles. Some may think that linking to another website is making it easy for their hard-earned visitor to leap over to another website. While that may be correct, it is also true that the other website’s visitors are jumping over to their website in return.
Little do they realize that reciprocal links would give them a big boost in the search engines. When calculating a website’s page rank, link popularity is one thing that is considered by search engines. While it is accurate that one-way inbound links are given more weight. Reciprocal links do aid in reaching a higher page rank too.
However, a critical mistake can be and has been made by many a newbie webmaster. That is trading links with every website that is willing to return the favor. Search engines take a dim view to indiscriminate linking. Therefore assuming you have a dieting website linking with a pet or travel website; well that could be detrimental to your scoring. For instance–for your site, you would be wise to start trading links with health food, exercise or vitamin websites for maximum benefit.
By creating a tightly knit link directory of complimentary websites, you would be encouraging your visitors to see your website as a valuable resource for browsing their favorite topic. As a result, these visitors will bookmark the website providing you with plenty of free return visits.
There is even an additional advantage for you if you have limited time. That is when a search engine robot has indexed your link partner’s website; it locates your link and then crawls over to your website. This may happen before you have a chance to submit the website directly to that particular engine. It’s like getting free website submissions!
As a webmaster, you not only need to keep your website updated and fresh. You should assure its success by developing a healthy traffic-producing plan. Certainly it is important to stay abreast of all the latest techniques of creating traffic. However, it is equally important to remember some of the time-tested methods like reciprocal linking to achieve this goal.
Reliable Geeks @ http://www.reliablegeeks.com
Jaikob Mateo is a an Internet consultant (Geek) and a voracious student of human nature.
Jaikob fashions himself after the Watcher in the Marvel comic series. His heroes are Superman, Dare Devil, the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and most members of the Justice League. His employment history led him to manage thousands of employees. This provided him with endless opportunities to pursue his near-obsessive fascination with human nature and persuasion. Jaikob claims he used to have super powers but when he informed his therapist she took them away. He is still fighting to get them back. For more articles visit his Blog at: http://reliablegeeks.blogspot.com/