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Promotion Tip:
Make Linking Easy
by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
Increasing your site's link popularity score isn't as easy as many automated link exchange programs would have you believe. Automated messages may be easy for you, but won't get many responses. The best way to increase your link popularity score is to make it easy for other webmasters to link to your site.
Personal, Targeted Email Messages
Forget the "Hey Dude, want to trade links?" email messages that tell the webmaster absolutely nothing about your site or why a link to it would be valuable. This is especially important if you're linking to a site with a higher rank and/or link popularity score than yours. In that case, a link is more important to you than it is to them so you have to state your case clearly and succinctly.
You only have a couple of lines to intrigue the other webmaster and convince him to visit your site and (hopefully) link to it. Always include:
- A very brief description of your site's content and how it relates to the other site.
- The exact URL of the page where you think the link would be most beneficial. This shows that you've actually visited the site and given some thought to the link.
- The HTML code for the link so the webmaster can cut and paste it directly into his page code. That gives you some control over the link placement and lets you include your keywords into the link text.
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Remember that many webmasters manage more than one site, but may have their emails forwarded to a single address. That's why you need to be very specific about which site you'd like a link from. The more specific you are, the better your chances.
A Page Of Link Options
Of course, you aren't always the supplicant begging for favors from other webmasters. A lot of people will find your site on their own and be so impressed by your content that they want to link to it. Make it easy for them by providing a page of icons and text link HTML code.
Our NetMechanic site has a page of sample link icons and banners that Star Performer sites can use on their own Web sites. Sites that receive a 4 or 5 star rating in four of the five categories of HTML Toolbox are entitled to place one of the NetMechanic Star Performer icons on their Web pages. This is a great way for sites to advertise their usability and standards compliance.
Amazon.com uses the same technique on its links page. Remember that many beginning webmasters start out using WYSIWYG editors like FrontPage, so they may not be completely comfortable with hand coding. When you furnish the images and the link text, they're more likely to add your link to their page.
Avoid Linking Mistakes
A good email request and page of links on your own site make other webmasters more likely to link to your site, but other strategies can hurt your chances.
- Don't be a pest. Other webmasters are just as busy as you - maybe even busier. Wait at least a week after your initial email query to follow up if you haven't received a response. If two messages go unanswered, assume the webmaster isn't interested and try somewhere else!
- Don't make threats. Offering to link to another site if and only if they link to yours is often a mistake. If their site content is good enough to link to in the first place, it's good enough to keep even without a reciprocal link. A message stating "I've linked to you but I'll delete the link unless you link to me within 2 weeks!" is not very effective.
- Stay out of bad neighborhoods. Indiscriminate linking to anyone who offers you a reciprocal link can hurt you with visitors when they click on a link totally unrelated to your content. It can also get you tossed out of search engines like Google. Search engines assume that if you're linking to spam sites, then you must be one too.
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Some sites get so caught up in the linking game that they forget the real reason for external links: to increase the value of your site to visitors. If visitors know they can come to you and get information about a topic that interests them, they'll return to you again and again. Use your links to become a recognized authority on your topic, not run a link farm!
Link to sites because they provide valuable, related content, not just because they have a high search engine rank. Remember: search engine rank changes all the time - especially if you concentrate on site promotion. The site with great content but a low search engine rank today might be a top ranked site in a few months.
Check your site's link popularity score with Search Engine Power Pack. It's a full suite of search engine promotion and submission tools that help you select keywords, write META tags, optimize your pages, submit them, and track your rank on the major search engines.
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