Link exchange is an extremely powerful marketing strategy whereby a website owner exchanges links and banners with websites that have similar content.

Why should I exchange links?

There are several reasons that you should exchange links with other businesses.

Results in search engines are determined by the material you have presented on your site and by other off-page factors such as how many other sites link to your website. The more links you have pointing to your site from relevant websites, the higher your site will rank.

Exchanging links will drive valuable targeted traffic to your website when visitors follow a link from your link partners.

Your website will become a valuable resource for your visitors, as it will provide information they need. They may return to your site over and over to find more information.

How do I request links?

First, find websites whose business complements yours and add their website to your links/resource page. Rather than just placing a simple link, it's a good idea to also include the business name, brief description and logo if possible.

Once the link is on your website contact the company and ask for a reciprocal link. For example if you are a wedding dress designer, you could contact businesses that sell wedding cakes, jewellery, flowers and also venues, celebrants etc.

Types of link exchanges

1. One-way Links

One way links are links that point to your site from others, but which are not linked to from your website. Google and many other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate and rank websites. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the website. As such, the more links from other relevant websites to yours, the better.

One way to get great links to your website is to submit articles and PR releases to other websites and article/news directories or use Social Bookmarking and Social Networking websites.

2. Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal links, also known as 'link swaps', 'link exchanges' and 'link partners' are two way links between two websites. They not only drive traffic to your website, but also help with search engine ranking.

It is particularly important to exchange links with websites that have a high Page Rank. Page Rank is a value that Google gives to a web page based on the importance of the page that is determined by the number of incoming links to that web page. You can see your website's Page Rank on the Google Toolbar, which can be downloaded from:

http://toolbar.google.com

3. Triangular OR Three Way Links

Three way link is whereby Website 1 links to Website 2 who links to Website 3 who links to Website 1 and so on. The ultimate goal is to never have two websites link to each other, which is considered reciprocal linking and less effective in boosting search engine rankings.

Link exchanges are very important if you want to drive quality traffic to your website and help rank your website at the top of the search engines. Although it can be time consuming, link exchanging is very powerful. If you have limited time, you can employ the services of a link exchange company. Simply search for "link exchanging" in your favourite search engine.

Copyright (c) 2009 Ivana Katz