High ranking on Google and other such search engines is largely based on the number of sites that links to your page. Due to this factor, the SE conscious web master is eternally engaged in a quest for links. In this article I shall reveal some of the does and don'ts, and perhaps even a few tips and tricks to help you along your quest.
Links exchanges can be extremely productive, but here are a few things to consider. Set up a separate page where you will put your reciprocal links, however, do not name this page links.html or links.htm, call it associates.html. This will make other webmasters more attracted to having a link on your page, also it seems a lot more professional to have 'associates' rather than; 'random people I decided to exchange links with to gain/maintain a high SE ranking'.
Furthermore, when first starting out on your quest for links, always be the one to make the first move, by placing a link to someone's page in anticipation of them reciprocating. You can always remove it if they don't, and it is likely to encourage them to add a link to your site. Do not be afraid to approach the 'Big Boys', do a search in Google for your keyword, and contact the people that rank highest. This makes perfect sense, but many people simply do not bother contacting the webmasters at the top - thinking they would never agree to exchange links with them. But remember; they too have to maintain their high position and getting new links is the easiest way to do this. Moreover, exchanging links with high ranking sites is far more productive, Google is after all based on weighted voting.
To make the most of the links to you, submit the pages that link to your site to the search engines, this will ensure that their 'votes' are counted, and if you let people know that you are submitting their pages for free, just because they linked to you, then people are far more likely to link to you in the future. The easiest way to get loads of links from a high ranking site to your own is through forums. Becoming very active on popular forums is a great way to increase search engine ranking.
Another good tip is to submit the pages of the forum that have your link on, to the search engines. Now people are going to be sitting there reading this and thinking, 'there is no need to do that, Google crawls every link on a page and they will eventually get to the link to your site'. However, EVENTUALLY, is the key word (if you pardon the pun), submitting directly to the search engines will make the process quicker. Also, there is evidence to suggest that pages submitted directly to the search engines and linked to in other pages gain higher ranking.
Furthermore, Google does not penalise for over submission, so where's the harm? Always ensure that you exchange links with sites relevant to yours, but not too relevant, the last thing you want to do is promote your competition. For example, if you run a web design company, exchange links with web design resource sites, SEOs, graphic designers, but not other web design companies - unless you have formed a good relationship with that company and work collaboratively on projects or work in different markets.
