Best Practices for Reverse Linking

Here are some important considerations to make regarding how to organize those new outbound links for maximum benefit. The absolutely most important thing is to create a "Resources Page". Call it a "Resources Page", or "Additional Resources", or something similar, rather than a "Links Page". This is not only for a better consideration by search engine but also for your visitors.

Placing majority of these reverse (outbound) links on their own page avoids affecting optimization and search engine considerations of rest of your website. It also gives you a "page" to place all those new links on as they come in.

Each outbound link should look something like following example linked from a lighthouse web site: "For enthusiast this collection of unique nautical gifts is truly in a class by itself. They offer magnificently handcrafted nautical coin jewelry." The link ('Custom Nautical Jewelry') opens in a new window when visitor clicks on it.

Each link should have a descriptive text within it (not ambiguous "click here") and there should be a high quality description of web site just below link (remember presell'). If you don't know what to include as description, just ask site owner, they are often very pleased that you are putting so much care into a link to their site. If you are lucky webmaster might even suggest a reciprocal link - but let them suggest it - you do NOT suggest it.

Very Important note- Remember to have these outbound links open in a new window. If you are using SiteBuildIt format, as opposed to uploading your own pages, then use traffic link tool and check "Open in an new window". I am appalled at number of websites that don't do this (Yes, I have messed up and done same thing without thinking). You must keep visitor in your site, even if your site is now in a browser beneath one being viewed. You have a much higher chance, by an overwhelming 100 to 1 that visitor will actually return to your site this way. If they leave your site, because they have clicked on one of those outbound links, then you probably want get them back since they have completely left your site.

By putting these practices into place you will shorten time it takes for major search engines to spider your site. But first you still have to build a content rich site and use SiteBuildIt's Analyze tool to optimize those web pages. The strategy I have provided gives your visitors even more valuable content for search terms they are entering. Link building is icing but without cake 9a content rich. SE friendly site) it amounts to nothing.

Michael Domeck www.the-best-light-houses.com www.homefurnishingsforless.com

ARELIS I have tested this tool, and it seems very promising. It goes out and searches for link exchange partners according to different search methods which you specify. For me, looking for incoming links at sites similar to my own gave best results. The program then quickly returned many relevant sites. Next, it helps you contact webmasters and keeps link collection neatly organized. It also creates link pages.

Zeus A bit similar to ARELIS, but I find it much clumsier. The only way it can search for link candidate sites is thru a list of 100+ search phrases. In my hands, this method produced very low-quality results. At time of writing, I am trying to get a refund from company that sells Zeus. They seem very reluctant to honour their money-back guarantee. Buyer beware!

Links Manager This program does not go out and search for link partner sites; it only handles swap requests and organizes link collection. I have not tested it myself.

When building a link swap strategy, note that search engines are getting increasingly sophisticated in judging quality of your links. Some things to remember:

- Outbound links ONLY to quality sites with content relevant to your site; never "link farm" type sites

- Make sure sites that you link to have not been penalized. This would affect you also!

- Incoming links that are placed on same page as 100:s of other links won't help you; their value gets "diluted"

- The anchor text in incoming links is very important. It should contain relevant keywords; but all links should not have identical text - this looks artificial in virtual eyes of search bots

If you follow these guidelines, I believe link swap can still be an important strategy for building a successful web presence.

Conclusion: Link popularity improvement, if you do it proper way, is still of enormous importance for a successful website. But if done wrong way, it may backfire. If you want to try classic link swap method, I recommend using ARELIS ( www.axandra.com ) to make it less tedious.