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The next thing to do is reciprocal link. If your site allows it, set up a directory or some form of a reciprocal linking page. Every morning, sit down with a cup of tea and search. Search for sites that you would like to exchange links with. That’s crucial. You don’t want to add links to YOUR site with just anyone. Their site needs to be worthwhile. Something that you WANT to send your visitors to. This is much more about integrity then it is about ambition. Keep your integrity and you will have something that people will be loyal to. Also – search for sites that will let you add a link WITHOUT reciprocating. That is where it pays to have a site with integrity. People will actually WANT to link to you simply because they want to offer
resource to their visitors.
Google and other big search engines rank sites according to (amongst other things) their link popularity. The more you can get links to your sites out there, any where – better you will find that your search engine results are. Here is a trick for finding sites to link with. Go to http:www.google.com and do a search. Say you sell cloth diapers. You will search on, ‘add diaper link’ or ‘add baby link’ or ‘add WAHM link’, etc. You will be shocked at how many sites come up in your search. It’s fun!
Don’t ever consider yourself done exchanging links. You may set it aside for awhile, but do pick it up again. It can never hurt.
What CAN hurt is linking to sites with a low Google rating (below 3) from your site. I highly recommend surfing with Google toolbar AND Alexa toolbar. Pay attention to ratings of sites that you are considering exchanging links with. It can never hurt your search engine results if someone links to you, but it CAN hurt your results if you link to them. You may be willing to compromise if a site is particularly good. Why? Because, A. you want to support good sites and also offer excellent resources to your visitors and B. because chances are if it is a good site – Google and Alexa rankings will only get better.
Another fun trick is to pay attention to your Alexa bar as you are surfing on sites that are related to your website. You will see that Alexa provides links to related sites on toolbar as you are surfing. Imagine if people were seeing YOUR link up there! You want that! So take time to submit your link as you surf. If you are on a site that relates to yours, tell Alexa about it. It only takes a minute to submit it and a second to click email they will send you. The results won’t be immediate – but they’re ‘in bank’.
One other promotion strategy I want to share with you is writing articles. Like this one! Write articles on what you know about. What you care about. Or what moves you. In just same way as you searched for ‘add diaper link’, now you will do a search for ‘add article link’. Submit your articles all over place. Good webmasters are often too busy to write their own articles and they LOVE to publish good ones on their site. You heard me! They will publish YOUR article on their site. They won’t pay you… but they will include a short biography at end of article with a link back to your website. Now THAT’S what I call payment! Free traffic that you earned! Someone read your article, recognized that you had something to offer to them and decided, based on merit of what you have written that they want to know more about you.
I promise you – if you take these pieces of advice to heart, put them into practice and have a good time with it… Your site WILL increase in popularity. I wish you all best luck with your promotion efforts and hope that you become excited enough and savvy enough to be one of lucky folks who really are able to earn a living doing what they love.
Lori Redfield is a freelancing Mother of three, happy wife and blooming online entrepreneur. She is founder of newly launched http://www.freelancemom.com, an esource for women who want to work from home.
