If you have begun exchanging links, you know how time consuming -- and time-wasting -- it can be. On
other hand, you don't want to give up process because you might actually unearth occasional valuable link partner. After all, you know that getting links to your site is important because it brings in traffic, helps you find strategic partners, and enhances your Search Engine rankings. Your objective is to get hundreds of links, and you cannot get job done unless you have a strategy that works.First you have to accept that not all links are created equal. And that means that link partners have to be prioritized. Some are worthless because your links end up on pages that nobody looks at and have no PR.
But at other end of spectrum a few of your link partners will be very valuable because they will give you links on high value, high traffic pages.
Most of rest of your inbound links will be marginally valuable. How you tell difference between valuable ones and useless ones is subject of many discussions and articles, some of which you will find at Linknet Marketing Resource Library.
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The fastest, most direct, and least painful strategy is to find link partners who will either sell or trade text ads on a number of high value pages. For example, at Linknet we do both of these things (selling and trading multiple links).
We offer up to 25 free links across 25 websites. And we also offer packages of 30 and 50 links for one small annual fee. For more information go to our Free Advertising page.
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One solution is to put prospective link partners into three levels. This assumes that you have already rejected those that have negative value -- sites you don't want to identify with for various reasons -- pornography, violence, racism, pharmaceuticals, and so on. Here is a suggestion for three levels of inbound links (links pointing at your pages):
Level 1 - Basic Links These links will often be from sites you have not taken a lot of time to study. So they may not have significant positive value. But they will not have negative value either. Therefore, if exchanging links with these partners can be done efficiently, there is no downside to doing it. These will usually be "reciprocal" partners and can be given links on properly formed "link directory pages". The more time and effort you put into your directory, more valuable it will become.
