Reciprocal Link

Reciprocal linking ain't what it used to be, but finding relevant sites to swap links with is still worth your time and effort - just about! Use link-popularity tools to help, if you like, but always, always be professional when you ask to link-swap. Remember, the harder it is to get the link the more valuable it is for your website. (So avoid automated software if you can!)

Reciprocal Link To Boost Your Website Traffic!
Article by Steve M Nash

Reciprocal linking is another name for swapping links. You link to my site and I link to yours: we have swapped links, or set up a reciprocal link.

Sometimes, if you have a fantastic website, people just link to it; just like that.

Simple.

Most of the time though, you have to spend time finding suitable sites to swap links with. It could be time well spent, however, as search engines are beginning to take notice of how many links point to your site (especially from sites with similar content).

So where do you begin, what tools can you use, and how do you go about successfully swapping links?

Use this resource

Visit Market Leap's link popularity tool. The easy-to-use interface at Market Leap shows you just how many sites link to your site on the major search engines. And you can visit the linking sites too. AND you can use this tool on 3 of your competitor sites at the same time! (So you can compare your site's link-popularity with a competitor site, and maybe find new sites willing to link to your site too!)

As Marketleap put it: "[We have] designed this link popularity tool to help search engine optimizers and online marketers to not only find out who is linking to your site, but to also run a bench marking report to show you quickly where you stand in
comparison to competitors"

http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/

Or visit these links

• http://www.linkpopularity.com/
• http://www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Linkpop/
• http://www.addme.com/linkwatch.htm

Then reciprocal link!

The basics of swapping links go as follows:

1. Identify sites with similar content to yours (or sites that you would like to link to!)
   
   
2. Send an e-mail suggesting that both your sites could benefit from a reciprocal link (be polite, and address the webmaster by name). It helps to put your link up before you contact him/her.
   
   
3. Don't spend too much time with creating reciprocal links - most of your requests will go ignored; building reciprocal links is an ongoing process.

Once people begin to reply to your e-mail, create a "Links" section on your site and put all the links there.

Even do it yourself

For the programmers out there, you might like to try and manage your links with this great free Perl/CGI script (it even spots the cheats): Master Reciprocal Links

There are many other Perl/CGI scripts that can help. Visit this great CGI resource and do a search for "swap links" - http://www.cgi-resources.com

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Remember that reciprocal linking is not an instant cure to your website promotion woes; but reciprocal linking CAN HELP! As the links to your site increase, traffic to your site will increase too, and your search engine ranking may well improve also! (Especially so if your pages have gone through a basic search engine optimization process.)

Reminder: This page shows you how to reciprocal link to promote your website -- please rate this page