How
to get reciprocal links?
How to get reciprocal links?
Now you know how important reciprocal links are and who you should
target when looking for links, but when you've found your targets
what's the best way to actually get them to link to you. What should
you say to the webmaster in the email or phone call that'll increase
your chances of them linking their site to yours.
First things first, always personalize the email you send to any
webmaster. This means actually visiting his or her site, noting
anything significant details about it, finding the correct email
address and the name of the webmaster if possible.
This shows you're serious about exchanging links, that you really
do value a potential link with them and separates you from the non-serious
people who couldn't be bothered to personalize and might as well
be emailing hundreds of sites with link exchange proposals.
Secondly many online email accounts and desktop email programs
are set up with advanced spam filters and if an email is not directly
addressed to a particular person it'll be automatically deleted
and hence will never be read. Personalizing emails by sending them
one by one will enable your emails to get into the inbox.
Thirdly many webmasters are spammed on a constant basis, this is
because marketing spammers have sent out email extractors to extract
email addresses from sites under a particular keyword or keyphrase.
Webmasters therefore regularly ignore messages they suspect as spam.
Having their name or website name in the subject will ensure your
email is not dismissed as spam.
If you do personalize you'll see a much better response than if
you didn't as you're making the webmaster feel special. Look at
it this way, if you don't care enough to find out some relevant
details and send a personal email to your prospective linking partner,
why should he or she care to link with you?
Many webmasters particularly on high traffic sites are weary of
others trying to get something for free off them, when you email
them your proposal they might think you're one of these people.
What can you do to put them at ease and to show them you're offering
a fair deal? Well I consider this one a bit of a golden rule, it
is this, always put a link to them first. Do this even before contacting
them, this seems to them more genuine and makes them believe that
you do really value their site as you've already linked to it. Another
advantage of this would be the fact that they might already have
seen in their logs that you're sending them traffic and want to
make sure this continues by linking to you. It is a good idea to
give a little description of perhaps a line or two which makes the
site out to be great. Everyone loves flattery and this should increase
your chances of getting a return link from them.
Now on to the main body of the email. Tell the webmaster who you
are, give them the address of your website and tell them a little
about it such as what services and products you offer from it.
Inform the webmaster that you liked their site and found it very
useful, tell them why you thought it was useful and mention which
sections you found particularly interesting. Always include the
URL of the website you liked as many webmasters have more than one
website.
Next you want to tell them you liked it so much that you've added
a link and a description for their site to your links page already.
This will increase your chances as many webmasters feel obliged
to repay a favor to someone who has said lots of good words about
their site. Make sure you give them the URL of the page where their
link can be found.
With that out of the way you need to suggest to the webmaster that
they add your site to their links or resources page, mention once
again that you've linked to them as you think your visitors will
be interested in and benefit from their site, then ask if they'd
consider doing the same for you. Have a couple of lines or two explaining
how this will benefit their visitors, direct the webmaster to particular
articles or areas of your site which would be of interest his or
her visitors.
By now they should be interested. Next you need to give them the
extra push by including the exact HTML code needed to add your link
to their page, you should include a little description of your site
in this HTML code. Remember the easier you make it for them the
more likely they will link to you. Make it clear that you can change
the description of their site if they wish.
Last but not least thank them for taking time to read your email
and say you hope to hear from them soon. Include your email address
and phone number.
Most webmasters will go to your links page to verify that you have
actually added their link like you said, with this in mind a technique
I have used in the past which you could also imply is to deliberately
misspell their company name or place an incorrect URL into the hyperlink
which is supposed to be pointing to their site. The point here being
that the webmaster will email you telling you that the link doesn't
work or that their information is spelled wrong and once they do
that the lines of communication are open and it is now much easier
for you to get them to reciprocate the link.
Following the above advice usually brings a 20%-40% success rate,
which is really good. It's best not to rush in and email 100 or
200 sites at once. You should be seeking to add about 10 good sites
to your links page every week, this usually requires emailing about
30 or 40 sites depending on your sites properties like contents
and traffic.
One thing is for sure though, it'll take time, usually from six
months to a year to develop really good traffic from reciprocal
links. It's well worth it however as your securing free long-term
traffic for your site.
About the Author David Callan. David
is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com
webmaster forums. Visit his webmaster forums for the latest discussions
on search engines, website authoring and Internet marketing related
issues and topics.
|
