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Picking a Linking Partner to Exchange Links
First of all, remember everything you’ve already learned about choosing the right keywords, because you’re going to use those same strategies to choose your link partners.
This is an important step: it’s where some people throw up their hands and succumb to things like link farms or FFAs (free for alls). The Internet is like any other workplace, though – at some point, you’re going to have do so some old-fashioned, nose-to-the-grindstone research. It’s pretty commonly known that linkfarms and FFAs aren’t very useful in terms of increasing visitors or boosting your rankings, so why bother?
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In a brick-n-mortar establishment, you select your location partly by who your neighbors are; link exchanging operates like that as well. Are your Internet “neighbors” successful? Well-managed? Do they have an established customer base? Are they known in the community? You want to choose links that will enhance your image and increase others’ knowledge of your product, and your choice of link partners will partially determine how that happens. Below are a few things to consider when shopping around for a link partner.
Does the site or company have name recognition?
Is it well-ranked?
Does the site work properly (no broken links, easy-to-use shopping, clear language and good visibility)
Does its own links to others’sites look good? Are they presented on the home page, or hidden deep in the site?
Does it look good?
Do your products or services complement the theme of this site?
There are a few of ways to decide who you want to partner with:
Go Fishing
Hit Google, type in your most relevant keyword and see what comes up. Now you’re looking at the highest-ranking sites for your topic of interest, and prime territory for link exchanging.
Consider Your Faves
Are there companies you like to do business with that are relevant to your site’s theme? Products you think are terrific, policies (like donations to charities) you’d like to support? As in old-fashioned business, working with products or companies you like and trust is a sensible way to choose your link partners.
Vertical Portals
Especially important for niche products but also for most everyone else, vertical portals are a good way to find like-themed websites already affiliated with a group. You may decide to exchange links with several websites within a single portal, because that’s where complementary products and services can easily be found.
Link Exchange Topics
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