Link Exchanges also known as Reciprocal Links are an arrangement made by two webmasters to agree to add each others link on their website. Most link exchanges are done through a text link, but they can also be done through banners. With banners being pretty much ignored on the Internet today, it is best to stick to a text link.

Webmasters will participate in this form of cross promotion for the benefits of gaining link popularity with search engines and getting a significant increase in traffic to their website.

Preparation:

Your first step should be concentrating on having a quality website before you start a link exchange program.

Develop a professional looking website with solid content and navigation links on each page, making it easy to navigate through.

Check for any misspellings, broken sentences or non-working links.

Add a links page (reciprocal links, resource page, recommended sites, etc.) to your website for your link partners. It is best to have a page with a table of contents breaking down your link exchanges into categories. As you develop new partners, list them by separating them into the appropriate categories on your pages.

Make sure that your main links (table of contents) page can be accessed from all of your pages on your website (if appropriate). It is best to have this link on more than just your home page. Do not try to hide the link by burying it somewhere in your website. A good rule of thumb is, your main links page should be plainly visible and can be accessed from most any page within two (2) clicks.

The above two paragraphs makes it easy for the viewer to find the right resource, plus your site will be looked at more favorable by webmasters for a link exchange.

Once your site is set up for a link exchange program, you can go to any major search engine to search for websites that you want to exchange links with. Make sure to only use keywords that are revelent to your site.

Take the time to look over each of the sites of interest, only choose websites that are targeted to your site and one that you would recommend to your viewers.

When you have located some quality sites, look for the contact information to the Webmaster and send them a personalized email. Keep in mind not all webmasters will be willing to exchange links, so it is not necessary to keep sending them emails. If a Webmaster is interested in exchanging links with you, they will reply to your message.

Once you have formed an agreement with another Webmaster for a link exchange, follow through with your commitment by keeping their link on your site. If you should need to make changes to the location of their link, notify them of the change. Communication is the best tool to build trust.

Finally, develop a system to track and keep records on file of your link exchange partners. This can easily be done in a excel spreadsheet.

You will want to keep records of:

• Date of the exchange.

• The URL of your link exchange partner.

• Description of their website.

• Contact information of your link partner (name, email address, etc,)

• Location (URL) of where their link was added to your site.

• Location (URL) of where they added your link to their site.

• Status column (is the agreement still active) on occasion it's good business sense to check that your link is still being listed with your link partners.

• Date Checked; a date of the last time you checked to see if each of your link partners is still active.

Keeping records is an important step to your link campaigns. You can have first hand information to all your link partners, allowing you on occasion to check the active status of each partner.

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