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Building
a solid traffic base
One of the biggest challenges on the Internet
is building traffic to a new site, especially if you don't have
much money for advertising. Trading links with other quality websites
(reciprocal links) can be an effective way to start bringing visitors
to your site.
Trading links is a good first step, but there
are a few things to keep in mind while setting up link partners.
1. Look for other sites
that you think would be of interest to the visitors who come to
your site. (But not direct competitors of course)
2. Try to think of a link partner as a partnership where both
parties will benefit. Too often webmasters think they can get
by placing another site's link 10 pages deep on their site, and
expect a home page link fro the other site. It just doesn't work
that way. When link trades are done correctly, both sites should
share traffic directly at the same time as helping both sites
get noticed by the search engines.
It is important to make sure you trade links with
good sites. Don't try to trade with thousands of sites that may
or may not be related to your site. Especially if you have to
use homepage links. Your site will end up looking like a "link
farm" before long, which tarnishes your reputation as a good
site.
Sometimes we have found it to work out best by
paying for a text link on a good site. This way you don't have
to place a reciprical link on your site, you get the benefit of
a one-way link and get to retain a clean site. The key here is
to not pay more than you expect the link to bring in for you.
If you think the link will generate an extra $1,000 a month in
sales, why not pay $200 a month for the link. It is all about
returning your investment.
We stress the importance of good link building
as a critical component of building solid traffic to your site.
This is a never ending process. You can never
have your link on enough other related websites. If people
don't know about your site, they can't find you. People learn
about your site by seeing your links all over the place.
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