Quality Link Exchanges

Have you ever visited a web site and become so excited, so enthralled by what it had to offer that you just read and read and read. Perhaps it was a collection of wonderful photographs, a set of poems or technical discussions about the internet. Regardless, the content was fascinating and you were interested enough that you wanted to find out more.

At this point in my surfing expeditions, I usually try and find the link exchange pages. On good sites, a link to these pages is obviously placed on every single page of content (just as are the guestbook, webmaster contact page and about page), so it should not be hard to find.

That's often the first problem that I run into regarding the link exchange pages - finding them. Oftentimes there is a link, but it's buried in an inobvious place on the home page. In my opinion a link exchange should be a central part of any website, so it should be accessible.

What's so important about a link exchange (besides it's obvious promotional benefits)? What you are doing, in effect, is recommending that your visitors take a look at some other sites for more information or some other benefit.

This implies that your own reputation is on the line. A good set of links makes you look good, and a bad set of links makes you look bad. You have to understand that you have impressed your visitors enough that they want to see other sites that you find good. If they are disappointed, they may not return.

A good set of links is highly focused to the subject matter of your web site. The sites are all of high quality and provide the information that your visitors should expect.

On the other hand, a bad set of links can be any number of other things. A series of random sites included just because they want to exchange links is very bad indeed. These are so obviously just fluff that your visitors will just ignore them. Including some banner farms, make-money-now or pay-to-surf sites makes you look like an idiot. Low quality sites just lessons your reputation.

You also have to ask yourself what you want to include about each site. Some link exchanges just list the site titles along with links. Others include descriptions, and the very best include some personal comments (perhaps a review) which explains why the link is useful. These personal touches make a link exchange far more valuable.

How many links should be in an exchange? That's up to you. Personally, I would set a goal to add at least a site a day (that's 365 a year), but even a site a week would be acceptable.

You MUST add new sites regularly, and make it very clear to your visitors that you do so. This encourages people to come back to see what you've added recently.

That's the key to a good link exchange. Not only do you gain the value from getting your links added to other sites, but you also improve your own reputation and make your site look extremely professional. On the other hand, if your link exchange is not well done, you may as well just skip it, as it may do more damage than it's worth.