According to ActivMedia Research, "Link Trading" between websites is second only to search engines in terms of the way people find information on the web. This means that link trading is crucial to the promotion efforts of any website. Websites that do not have an effective link trading strategy are missing out on an ever increasing amount of qualified site traffic.

Link trading does two important things for you. First, it brings qualified traffic in a short amount of time. When you trade links, you look for other websites that share your traffic demographics, but that do not necessarily compete with you. For example, if you have a site that sells flashlights, you might look for law enforcement sites, outdoors sites and emergency preparedness information sites, and request link trades with them. By reciprocal linking with qualified sites, you will increase the qualified traffic to your own site. Second, link trading helps to improve your link popularity. Many search engines rank sites according to how many other sites link to them. It is kind of a rich-get-rich, poor-stay-poor approach to relevancy listing. Trading links with other sites improves your link popularity and as a consequence improves your rankings in many search engines.

The big challenge with link trading is that it is time consuming and tedious. Finding link trade partners is slow, adding and managing links is burdensome, and policing link trade partners to make sure they are linking to you can be frustrating. Notwithstanding, link trading is worth the effort, because it works!

LINK TRADING STRATEGIES

1- If you don't have one yet, you will need to set up a link trade page. This is a page on your website where you list the links to your link trade partners. You have no doubt seen hundreds of examples on the web. Your link trade page should include a visible invitation to trade links with other sites in the categories you specify. Provide an email address so interested link trade partners can email you to request a link trade.

2- Finding potential link trade partners is not hard. Here are some ideas on finding the best candidates for link trades.

a. Look at the link trade pages of sites similar to yours. These pages will list many sites that are already in the habit of trading links. It stands to reason that sites that are already in the habit of trading links will be more apt to trade with you.

b. Use Webring member directories to find potential sites. You can find Webring member directories by category at www.webring.com. Webrings are a very intrusive form of communal link trading, because they require members to place a webring navigation graphic on the front page of their site taking up valuable real estate, and some would say, "cluttering" the site. Sites willing to submit to this are typically more willing to trade a simple link.

3- Now that you have a link trade page, you need to start with what I call the old "surf-n-swap". Basically, find sites on the web that share your traffic demographic, and send them an email requesting a link trade. Be sure to personalize the email so that the recipient knows the mail is not part of a mass mailing. Here is a sample link trade request letter you might use:

"Greetings, my name is ______________, and I'm the web master for (name your web site). I came across your (name their web site) while surfing and it occurred to me that we could both benefit by a reciprocal link exchange.

"I have found that trading links is one of the best sources for increasing qualified traffic to my site. If you have any interest in exchanging links with me here is my information. (Give the title and URL of your web site. You can also include the code for a link back to your website, ie <a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com">Your Website</a>)

"If you would like to exchange links use this information to place a link to our web site. Then email me with your information and I will arrange an immediate reciprocal link to your (name the web site.)

"I look forward to hearing from you.

Your Name
Webmaster

Start sending this email to as many sites as you can. Perhaps to 10 or 20 sites a day if your time permits. You can expect six or seven out of ten link trade requests you send to be ignored. You can expect two or three out of ten responses in the negative. You can expect a successful link trade with one or two out of ten requests you send. So in order to get 20 link trades, a typical site would have to send out between 100 and 200 link trade request emails. This takes time and effort.

THE HARD REALITY

Many website owners and webmasters give up on link trading quickly. It is easy to see why. Even though the results often justify continued effort, many people get discouraged because it takes lots of time and effort.

A BETTER WAY

A new company called Links4Trade, at http://www.links4trade.com has built an exciting new tool that automates the process of finding, adding, maintaining, and policing reciprocal links. Setting up dozens or even hundreds of links with qualified sites can be done in a matter of minutes, not days.