Including a link exchange as a natural part of your website is one of the most important traffic generating steps you can perform for your web site. When you exchange links with sites that have similar interests as yours, you will gain a high quality source of additional traffic that generally costs little or nothing to set in place.

Another benefit to reciprocal linking is increased popularity with search engines since many of them use the level of inbound links to your website as an indication of importance. In addition, your link area becomes a signal to other webmasters that you desire to exchange links and eventually you will not have to spend so much time looking for links on your own.

The selection and placement of links on your website should not be based primarily upon what anyone has described as being what the search engines desire or require. Place links on your site because they will provide a common exchange of traffic...and if this also satisfies the search engines, fine, but don't build your site for the search engines, build your site for people.

Another big mistake is to refuse a link exchange just because the individuals website or link page does not have an acceptable Google PR rating. If the site has content and services that will compliment your site and vise-versa, make the exchange. Google has already and will again totally change how and why they give credit or do not give credit to a link pointing to your web site. You need to stop denying possible traffic to your website from another website in exchange for the hope of a better rating with Google who owes you nothing and provides absolutely no guarantee of traffic.

Instead of worrying about how a search engine may or may not interpret a listing, spend your time creating links to sites with similar content that may send you a little "High Quality Traffic" from time. Just linking to other high traffic sites to please Google, might offer no direct traffic or totally inappropriate "Low Quality Traffic".

Low Quality Traffic:
"Traffic that may be large in volume but serves no purpose because it's from a totally different interest group. This form of cattle driven traffic may make your stats appear wonderful but generally leads to no direct sales. The only primary effect is generally an uncompensated burning of site bandwidth.".

High Quality Traffic:
"Traffic that may or may not be delivered in volume but is from other web sites of exact or similar interests as your own. This form of traffic is more likely to lead to sales, signing up for newsletters or at least bookmarking of your site for future reference. ".

Google will not always be free and Google will not always be on your side. Don't build your site to please Google. Build your site to naturally attract the customers you desire and require. This will go a long way in helping to ensure your long term business activity.

Create A Link Exchange Area on your Web Site

The purpose of your link area should be to exchange links with sites that have similarities to yours or are associated by some common thread. For example, a Home Builder could be associated with a carpet company or paint supplier, etc., but would not necessarily be associated with online gambling or computer hardware.

Your linking program will work best if it works within your own domain and creates link pages that are categorized for easy navigation by people and that can be read and indexed by search engines as well. Here is a nice selection of possible link exchange software choices:

• php Link Directory
• Use text links to find more traffic & link popularity!
• Automate Link Exchange Software
• Website Tools - Includes link exchange tools as well as other helpful web site management tools.

Provide a Link Exchange Request Page For Webmasters

Most automated link exchange software programs provide an interface for requesting a link trade, but whether you use a program or just create a html based area of your website, you will want to provide:

• Your link request guidelines.
• A sample or exact link of yours that needs to be set in place to initiate the link exchange.
• A method to request the exchange, such as a form or e-mail.

The more information and the more automation you provide, the more likely will webmasters request a link exchange. This simple act of somebody requesting to exchange links is a real time saver for you.

Create or Extend Your Base of Quality Traffic

Your traffic base must be one where you think about "Quality" before "Quantity". Your focus needs to be specifically geared towards what will be sure to help you. Follow these steps to both create and maintain your base traffic.

• Make a list of the Top 10 keywords for your website.
• For each keyword...
  • Perform a search for this keyword on each of the primary search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, Clusty, Alta Vista and Google.
  • For each set of search engine results, starting with the top 10 web sites listed, request link exchanges with each website until you have officially made requests to 10 web sites for that particular keyword.
    • Be sure to use the link request method provided by the website. DO NOT send your template e-mail link request to a website that offers an online link request page. DO NOT say 'link to us and we'll link to you' if they have made it clear you are required to link to them first (just assume this). You be the one to do the work and make this is as easy as possible for the webmaster of the website in which you wish to exchange links. Put their link on your website, follow their guidelines and then make the request.
    • If the website does not provide a link area or an official link request method, leave that site for now. Focus on sites that actively accept link exchanges and have provided a means to create one.
• To maintain your base of quality links, perform this function several times per year to discover new web sites that were not listed before or to expand your selection to the top 20 or top 30 listings.

The process of creating a base can be very time consuming, so create shortcuts for yourself and save templates of your site description and preferred keywords in a simple text file that is easy to access, modify and keep open in the background. If necessary, just pursue one keyword a day so that you are not overburdened. Keep things simple, stay focused and return again and again until you have accomplished this task. When complete, you will have at least 100 websites of maximum relevancy linked with you. This is a wonderful base from which to work.

Easily Expand Your Traffic Reach

Return to each website you have added to your base and inspect their link area. Every listing you see is very likely a business that is guaranteed to freely exchange links. As before, keep quality in mind and do not request a link request with all the websites just because the other website has them listed. Select a website for a link exchange because their service or product has similar interests as yours.

While performing your link requests with these additional sources, maintain your professional approach and follow all the guidelines previously provided when applying for your keyword based links. Follow the web sites requirements the best you can and make the job easy for the website where you are requesting the exchange. If the website requires something you will not or can not provide, simply skip it and go onto the next, but don't waste your time and the time of other webmasters by requesting what they clearly have stated they will not agree to. Don't be desperate, be patient and confident.

Things To Pursue...Things To Avoid

Pursue providing link exchange code. To help ensure you get link requests of your own that are easy to follow through with, provide several link variations for webmasters that find your link request page and use the form - textarea format to even provide the full code so they can simply cut and paste your suggested or required link.

• A nice effect is to provide "One Click" hightlighting and copying of the code. See the sample below. Click the "Highligt and Copy Code" button and then test it by pasting the code into the blank text window to the right.
  

  Increase Traffic Without Being Google Dependent - Increase your traffic base by obtaining multiple traffic sources. Reduce your dependency on Google's search engine and protect your web site business against erratic updates and penalties while also improving traffic quality. <p style="font-family: verdana, arial; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.trafficwithoutgoogle.com" title="Increase Traffic Without Being Google Dependent" target="_blank"><b style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman;">Increase Traffic Without Being Google Dependent</b></a> - Increase your traffic base by obtaining multiple traffic sources. Reduce your dependency on Google's search engine and protect your web site business against erratic updates and penalties while also improving traffic quality.</p>  Highlight and Copy Code

  
   
• To use this form of link display, place the following in the head of your document:
  
  <STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- .copybut {background-color: #D4D0C8; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt; border-width: 2px; border-style: outset; margin: 1px; border-color: #FFFFFF,#FFFFFF,#404040,#404040; text-align: center; color:#000000;} --> </STYLE> <script language="Javascript"> <!-- var copytoclip=1 function HighlightAll(theField) { var tempval=eval("document."+theField) tempval.focus() tempval.select() if (document.all&©toclip==1){ therange=tempval.createTextRange() therange.execCommand("Copy") window.status="Contents highlighted and copied to clipboard!" setTimeout("window.status=''",1800) } } //--> </script>

   Highlight and Copy Code 
  
   
• Then use the following outline when placing the code your wish to be copied.
  
  <form name="linkform1"> <textarea cols=40 rows=6 wrap=soft name="anycode1">YOUR LINK DESCRIPTION HERE</textarea> </form> <span class="copybut"><a href="javascript:HighlightAll('linkform1.linkcode1')"><SPAN STYLE="color: #000000;"> Highlight and Copy Code </SPAN></a></SPAN>

   Highlight and Copy Code 
  
   
• If using more than one instance of this on any page, change the unique name of the form identifier and textarea identifier. For example, where we used "anyform1" to ID the form and "anycode1" to ID the text area, we would use additional ID's such as "anyform2" and "anycode2". It really doesn't matter what you call them, as long as what you name the form and textarea is also what you use with the highlight button javascript.

Avoid listings with FFA pages. It might sound impressive that you could get your link listed on thousands of locations, but the only real traffic there is from other webmasters who want you to buy their product or use their service. There is really no atmosphere of reciprocation there. I have never seen anything come from it...except for hundreds of daily e-mail offers for everything in the world for which you could really care less.

Avoid traffic purchases. Places that sell traffic...25,000 visitors, 100,000 visitors, etc, send you this traffic as pop-unders or pop-ups and nobody really likes these and the windows are often blocked or deleted. In addition these programs are often served within a frame system. If somebody does like your site and adds a bookmark, they really haven't bookmarked your site because they have really book marked the window for the advertiser. When your new client decides to follow their book mark to you later, they will not find you, but will find whatever the advertiser wants to show them.