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Link Exchange - Why?

Link popularity has become increasingly important among the search engines matrixes. Because link popularity goes hand in hand with search engine optimization, it is important for web-site to build a link popularity strategy. 

Link popularity is not simply obtaining as many links as possible linking back to your site. The quality of the links tends to be more important than the quantity of links. You will get better results in the search engines if you have link popularity from sites that have considerable traffic or a very high ‘Page Rank’. 

Developing link popularity is a process, which can be tedious, but is highly important. Your site needs to appear valuable to both visitors and search engines. Increasing your link popularity is essential. 

High Traffic Web Directories 
Submit your site to the most visited directories. Yahoo of course at (yahoo.com), LookSmart (looksmart.com), and Open Directory (dmoz.org) are examples of major directories. Keep in mind most major English search engines now require paid submissions. You may want to hold off paying for Search Engine submission until your marketing budget allows it. 

Reciprocal link exchanges 
One of the best ways to get links is to give links, through reciprocal exchanges. Link exchanges does two things. 
First, it makes getting links easier. Most webmasters are willing to help each other, so if you give them a link, most times they will return the favor. Second, by adding links to other quality websites, it increases the quality of your own website. Finally, you are providing a resource (links to other websites) for your visitors. 

Will you lose potential customers? 
If you website is good, you don't have to worry, and remember if they leave your site to go to another’s, some one else’s traffic is bound to end up on your site. 
When looking for possible link candidates, start by searching your strategic keywords at major search portals. You'll see a lot of competitors, but look for non-competing, complementary sites. Be some what picky when choosing link partners. You should select only those likely to be receptive to your link request. Give them a compelling reason to link to your site. Show them where a link might be advantageous. A good strategy is to link put up their link on your site before you contact them, which might help get a link back. Try to target only respected and popular sites of relevance to your target audience. A note about what is meant by a "quality" website. You do not want to link to any old website. You need to research the website and note such things as its Google Page Rank, theme, search engine rankings, the websites it links to, etc. 

Unfortunately when you are first starting out, many websites will not want to swap with new sites. In that case you might have to search a bit harder and may be "lower your standards" some but your persistent will pay off. Set goals and stick to them. A great source for link swap partners is LinksPartners.com.

It’s a free submission and directory, where you can submit your site or find potential link exchange sites. Internal Links Provide quality resources and appropriate outgoing links, including links to search engines, news hubs, weather reports, industry resources, industry professional groups, etc. Outgoing links are important for they provide incentive for other quality sites to link to yours, and they can improve your Page Rank if internal linkage is done properly. Having a link back to your home-page on every one of your web-sites pages is important. This is still an incoming link and search engines will notice. 

Make it a point to have at least one link to your home-page on every internal page. This can be a text link or a linked image. This is also very important for navigation, since your visitors may get ‘lost’ on your site, make it easy to get home! Site Designed and Optimization Before worrying about getting those external links, you need to create quality content that will make people want to link to you. Your website needs to be designed properly and optimized before you worry about links. The time spent getting your website's overall design and content properly done will make your link popularity grow even faster later. If your website is new and has been designed well and optimized, do not fall for those "get link popularity quick schemes.

" Be patient-it takes time. Yes, you should work on link popularity but you just can't get a link from anyone. While increasing link popularity is of fundamental importance, you should take note that there are certain strategies to avoid. These strategies hyped in the past should be avoided because they're now worthless and can get you penalized in search engines. 

Here are 3 strategies to avoid: 
1. Link Farms A link farm is a network of sites linking to other sites for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity. Search engines consider this spamming and will remove sites associated with link farms 
2. Reciprocal Link Exchange Services Networks consisting of hundreds of webmasters with sites on numerous topics are linked to one another. The service requires linking to all sites in network, making content unrelated. Search engines consider this spamming. 
3. FFA Listings Free for All listings appear and disappear rather quickly. Few people search through the listings except for spammers collecting email addresses. These sites are not indexed by search engines. 

In conclusion, link popularity cannot be overlooked, but as with any web site promotional technique, to be effective it has to be done properly. Running a link campaign can take a little time, but is well worth the effort if the groundwork has been laid and you put the time into it that it deserves, for these links establish relevancy, a top priority for search engines and consumers alike. Only then will it truly help your website out. 

Be Patient! Be patient, after you have gone through all the above steps, it will require minimum 3-6 months before your site features in the Search Engines.