Linking for Dollars

First, visitors to the other site follow the link. Links are like small ads and the more links, the more traffic.

Second, Google recognizes external links to your site as a measure of your site’s popularity. Google counts those links in its Page Ranking system. The more links you develop the higher your site will rank in Google and other search engines.

There are many ways to develop links to your website. Customers or suppliers are good candidates. You will be the most successful if you offer reciprocal links: “You link to my site and I’ll link to yours”. The business world has run on reciprocity for centuries. Why should the web be different?

Be certain there is a nexus, a connection, between your site and theirs. It makes no sense for a company selling auto parts to link to a website selling children’s books.

Links are valuable and worth developing but not at the cost of losing your site’s focus. Your first responsibility is to your site’s visitors. If your site loses focus you will lose visitors when your goal is to gain them.

Avoid link farms and exchanges. Most are nothing more than link spammers. Your site will have links on other sites along with dozens, maybe hundreds, of unrelated sites. Google and the other search engines are wise to this trick. If they find links to your site on a link farm they will not only ignore them they may ban your site from their listings altogether.