1. Unique Article Content – One of the most important things is to make sure your article is unique to the article directory.  Article directories are looking for unique content.  Do not submit duplicate articles.  That is a sure way to get your article declined, but an even better way to get your account deactivated.  Run a search before submitting your article to see what kind of content is being offered.

2. Choose a Descriptive Title – Along with writing a unique article, choose a title that describes your content well and targets your article keywords.  Some articles I receive will include only one or two words.  It is not a good idea to be vague.  Be as specific and detailed as possible.  Select a title that will draw your reader in!  Another important thing to note is that a title marked in all capital letters is usually frowned upon by article directories.

3. Format Your Article Properly – Many article directories prefer that you do not use hard breaks.  In other words, as you write your article lets your text automatically wrap to the next line instead of pressing ‘Enter’ after every line.  Also, pay attention to what the article directory requires as far as coding goes.  The key is to make it easy on your reader to read the article.  A formatted article also portrays professionalism and quality.  Part of professionalism and quality is to use the spell check.  A poorly spelled article will result in a rejection and a delay in getting your article published.

4. Length – It is vital before you even think of submitting your article to an article directory to make sure your article is the appropriate length.  It is a safe assumption that the article needs to be at least 500 words.  In the process of making sure your article is a good length, do not spam the article with nonsense.

5. Keywords – Do make sure you choose appropriate keywords that relate to your article.  Keywords are vital for your article.  Keywords allow for your article to be found by users searching for those words in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search.  Keywords are very important for gaining maximum exposure for your article.

Along with these five principles, take the time to read the submission guidelines for the article directory.  This may seem like a very obvious principle, but I do not have the feeling many follow it.  Usually the submission guidelines are not lengthy.  The principles above are pretty much standard for gaining an inclusion into an article directory, but it is always wise to read the site rules so you are sure to meet the article directory’s standards.

Reciprocal links are links with other sites which are usually are related to the theme of your website. The concept is very easy to understand, you link to a site and that site links back to you. The idea behind this goes back to you scratch my back I scratch yours. Some sites have specific requirements when linking. For example some sites might have restrictions based on content, page rank, or even domain names.

So why are they important?

The reason link exchanges are important ranges from your traffic quality to your search engine position. This method of traffic building is 100% free and this always fits nicely into any website’s budget. It just requires dedication and time to build up quality links with other sites. By taking the time to sniff out links that relate to you and sites that are legit can have some huge payoffs.

First, it will increase your link popularity which is the search engines counting up how many times it finds your link on other websites. This act of counting up the links or otherwise known as a “Link Popularity Check” will increase your position based on the amount of links it finds. A nice tool to check your popularity can be found here.

Your Link Popularity Rating is a combination of:

* The Number Of Sites Linking To You
* The Words That Are Used To Describe Your Site In The Links To You
* The Relevance Of Those Sites As They Relate To Your Subject Matter
* The Link Popularity Of The Sites That Link To You
* The Search Engine Rankings Of The Sites That Link To You

Secondly, the visitors that come from related websites are highly targeted and you’ve a much better chance of selling them your product or service since they’ve come to your site through a link on a related website. The logic behind this is simple they came from a site that had a theme related to yours. So we can make the assumption that they are interested in your product or service. So hand picking who you should exchange with should be very clear now.

Link Exchange Services

I am sure you have all seen the ads before that go something like “Get 1000’s of backlinks to your site!”These services really do not work well. They are designed to include all of its members links to be seen on your website. Some places have filters we you can specify the content based on the category another member might have placed themselves in. There are a few reasons this is really bad. One reason is that any member can put themselves in any category so the filter system can be comprimised quite easily. Another reason is these services are not worth it is that you can find alot higher qaulity sites by simply searching. Again, this can be time consuming but in the end it is worth it. All these members are sites looking for shortcuts and are typically not well ranked in search engines anyway so why would you want to be on these sites anyway? Finally, why would you pay for something that is free?! You can contact everyone of these webmasters and build a mutual relationship instead of going through a middle man and paying a premium on top of that.

Can Link Exchanges Hurt Me?

A very common misconception about link exchanges is “The more links you have the higher you will be ranked.” While part of this is very accurate, we must understand that the worng types of links can do more harm then good. You would do well to avoid participating in link farms (FFA, or free-for-all link lists that you can add your site to), the reason to stay away form this is because these have become recognized by the search engines, and by Google’s anti-spam algorithm specifically, as red flags for spam – and can often get your site banned from their index. And it makes sense – if you have thousands of non-relevant links pointing to your site, that does not say much about the legitimacy of your content. Major search engines have begun to aggressively penalize web sites that are deemed to be engaged in such linking strategies.

Do Reciprocal Links Still Work?

Well the bottom line is if they did not work this article would not have been written. But with that said it is a known fact that reciprocal links are NOT as effective as they used to be. This does not mean abandon ship as many other webmasters have done. This just means they do not play the same role as they used to. They do however have the long term effect and can still bring you a bunch of targeted traffic at no cost to you. The biggest claim on the net as far as link popularity and links are concerned is “one way links” work better then reciprocal links. Here is the difference between the two, if you link to another web site and the other web site links back to you, it’s a reciprocal link. If you link to another web site and the other web site doesn’t link back to your site, it’s a one way link. One way links obviously are harder to find and usually cost some money to have.

Conclusion

The moral of the story is this: reciprocal links although not as effective as they used to be are still effective enough to warrant the time and effort to create the relationship with other websites. One must be very picky about one’s site selection and keeping the content related to your site is a must. One way links are seen by search engines as more important then reciprocals but again you will most likely end up paying for these. Adapting to the times is no surprise when dealing with the web, so you must ask yourself “what is my competitor thinking in regards to link exchanges?” The answer is they are building them up related to their content. So by you not keeping up with the times you simply fall short in the long run. There are no short cuts in reciprocal or one way linking unless you have deep pockets to shell out money on expensive text links on high ranked sites. So the next best option is to dedicate the time and effort to your site. If it wasn’t this way the internet would be useless and we would never be able to find what we are looking for.

Don’t worry! This is something every webmaster goes through and is to be expected. (Well, webmasters in the late 90’s expected to launch their site and be millionaires the next morning, but times have changed since those wonderful days!)

But there are some quick and easy things you can do to begin building your ‘link network,’ which will ultimately help drive traffic to your site. Since the Internet’s conception, the notion has been that sites link to one another, while web surfers click from place to place. Thus, the challenge begins: Get your site linked to as many others as possible.

You can start contacting other websites offering to trade links (but be prepared to invest a lot of time); you can buy links (but be prepared to fork out some cash); you can join link-trading programs (but be prepared to get a lot of irrelevant sites linking to you); or you can start submitting your website to web directories.

What Is A Web Directory?
A web directory is a compilation of sites organized by category or topic. Most web directories have multiple levels of categories, progressing from general to highly specific. In addition, a web directory editor will likely have to approve your site, lending it at a certain degree of credibility. Being listed in a directory ensures that if a web surfer finds their way into a specific category, they don’t just see your competitors, they see you! And, if they can see your link, they can click it, producing traffic to your site.

A Web Directory Listing Helps with SEO
If you have a website, you undoubtedly know the importance of ranking well in Google and other major search engines. These search engines count links from other sites as votes for your site, which helps determine your ranking, or position in the search results. There are a lot of other parts of the algorithm and this brief explanation doesn’t do it justice. However, it serves the point that links improve your ranking, and that’s something every website owner needs to know.

A link in a directory that is spidered by Google (and a lot are) will count as a vote for your site. This improves your ranking, and yet again helps drive traffic to your site. It’s important to note that not all directories help with SEO. Sometimes, a web directory will link to your site through a special URL that is often a programming CGI script. If the URL is not a direct link to your site, then the search engines don’t count it as a vote. Therefore, it’s best to pick directories that offer a direct one-way link to your site. (This way, you get more bang for your buck: traffic from the directory and improved search engine ranking.)

Relevancy Matters
If you trade links with random sites, then you are theoretically building your ‘link network,’ but you are sacrificing the quality of that network. Web searchers who are looking for information on a particular topic often use resources that link to a variety of sites related to what they seek. This makes web directories the perfect destination.

Since directories are categorized by topics, a person can arrive in the directory and have one-click access to a variety of resources. You definitely want to be one of those resources! Plus, when the other search engines pick up your link, it will count for more since it is surrounded by relevant content, which is most likely filled with your important keywords.

As you build your link network, you’ll continue to see increased traffic. And if you use web directories as your vehicle, you are essentially paving more paths to your site. Several good submissions in popular directories will help get you rolling. The best part is that many directories are free, so this jump start won’t even hurt your bottom line.

Good luck and happy submitting!

It is always best to try to get other websites from the same industry as your own to add a link to your site on their site (on the homepage if possible). This is not as easy as it might seem as most of these people will be reluctant to do so. I have, in the past, spent hours phoning and e-mailing the webmasters from different sites which are in a similar field to my own site. Even when only one person agreed to my request after phoning up thirty people, I was happy. Hopefully this link will be permanent and over time could prove very valuable to me.

People who visit this persons site are now potential visitors to my own site as they may see my link and of course hopefully will click on it. In general the more links I am able to obtain the better, and in time I may well see an increase in my websites page rank. This in turn should move me up a few places in the search engines for my keywords, which of course should then result in more traffic.

This is the value of any backward link. If the page where my link has been added is a high traffic page or has a high page rank value then I am even more fortunate. As an example the link would be of far greater value to my site if it was placed on a page with a page rank five rather than a page with a page rank two.

How many backward links should I be aiming to obtain?

In my humble opinion you have to be careful not to build up the number of these backward links too quickly. It should be an ongoing project throughout the life of the website. If as an example you are able to obtain ten every week for five years, this would be superb. Where it can go wrong is if you obtain:

ten in week one

none in weeks two, three and four

three hundred in week five

none in weeks six, seven and eight

two hundred in week nine

This is very irregular and weeks five and nine suggests you have purchased a whole bundle of links. This could quite easily raise a red flag with the search engines.

There is no quick fix, hard work pays off and we all need to have patience. I always look to the long term and believe in time the work I put in today will be of great benefit to me tomorrow.

Other ways of obtaining links is by:

Writing articles

Purchasing a text link ad

Out of these two options I prefer the writing articles option. It can be quite boring to write these articles in some peoples opinion and in a way I agree. As I have already stated however, hard work pays off and this is a simple way of gaining one-way backward links. I try to ensure that each article that I write is informative and offers the reader some hopefully good advice. On average I probably write seven articles per week promoting different websites.

But if you offer something in exchange, your odds of getting that link go up a lot. The currency of exchange on the Internet is knowledge – quality website content. That’s why many webmasters are turning to article submission services to promote their websites.

Using Articles to Get Links

Original articles placed on other websites are a fantastic way to get links back to your site. Not only do original articles showcase your knowledge and skills, they also include something called a “resource box” at the end. This box contains your name with two or three lines of information about you and your business, and a link back to your website formatted in any way you wish.

Services like RCPLinks.com use original articles to place your one-way links. With specialized submission software, they can get your articles, containing your resource box, out to hundreds of  websites. Once your article is posted, each of these websites will send out a one-way link to your site from that resource box; even better, the sites your article is placed on have good rankings on Google themselves.

Whatever Happened to Reciprocal Links?

Once upon a time, something like a year or two ago in the fast-moving world of the Internet, reciprocal links in which you agree to link to someone if they link to you were a great way to make your site look popular. But the techs at Google and other search engines figured this out. Their search engines have been cataloguing who links to whom for a while, and it wasn’t hard to figure out which pages linked to one another for no discernable reason except to spam links, and exclude those links.

This makes one-way links incredibly valuable. They’re the primary link type you can be certain will count for you in the search engine races.

Reciprocal Links: Not Dead Yet

Despite the controls the search engines place on reciprocal links to prevent artificial inflation of your site ranking, there is still a place for reciprocal linking.

Sites that link to one another and that have some similarity in content are the ones that search engines still use to add to your rankings. But you can’t do this with an automated submitter, though many online companies would like you to think you can.

Instead, you need to research manually and individually each potential link partner. You’ll need to identify the partner, determine the site’s suitability and compatibility for yours, and contact the webmaster to propose an exchange of links. This is amazingly time-consuming, but over time trading links can help you build your site ranking.

The best way to get your website jump-started in the rankings is through article submission. In the beginning, you need the web equivalent of a nitric oxide boost, not incremental steps. Trading reciprocal links can come later, when you have more time to devote to climbing in the ranks.

Apparently submitting your site to web directories is one of the quickest ways to get links, but getting listed is sometimes much more difficult than it may seem.

The problem is that web directories are swamped by a large number of low quality submissions: poorly designed web sites, web sites without any original content or created only to display advertisements and so on.

For this reason directory editors review hundreds of sites per day and accept only those complying to a very strict set of guidelines. There are days, and I talk by personal experience, when more than 90% of submissions are rejected, in many case without even the need to visit the site simply because of a poorly written submission.

If you want to increase your chances to see your site listed, it’s essential to understand what informations you are required to provide about your site and how to properly submit them.

At least title, description and url are required by all directories.

Web site title
Directories have more or less restrictive rules about what you can or cannot have as your site title.
Some allow only your official domain name or company name, other are more liberal.

In any case a good title should never exceed 4-5 words. Using a long list of keywords as title (keyword stuffing), excessive repetitions and inappropriate punctuation must be absolutely avoided.

Web site description
Many sites are rejected due to an inappropriate description. A description is not an advertisement and should never contain superlatives or excessive marketing hype.

Directory listings are usually searchable by words contained both in title and description so the keywords commonly used to find your site should be included in your site description. However always write 2-3 complete sentences that sound natural do not make your description a long list of keywords.

Web site URL
You would say that people should at least be able to correctly submit their own web site url. If you work as directory editor for a while you will change your mind! It happens quite frequently that a site is rejected simply because of a mistyped url.

Never type your site url directly into the submission form. Test it in your browser, save it in a text file and copy and paste from there.

Each directory can have some other specific rules, so be sure to carefully read the submission guidelines and comply to any special requirement.

It’s said that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression: directory editors read the informations you submit before visiting your web site. Learn to properly write your submissions and you will greatly increase the chances to have your website accepted.

Let me tell you something, this is a bad decision to make if you are thinking about any of these services. I have experience in this field and thousands of links are not going to help your site out any!

One of the best ways to approach link popularity is to think about the relevance of your site to one you would like to link to. It is better for you to have a small amount of links to your site than having a large amount if the relevance is high! The higher the relevance, the less links you need to have to increase your popularity. Google and Yahoo do not only look at the amount of links, but the quality of links. The better quality, the better positioning and page rank. So do yourself a favor and work on getting your links on quality relevant websites and you will reap the rewards of doing this right!

The first thing you can do to start promoting your website is start trading space with other websites.  You can find websites and offer them space on your website to advertise their site.  In return, you would get a free space on their website.  Many times you will be able to earn more money if you make deals with sites who offer products that are related to yours, without being in competition.  You might have to talk to fifty website owners to get a few to agree, but if you can do this for free, it will be worth it.

Another way you can go about promoting a website for free is by utilizing blogs and message boards to your advantage.  When you post thoughtful comments on random blogs and message boards that somewhat relate to your website, you will be reaching more potential consumers.  For example, if you have a fish hook website, you could post about your website on a fishing blog or message board.  Those who came there would be most likely your targeted consumers and you could earn more money this way.

So, as you can see, to earn money online you do need to learn how to promote your website.  However, you don’t have to pay an ad company a ton of money to do it for you.  You may have to put in some time and effort, but you will be able to take on the task yourself.

For instance, imagine that you have created one of the best adult sites online. You have tons of images, and visitors love to come to your site. Now imagine that suddenly, though your user stats aren’t increasing, your bandwidth (the amount of data transferred from your site to viewers) usage is going up. Your server administration contacts you to tell you that you are delivering 40% more images now than you were last week.

Has your income gone up commensurately? No. Has the traffic served by your site gone up? No. What has happened is someone, instead of just ripping off your images, has decided to hotlink to them from inside his or her own website.

This means instead of saving your image in their own images directory, they are linking to the image where it is hosted on your site. At one time in the early, early development of the web, this was an acceptable solution to stealing an image, provided you credited it properly. Today, with bandwidth usage at a premium and many, many more high-resolution images online, it is not acceptable.

Why Do They Do It?

There are many reasons for image hotlinking. For instance, suppose a relative newbie has started blogging or selling on eBay. They want an image, but they are alert enough to know that copying it and putting it on their own website is illegal. So, they figure, you won’t notice if one person links out to your site. Besides, they really need that image.

That’s an innocent use, and unlikely to greatly increase your image serving. But what if you’re running an image-heavy site – an art site, for instance – and a competitor decides to simply use the images you’ve uploaded to sell their own posters? That is malicious. And if they use all your images, they can double or more your bandwidth usage, with no benefits whatsoever coming to you. There are even malicious webmasters who use this as a way to drive competitors out of business, as extra bandwidth is either charged for by the web host or the site is taken offline. And, unfortunately, it is not illegal. Yet. (Though some web servers will shut down a hotlinking site after complaints.)

A good analogy is someone wiring their home up to your electric utility pole. They don’t pay for the electricity metered through your home – but you do. Many hotlinkers try to rationalize that what they are actually doing is akin to stealing cable – not at all the same, as cable users pay a flat rate for all the services they use total – or similar to using someone else’s wireless WAN connection. Not only is this not true, but hotlinking is much more traceable than any of these examples. All it takes is patience and a good Google search.

Am I Hotlinking?

If you are linking directly out to any image or other non-HTML file that is not hosted on your own website, and you don’t have permission from the webmaster to do it exactly that way, you are hotlinking. Anywhere you see a link starting src=”http://” that goes on to list a domain that is not yours, you are hotlinking. Bandwidth to serve this image is not charged to you, but rather to the person you’re stealing the image from. See the electricity analogy above!

You can either host images and other files from your own image directory, or you can upload them to a free image server that states in its usage restrictions that you are allowed to hotlink. Otherwise, just don’t do it.

Though it is difficult to prosecute people hotlinking, there are ways to punish them. For instance, some webmasters use the “switcheroo” – they replace the image you’ve been stealing with something incredibly offensive, pornographic, or obnoxious. For example, they replace the beautiful flower you’ve used on your header with one of a body part – or with a guy holding a sign that says, “This person steals bandwidth.” Any time you hotlink, you leave your site open for someone else to manipulate it.

There are hotlink checking services that can check your image links one at a time to see if they have been stolen – or to see if they are safe from hotlinking. These consist of sites that allow you to enter your own image URL in their form; the next page either will or will not contain your image. If it does, you know you’re vulnerable. If you need a lot of images checked, you may have to pay a service to do it.

But there’s a much simpler way to do it, if you have time to check all your images. Simply run a Google search for the complete URL link. If anyone is embedding your image URL in their page, it will turn up in the URL search. At that point, you get to administer whatever correction is appropriate – switcheroo, warning off the webmaster, or complaining to the host of the website.

You can protect your images, movies, sound, etc. from hotlinking by proper use of an .htaccess file as well, or by speaking to your server administrator. Always check with an administrator before uploading an .htaccess file.

What Else Should I Know About Hotlinking?

Though there are few formal outlets to complain about hotlinking right now, it is certain that in the future this will be a more serious offense. Instead of hotlinking, email webmasters with content you like and see if they’ll let you use their content in exchange for a link back to their website; because of the value of links back, many will agree. Protect your own images, and even if you have them secure check them regularly. And to prevent good old-fashioned plagiarism, learn about watermarking your valuable images.

Tips in organizing your link exchange directory.

- Ensure your main directory categories page is linked from your main page.
It’s important that search engines can find it. Having properly organized link pages will provide you with strong keyword based pages. If you have a sitemap generated, include your full directory in there as well. Not only will this benefit you, but also your link exchange partner will get the proper credit for the exchange.

- Keep each site theme on it’s own page.
Group all home-based business websites on one page, all sports websites on another, all web hosting on it’s own, etc…

- Keep the pages short.
It is bad practice to put 100++ links on a page. Ideally the maximum amount of reciprocal links on one page should be 20 and link to additional pages as needed.

- Modify your Meta tags
Set your Meta tags to reflect the contents of that link page

- Always link back to your main site
On each link exchange page ensure you have a keyword-based text link back to your main URL. If someone finds your website through a search engine based on a page from your directory, you will want them to visit your main page Keep your link back to your main page in a prominent place within your directory pages.

- Keep a submission form for surfers to request a link exchange
Having a reciprocal link exchange form available for surfers saves you some time in searching out true reciprocal link exchanges. When a link is submitted for inclusion in your directory. Ensure it meets the true reciprocal link principals; make every link exchange count!

- Automate as much as possible.
There are several very impressive link exchange scripts available for free on the Internet. These scripts can save you time and money while you are building your link exchange directory.

And lastly….

- Update Regularly
Make it part of your routine to exchange links on a regular basis. Whether you have time to exchange a few links a day, a week or a month, making true reciprocal link exchanges will benefit your site for years to come.