Site wide blogroll type links for link exchanges don’t count for much these days. People started manipulating link exchanges with mass lists of links and multiple sites would exchange links and enjoy increased rankings. Google got better and now discounts these types of links heavily.
You can still receive benefits if you do site wide link exchanges with a fairly small number of highly related sites, but the days of manipulating with exchanges is nearly dead.
There is a way to link exchange with a large number of sites and keep it “natural”. Find an article, page, or post on another site. Contact the webmaster of the sites and tell him you’re interested in a link exchange. Explain to them that you plan to write a post about “X” topic and you will link to their related article. Ask them if they would mind finding an article on your site that they like and either: 1) work the link into an existing post or 2) to include it in a new post.
The key to this is to make it look as natural as possible and not like it was an arranged deal. Both sites should link to each other naturally in a paragraph. Not simply “check out this site <link>” If the other webmaster is SEO savvy, discuss with them keyword anchor options. Don’t make it look too obvious with the keyword anchor, but there is no reason both sites can’t get an anchor benefit from this link as well.
The overall goal of the exchange is to be “natural”. And the linking can also benefit your readers if you actually pick useful articles. The more related the page linking is to the page getting links to, the more useful this link exchange becomes.
This is an easy way to work on building your links in a more “natural” way and doesn’t leave you dependent on directory submissions, article submissions, and bookmarking on social sites (all which are getting discounted). A well thought out plan and a savvy SEO can use exchanges like this to extend their ability to build links.
Related Posts:
Semantics for SEO
Where to Find Link Partners
How to Anchor Links – Better Backlinks Series
How To Get Links With Article Marketing
8 Easy Steps to Get Higher Rankings
{ 4 comments }
This kind of ‘natural linking’ seems to quiet a logical idea. Why haven’t I thought of it in the first place? What do you say if we do what you preach?
OK you’ve convinced me Jason, you’re not bad at SEO.
Heads up though, you need to keep your nofollow hand stronger.
Your feedburner link, your affil links to hostgator and seomoz and the 2nd half of the twitter feed all need some link deloving.
In your last paragraph you said, article submission links are getting discounted. I think you might have changed your mind now as I see your video actually recommending Article Marketer.
I have always used article marketing to get those all important anchor text links and have to noticed any drop in my rankings. I have tried everything from submissions, to link exchanges, guest posts, social bookmarking etc… and nothing yeilds the same results as article marketing.
To be honest I though I don’t think people know how to market articles correctly in order to enhance their seo efforts. Never mind more easy rankings for me : )
Comments on this entry are closed.