Ok, ok. Most webmasters don't like link exchanges these days. Well, can't say I blame them. Link exchanges are time consuming, boring, and not really all that effective. So, why bother? The fact of the matter is that each link counts! Your website's success will be dictated by your efforts that go above and beyond your competitions. Even if a link resulting from a link exchange counts a "little", it counts. I would rather have a "little" of something good than nothing.
You can conduct your link exchange efforts through several channels. The first is to do a search under your primary keywords and visit the top 30 to 50 websites that come back. With each visit you’ll want to see if they have some kind of link directory. Often these will be in the guise of “recommended partners” or “our friends” or something similar. Chances are if they have a link partner directory, you can request your own link exchange. When contacting the webmaster, be polite and courteous and always include your website title, URL, anchor text, and description so they know who to link to. A common practice is to already have their link details added to your link exchange directory before you contact them. It shows a good faith effort on your part. Now the bad part. You’ll likely to receive only a 25% response from the webmasters you contact. The result is a lot of uploading HTML, emailing webmasters, and then removing links from those who don’t bother to respond. To further the frustration, you’ll need to periodically check the websites you’ve exchanged links with to ensure they haven’t taken your links down. Not much fun at all.
A second option to link exchanging is to join a webmaster guild or social network.
Free Links Direct now offers webmasters the ability to communicate with one another online for link exchanges, completely shielding their email from the public. Not only does this reduce spam, it allows webmasters to communicate with other webmasters who have already show a pre-disposition to be open to link exchanges. You can view website details without even leaving the Free Links Direct website. Give it a try and see what you think.
