One of the most enduring Search Engine Optimisation techniques since the rise to prominence of Search Engines has been to swap links with other web sites.
After all, the Internet is a free flowing highway of information and interlinked web sites, and no one web site can presume to act as a cul-de-sac on this information network.
But like most good Search Engine Optimisation practices, to build a good quality neighbourhood of swapped links with similar themed web sites takes time and some effort.
A question we are asked frequently is, how do you go about swapping links? How should we approach other web site owners?
From experience, we have found that a drafting a polite and simple email and sending that to the web sites you want to swap links with is over time the most effective way of ensuring the links you swap are with good quality web sites of a similar theme - they don't need to be direct competitors, but web sites that are related to the market you are in or the products or services you sell.
Link Neighbourhoods
Years ago it was all about swapping links with as many other web sites as possible. It didn't matter what the web site was about, it didn't matter if you paid a 3rd party to create a thousand new web pages all linking to your web site, it was all about the total number of links to your web site.
These days Search Engines such as Google will punish your web site and could even remove it completely from their lists if Google suspect you of randomly swapping links with any other web site. This practice is seen as a 'black hat' or spam.
Instead, the importance of who you swap links with has never been greater. A link neighbourhood is a term used to describe the web sites you link to, what web sites they subsequently link to, and the web sites that link back to you.
The most important factor is relevance. Make sure that you only link to web sites of a similar theme to your own, and that they also only link to other similar themed web sites.
Shopping Directories
One of the few exceptions to the above rule are shopping directories, web sites that exist simply to provide a virtual catalogue of shopping web sites. In our experience, adding your web shop to a well placed shopping directory either directly or through an affiliate scheme has not counted greatly towards the optimisation of our web site but can lead to increased visitor numbers to your web site.
We recommend searching out perhaps the best placed half a dozen or so shopping directories on Google and swapping links with them.
The Email
So you have done your research and are ready to start link swapping with other web sites. How do you do it?
Its actually quite straight forward, and being polite and to the point typically produces more positive responses than overly promoting your own web site.
Here is an example of a link swapping email:
_______________
Dear Sir / Madam,
We are a family run business and UK based eCommerce service provider called Internet Retailer, you can see our web site at www.internetretailer.biz.
We came across your web site on Google and would very much like to exchange links with you. Swapping links with similar themed and good quality web sites can help improve search engine positions and encourage mutual visitors to each web site.
If you would like to swap links with us, please add our link using the following information:
Title: Internet Retailer
Description: A UK based eCommerce service provider who create and host easy to use Web shops for home and office based retailers. Suitable for all levels of ability, start selling online today with your own feature rich and customisable web shop.
Please send us your own details and we would be delighted to add a link to your web site from our links page.
Many thanks for your time and we look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
____________
Unfortunately with the volume of spam emails we have to deal with these days, a lot of your link swapping requests will be hoovered up by their delete key, but by spending an hour or so a week sending out targetted link swapping requests, over time you will build up a good link neighbourhood.
Adding a Link to their Web Site
With Internet Retailer's easy to use web shops, adding a link to another web site is a simple process.
After you have logged in to your shop's admin pages, choose MARKETING -> Swapping Links from the navigation choices.
The first step is to create Link Categories to organise your links into. For example, if you run a sports equipment web shop, you might want to create separate Link Categories for Golfing Holidays, Cricket Club Web Sites, perhaps even Sports Insurance.
After creating your Link Category you can then add your link which will appear automatically on your web shops link page.
Link swapping with other web sites is just a small part of Search Engine Marketing, but over time it can be a very effective way of increasing your web sites exposure on Search Engines, and increasing visitor numbers who have followed a link to your web site from a web site you swapped links with previously.