Getting Other Web Sites to Link to You

It's a simple fact: the more Web sites that link to you, the more traffic you'll generate. Your goal should be to gain as many relevant and permanent links as possible. In fact, getting more links to your Web site will also help your ranking in some major search engines. There are several ways to go about getting other Web sites to link to your site.

Contact the sites you'd like to link up with

The most straightforward way to get a Web site to link to you, is to ask. Call or send an e-mail to the site's Webmaster and explain why you feel that a link to one of your Web pages would benefit that site. Be sure to make the Webmaster aware of the value that will be added to their Web site if they link to your unique service, feature or article. If it's interesting enough, you'll get a link.

Offering reciprocal links is another popular way to create a new flow of traffic. A reciprocal link is when a Web site places a link to your site on one of their pages and you, in turn, place a link to their Web site on one of your pages. A word of caution about reciprocal links -- if someone contacts you for a reciprocal link, check out their Web site before you accept their offer and make sure it is something that you would be willing to recommend to your visitors.

You can also try a proactive, non-pushy reciprocal link method. In this case, find sites that you feel complement yours and link to them. Send an e-mail notifying the site of your link and briefly explain what you liked about their site and why you felt it warranted a link. You'll probably get a reciprocal link - without asking - about half of the time.

Link exchanges

Link exchanges are a simple way to get links to your site. They usually take the form of banners and are handled through automated swap systems. When you find a banner exchange service that you like, you submit your banner (usually 486x60 and under 10K) and the service gives you some HTML code to add to your page. Every time someone visits your page, the code takes an image from the banner exchange site and displays it on your page. The more visitors to your site that see these banner ads, the more your ad will be displayed on other link exchange members' pages.

Take the time to check out a bunch of banner exchange services and find the ones that offer you the best view ratios. For example, a bad ratio would be 5:1, which means for every five ads that you display on your site, your ad will only be displayed once on other participating sites. Some of the better services even let you determine what types of Web sites that you want your banner displayed on.

Web Rings

A Web ring is a group of sites that link to each other in a virtual ring and share a related theme or common interest. Every site in a ring links to another, so if you kept clicking through to the next site, you'd eventually end up back at the site where you started. When you join a Web ring, you are given code to include on your Web page and visitors can navigate between sites by using "previous site" and "next site" buttons. There are literally thousands of Web rings and each has from five to a few hundred members. Rings can help bring you targeted traffic, but their major downfall is the possibility of visitors leaving as quickly as they came.

Research potential web rings and decide if it's worth your while. More exclusive rings will bring you targeted traffic and if you can't seem to find one that fits you, you can always start your own.

Free Stuff

More people will link to your Web site if you offer something free for their visitors. If you are knowledgeable in a particular field, and you create quality content or software unavailable anywhere else, people will want to link to it.

"Link to this site"

Let the quality of your site do your work for you and put a "Link to Us" page on your site. Place a text or graphical link on some or all of your Web pages and if someone clicks on the link it will bring them to an informational page. On this informational page you can offer detailed information on how to link to your site and why it will add value to the referrer's page.