Adding a Links Page to Your Web Site

According to Bill Garnett of Multimedia Marketing Group, In the Web beginning, there were links. Before there were banners, before there were search engines, there were links pages. Everyone had them. Like pioneers on the frontier, we helped each other out by freely exchanging them. But those times have passed and the humble link is often overlooked as a way of bringing traffic to a Web site.

What Is a Link?
Links, also known as hyperlinks or hotlinks are the usually underlined pieces of hypertext that allow users to leap from page to page. Figuratively, links are the connections between your Web site and the rest of the Web. It’s the use of links that makes the Web a web.

Is Yours a Closed or Open Site?
If your Web site has links to other sites, it is an open site. If, however, you are one of those Webmasters who believe that in order to thwart competition you must keep visitors browsing (or captive), then yours is a closed site. It’s too easy to lose prospects if we let them leave our site, says one small business owner, expressing an all-too-common and shortsighted belief.

You may agree, or simply be skeptical about the usefulness of links on your site. But Dan Janal, author of Online Marketing Handbook writes, Links are a powerful marketing tool. You don’t lose business because people leave your site, you gain business because people realize your property is located in the heart of all the things these customers want to see and do!

(In fact, although we want you to read this article, you may choose to click on any of the links embedded in it and be taken somewhere far away. But if this material is interesting enough, we trust that, eventually, you’ll come back and keep reading.)

There is one way to simultaneously give your visitor a link to another Web site and keep them on your site, and that is to have the link open a new window. That way, your site remains in a browser window for them to come back to. To do this on GoBizGo, all you need is the html code that tells your visitors browser to open a new window. Here it is: http://www.putyourURLhere.com target=new window >name of Web site.

There’s some debate about whether doing this is actually good. The reason? Less experienced Web users might want to use the browser’s back button to back up to your site but if you open a new window, the back button won’t go back to your site, because the first link is to the site you linked to. A visitor would have to close that browser window to find yours. As people get more Web-savvy, more people understand this (and it can be pretty clear when that new window pops on the screen), but if your visitors are likely to be inexperienced, opening a new window can be more trouble than its worth and some experienced Web visitors get annoyed when lots of new windows pop open.

So, it can make sense just to take a chance and use a regular link. If your content is interesting, people will come back to it, using the back button.

You Need a Linking Strategy
By now, you should be convinced that an open site is more in the spirit of generosity and collaboration that is at the origin of the World Wide Web (and that it is a good thing), but how do you decide what links to have on your site?

Random, haphazard linking to anyone who offers to trade or to someone to whom you owe a favor is easy, but not very effective and is unlikely to get you the kind of traffic that will help you build your business. Trading links with other Webmasters, another approach to linking, can work very well for some Web sites, but before you agree to link your site with any others, make sure the site you’re considering fits into your linking strategy.

Your linking strategy must focus on Web sites that offer information related to your industry that your visitors will find useful and valuable and to sites that are respectable and of good quality. If you link to an unprofessional site that’s not very trustworthy, it’s as if you’ve mislead your visitor and it reflects poorly on you.

But a carefully considered links page which should be a service to your customer has the power to transform your brochure-like Web site into a resource for Web surfers.

Reciprocal Links
By exchanging links with other reputable Web sites, you create more opportunities to be seen online. But trading links without a strategy in place is not only shortsighted, it can make you look bad. Remember that the links you’re offering on your Web site are your endorsement of other businesses, and they should reflect your philosophy and expertise accordingly.

Reciprocal linking can be political, but if your linking strategy is clear, you won’t be swayed by the politics. Sometimes offering a link on your page motivates another Webmaster to reciprocate, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, a request for a link starts a conversation that evolves into a connection that goes much further than a mere link.

If a Webmaster will only link to you if you link to them, but their site doesn’t fit into your strategy, offer instead to refer their site on a case-by-case basis to appropriate prospects, or to send out an email message spreading the word.

Strategic linking can provide you with a network of good connections, making it easier for you to extend your reach to new prospects, expand your market, re-define your goals, and grow your business. Links also allow you to build bonds with sites that may have more exposure and stronger connections than you do to the markets you’re after.

Back to Bill Garnett, who says, A link campaign is a seeding process. Links tend to multiply. The more links a site has, the more links it will get over time. Links do not drive large amounts of traffic in a short period of time, but they feed a constant stream of highly qualified traffic to a site, month after month.

Your Links Page
First of all, don’t link just for the sake of linking, and don’t try to set a record for Web site with the most links. (Yahoo! already holds that record.) Crowding your pages with unhelpful or long lists of links will dilute your own message and will be too unwieldy for visitors to wade through. Instead, determine the categories that you think would be of interest to your visitors and include only those Web sites that you are willing to endorse and recommend.

The links you offer on your site can be quite varied. Here are a few general examples of the kind of content your links may offer:

Articles related to your field from preeminent authors and industry publications. If you want to make it really easy for your visitors, link directly to specific articles posted on other sites.
Online reference materials for your industry, or that you find invaluable and in keeping with your site/business purpose and personality.
Trade organizations and online directories that may lead your visitors to job and networking opportunities, educational materials, and access to tools for achieving their business objectives.
Colleague and complementary sites selected businesses (sometimes even competitor sites) whose site content complements and adds to the content on your site.
Sites of your clients, not all of your clients, of course, but those projects you’ve worked on or those clients whose philosophy you admire and you want to endorse.
A Word about Linking to Your Clients’ Sites
Links to your customers’ and clients’ sites goes a long way toward lending credibility to your own site. However, some people fear that by doing this, they’re offering the competition an easy opportunity to steal their clients. In reality, if your relationship with your client is so flimsy that all the competition needs in order to infiltrate is a link to their site, then you need to work on your relationships.

Examples of Good Links Pages
A smart, focused links page offers resources that go into more depth on topics related to your products or services. Here are some Web sites for both product- and service-oriented businesses that offer such links:

http://www.jfisherlogomotives.com: The links page on the Web site of Jeff Fisher Logomotives, a Portland, OR-based identity design firm, is called Design/Client Links and has two main categories: Design Resources and Clients.

http://www.dubinspeak.com: Bert Dubin consults with professional speakers who want to be more successful, and his Web site offers a page of Speakers Resources that includes online communities for speakers, a Web site dedicated to improving your voice, and sites offering marketing ideas for speakers.

http://www.elizabethhack.com: The links page on the Web site of this artist is called Free Stuff, and she offers visitors everything from free clip art and fonts, to reference sites and an online salary calculator.

http://www.stusmusic.com: The Web site for Stu’s Music Shop, a retail store in Maryland, offers a links page that includes music publishers, instrument associations, and educational resources.

About the Author

Ilise Benun is the publisher of the Web site for The Art of Self Promotion, a quarterly (print) newsletter of manageable marketing ideas, and the author of Self Promotion Online, an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning effective strategies to promote oneself via the internet:To contact see details below.


http://www.artofselfpromotion.com
http://www.selfpromotiononline.com