Your Linking Campaign

What exactly is a "link"?

A link is the address of a webpage which is on one site that allows you to jump to the new webpage. One of the great things about HTML and the world wide web is this ability to link sites together. This results in the internet truly becoming a web, and the benefits to the surfer are tremendous. It is normal for virtually every site on the web to maintain a list of links to "favorite", "featured" or "special" places to visit.

In a "linking campaign" your goal is to have many sites link to yours, which gives you visibility among high traffic sites where interested surfers may see your link. This technique packs a two-fisted punch, since it also increases your search engine relevance, the more sites that link to you suggests a wider interest in your business.

Go to http://www.altavista.com and type in the search box:

link:yourwebsiteaddress

you will see a list of the websites that are linked to you. Also, go to http://www.google.com and type in your name or the name of your website, again, you will see a list of the websites who are linked to you.

Another effective way to discover how people are finding your website is to analyze your site's activity logs. Webtrends: http://www.webtrends.net allows you to compare your link popularity with other web sites so you can use this method to check what your competitors are doing.

Another method to check your popularity is to go to Link Popularity http://www.linkpopularity.com. This free service makes calculating your link popularity easy. Simply enter your url, and the service reports your link count from AltaVista, Infoseek and HotBot. You can then click on links to display the actual results from those services. You can also sign up to have reports e-mailed each month.

Linking occurs in many ways. Signing guestbooks and leaving your URL will link you to that page. Selling others products links you to the owners site. Entering contests and sweepstakes links you to that site. Writing testimonials to owners of websites telling them what you like about their site is a good linking method if the owner prints your testimonial on their site. Post your answers to questions in every discussion forum you can find. Take the time to find a topic you can advise on, and your site will be linked back to you for a long time. Write an article and put it into every article submission site you come across. Your article should have a resource box where you put your url linking back to your site. Your article may be used and posted on several other sites, all containing that link back to you. Applying for and receiving awards is another great way to link websites.

You can see that exchanging links with other websites similar to yours is important to driving traffic to your site. Set up a linking page to your site and invite others to link to you!

Enjoy!

About the Author

Clarissa 'kiki' Frampton
Editor/Publisher Start-Smartz Ezine
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