Free Links & Banners & Link Exchanges

Sounds Like an Easy Way to Get More Traffic; But, What's the "Real" Cost?

by Peggi Ridgway
Founder of Wordpix Solutions / www.Wordpix.com
and author of the Successful Website Marketing workbook

In the early days of the Internet's popularity, after discovering the power of hyperlinks, website owners began adding lots of links from their pages to pages on other websites, usually in exchange for links back to them as a way of building increasing volumes of traffic to their sites. Early on, developers created hundreds of links between web pages that had nothing in common. Charlie's Classic Car Parts got traffic from Susie's Salon, Lee's Custom Women's Vests included links to the local Chamber of Commerce. Site visitors were sometimes misled and often confused and the links did nobody much good.

Links that work. Eventually, people came to realize that the connecting web pages needed content (real words and descriptions) meaningful to readers - and the links needed to connect web pages that offered complementary content. Using this approach, Betty might visit a wedding florist's website and find links to wedding photographers; Jose could get white wall tires by clicking a link from his favorite classic car parts site. Best of all (roll the drums please!), Google and other search engines placed a higher importance (translation: more points, higher position) on links between similar content pages. Additionally, more importance was given to links made from real text (vs links from banners and words converted to graphic images) especially if the text contained the keywords relative to what the web page was about.

The bottom line: To create a web page that truly holds value for your reader (and gets him to return and refer), provide:

• links that are real text, not graphics

• text links containing keywords/phrases of the page

• links that connect to web pages offering similar or complementary content

We once displayed a list of links on this page that you could click to list your site "for free" on other sites. In exchange, those sites, which operated much like search engines/directories, provided links back to your site.

We stopped giving you those links because of the substantial abuse of the practice by "link farms." It seems that greedy traffic mongers set up hundreds of web pages for the sole purpose of displaying thousands of links on a given topic. With large directories of links, they can easily sell space to advertisers looking for a high volume of traffic from links. If you're a website owner, you'll probably receive emails inviting you to "submit your site" or get a free listing in a web directory relating to your product.

There are thousands of link farms (that look like search engines when you visit their pages) for "florists." These link directories are known to the floral industry as "order gatherers" because they simply provide listings of people attempting to process orders for flowers strictly through the Internet. The "florists" listed in their search directory may or may not operate real, honest-to-goodness flower shops. Many who are only "order gatherers" simply tack on a substantial mark-up to your floral order and pass it along to a real florist, who gets a small portion of the sale.

Such practices, based strictly on numbers and volume and the ease of setting up web pages, have decreased sales substantially for the real retail florists.

It is, after all, a numbers game.

The best way to establish a linking relationship is to do it yourself. (You could also hire a local college student, who would love to make a few extra bucks!) Explore sites with tips, parts, advice, additional information and resources about the topic of your own site. Then contact the webmasters, tell them your site's purpose and URL and see if they'll agree to link with you. Although it requires substantial time and is an ongoing process, this approach is free. And what's really great is it often results in other leads and opportunities with those websites -- things like publishing an interview with you or a special feature of your product or service.

Your choice of links can provide spectacular results. Imagine if you had 100 sites linking to a certain page on your site. Now imagine if just one of those sites was a nationally known site enjoying thousands of visitors every day. Links from such a highly trafficked site could get your site humming on Google.

In the meantime, here are some people you may want to contact for paid plans to market your site through links:

www.Traffiq.com - media buying (also offers a free program)

www.zananetwork.com - warm sales leads (for a limited time)

www.Adknowledge.com - text-based listings (no graphics) (the best kind)

Best of success to you!

Peggi Ridgway

Reprints of this article should include proper credit to the author and a link to www.Wordpix.com.

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