The Good, the Bad, and the "Don't Do Its" of Link Exchange
by Kathy Sparks, CPVA, Your Virtual Resource

Like everything else associated with building an online presence, there are about as many opinions on what to do and what not to do as there are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) companies. And there are lots!

My experience in the past five years has led me to believe that indeed links still count toward ratings in search engines--and yes, some disagree with me. But let's continue and I'll tell you why I still believe exchanges are important when used correctly.

Let's start with the "Don't Do Its"

1. Don't sign up with a company that promises to link your site to thousands of other sites automatically or that promises hundreds of links to yours. This will fill your email box with more emails than you would ever know what to do with.

2. Don't get hooked into joining with a "Link Farm"--this is just a long list of totally unrelated links--this will get you no where and lots of advertisements and spam email.

Web Ring Links
I'll have to admit I don't know if Web Ring LInks really do any good. Although the purpose is to create a link of webs in a "ring" that are common in product or content, the ones that I have researched lately included some very unfavorable links. Needless to say, I haven't entertained Web Ring Links lately and they don't seem to be popular currently.

Resource Page Link Exchanges
Resource Page Link Exchanges are a little better than Web Ring Links. If you choose to add a page to your site with a list of great resources, please make sure they are all relative to what you and your web site are about. You wouldn't want to recommend a service for cruises on a computer cable site. So make sure they fall in line nicely. And you do want to give your visitors quality places to find related resources that you may not offer. It's friendly.

Getting Published
Another great way to look very important in the eyes of the search engines is to request a highly ranked company on a Google search, for instance, to publish your articles on their site. That means several links back to your site, using your content and coming from a very good source, the highly ranked company. You, of course, put on your site something like "contributing writer to TheBestCompany."

Content is King!
Why do I say that? The absolute very best way to exchange links is to create content for your web site explaining something and then include a link right in the content. Well, this is good for the site you are linking to but not much good for you, so how do you benefit? You make an agreement with the web site owner to do the same. And I would suggest they do it within an article. If they don't agree, find another source.

Example: I have a VA Assessment page on my web site for people who are looking to partner with a VA to determine if he/she is ready for such a partnership. You might have an article or a page about partnering with a VA in which you would say something like, "see if you are a good candidate for partnering with a VA" and link to the assessment page on my web site. I could include a line that says, "see how the cost of a VA compares with the cost of hiring an on-site person" and link it to someone who has the chart on their site.

This takes some personal research and agreements, but it's well worth it. If we can get by the worry of competition and do some link exchanges, it would help the whole community, whether it be coaches, VAs, entrepreneurs or travel sites.

I consider with whom I exchange links by using the Google Page Rank. My qualifications are, 1) if they do not have a Google Rank of at least 4 or extremely focused on my content, I don't exchange links; 2) if I do a search and if they do not come up on the first page, I am reluctant to exchange links. Again, Content is King and if the content is what I love, I'll exchange.

Final note, this really becomes fun when you already have achieved a high Google Page Rank , then you can choose the exchanges you want.