Is Link Exchange Software Worth It?
Link exchange software can save you hours with your link building campaigns, but is it REALLY worth it? The concept is good in theory, but unfortunately link exchange software is often misused, and even abused by people trying to manipulate the search engines to their advantage.
For this reason, many prospective webmasters see an automated message requesting a reciprocal link exchange (which was generated by the link exchange software) as an insult. They would much prefer you personally wrote to them and politely requested an exchange. But of course that would take a LOT of time.
So using link exchange software is really a trade off.
It might save you time, but you’re also likely to have a far lower success rate when requesting reciprocal link exchanges.
Link Building: The More, The Better?
A common misconception among webmasters undertaking link building, is that the more links you can get, the better.
But this can actually hurt your website.
If you start a brand new website and start getting hundreds of new backlinks to your website every week, the search engines are going to think ‘how did that site get so popular, so quickly?’
Of course some websites will naturally attract hundreds of backlinks in a very short period of time, maybe they were in the news or something similar. But these websites will generally get away with it, because all of those links will be one-way (as opposed to reciprocal, which many link building webmasters have to start off with), and the anchor text will be naturally varied (whereas link building webmasters tend to get hundreds of incoming links that have the same anchor text, something that will raise a flag with the search engines).
What Types of Link Building Are There?
As we’ve said, a link building campaign needs to be well rounded if it is to have a good effect. You can’t just follow one method. Follow many.
These include; reciprocal linking, one-way linking, three-way/four-way/etc linking, paid links, social bookmark links, and so on.
LinkBuildingSchool.com will give you a run down on each of these types of link building methods in the next few days. But just remember for now; a solid link building campaign will incorporate ALL of the above methods, not just one or two.
Why Is Anchor Text Important?
In the link building game, anchor text is everything.
Anchor text is the text that is used to link to your website, from another website.
It is used by the search engines to determine what your website is all about.
For example, if you had hundreds of links pointing to your website with the anchor text ‘blue widgets’ then it is logical to think that your website would have information about blue widgets. In turn, the search engines will display your site prominently when somebody searches for ‘blue widgets’.
Now this is an extremely simplified version, but you get the point.
What Else Can Free SEO Link Exchange Tools Do?
There are free SEO link exchange tools available that can analyse your reciprocal links.
For example, you might want to check if your reciprocal link partners are linking back to you.
You simply type your website’s URL into the free SEO link exchange tool, and it will automatically check every site that your URL links to (your reciprocal link partners). It will then check to see if those partners are still linking back to you.
This is a great way to find those link partners that are ‘cheating’ the system, and not honouring your link with them.
Just another trick one of the many free SEO link exchange tools can do for you.
Check back in a couple of days and we’ll have a full list of these free tools for you to look at.
Are Paid Backlinks Worth It?
Link building with paid backlinks might be an easy way to get quality, one-way links; but are they really worth it?
The problem with buying text links is that Google has publicly stated it is strongly against the practice. This is basically because people are paying for links simply to manipulate their search engine rankings. Google will put up with some link building and SEO strategies, but this isn’t one of them.
Websites have been known to be penalized simply for participating in these brokerage services.
But if you want to take the risk, and would like to know where to start, just type ‘text link brokers’ into Google, and you’ll get a whole bunch of services. The more popular and well known services are at Text Link Brokers, Text Link Ads and Linkadage.
How Much Should You Pay For Backlinks?
If you’ve decided you want to pay for some relevant, high quality backlinks, but don’t want to go through a brokerage service, then you may be left wondering how much to pay.
Each individual website and webmaster will vary. But to give you a general idea of what you should be paying, Text Link Ads (a brokerage service, but you can use this tool for free without joining their site) have made a tool to calculate the value of backlinks:
http://www.text-link-ads.com/link_calculator.php
Just enter the site you are thinking about buying a link from, and where on the pae the link would sit (obviously the more prominent the link, the better, because it would benefit not just from Page Rank, but also visitors would click on it, almost as if it was an ad for your site).
While this gives you a good indication of price, it’s hardly definitive; try offering the webmaster you want to rent space off a little less than this tool suggests, and you might be able to get a bargain.
Quality or Quantity?
Most SEO link exchange tools will, in one form another, show you how many links you have pointing at your site. But don’t worry if you only have a few.
You can easily rank well for competitive keywords with just a few QUALITY backlinks.
It definitely is quality over quanity, at least where Google is concerned.
Not all search engines are equal, and we’ll show you which are easier to rank higher in, and which aren’t, no matter how many backlinks the SEO link exchange tools say you have.
Are Link Building Services Reputable?
The practices of a few questionable firms may have tarnished the image of many in the past, as the link building services sector long struggled to be recognised as a legitimate business.
However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t hundreds of quality, highly professional link building services companies out there that are willing to help you outsource your link building campaigns.
Use of these services is often best for larger online websites, especially online stores, which have significant resources they can use on link building.
Outsource Or In-House?
Link building services can save you hours of manual, repetitive work in your link building campaigns. However, so can outsourcing the same job to your own company.
If your online presence is large enough that you have a team of employees running your business, it could be worthwhile hiring a few more to undertake the tasks of link building.
They don’t have to be employees that sit in your physical offices. It’s extremely cheap these days to outsource this sort of work to countries where labour is far cheaper.
You could easily hire a virtual worker in another country full-time. They would be working solely for you, just as any other employee. They would be undertaking the same job that a link building services company would do. Yet they would cost a LOT LESS.
What’s Your Link Appeal?
Another SEO link exchange tool to help your link building is the link appeal checker.
This tool is very helpful if you’re looking to either buy links for a website, or offer link space on your own site for rent.
It gives a rating from 1-10 on how valuable a link on that page would be, with the higher the better.
What Link Exchange Software To Use?
Link exchange software isn’t all bad. Sure, you may only end up with a tiny percentage of requests actually being approved, but if you send enough requests, surely you’ll get a significant amount of approvals?
That’s not quite true, as there are other downfalls with link exchange software. If your script is sending the email through your server (i.e. the script automatically sends it from an email address that ends with @yourdomain.com), then you have a good chance of getting tagged with spam.
If you use the same server to send legitimate emails, such as with an autoresponder, then you may have trouble getting through to people on your list.
LinkBuildingSchool.com doesn’t recommend using link exchange software scripts, for reasons mentioned previously. However, if you want to give it a try, just go to Google and type in ‘link exchange software’ – there is definitely no shortage.
Next Generation Link Building?
Link building strategies must be continually evolving. The internet is continually evolving, so is the web, websites, search engine technology, and so on. Most importantly, the big search engines are also evolving. They’re becoming smarter and smarter at catching webmasters who are trying to ‘manipulate’ the search engine rankings.
It used to be relatively easy to boost your sites rankings using simple reciprocal links. Then of course, the method became popular, Google caught on before most webmasters even knew what it was, and it’s value has since been in a gradual decline (although it isn’t dead just yet…).
The point is though, link building campaigns have to be innovative if they are to be effective. They have to continually find new and creative ways to generate links to your website.
So what are the creative new campaigns? One great example is Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), which a lot of SEO experts will preach is the next ‘big thing’ in search engine marketing.
LSI is a fairly basic concept – instead of having a page stuffed with keywords and anchor text pointing to a website, i.e. a page that is blatantly designed for the search engines, why not create ‘natural’ content, as if you weren’t trying to build search engine popularity.
Imagine you have already moved beyond the basic link building campaigns. You are practising link building through article distribution. But all you do is create an article with your keywords peppered throughout, then put a link to your site at the end. It doesn’t read all that naturally, because it’s designed to focus on a couple of specific keywords, and the search engines are fast realising this.
Instead, content should have a natural flow to it, just like a conversation. You don’t simply start a conversation with somebody and constantly repeat the same words, the conversation evolves, you use metaphors, synonyms, etc. THIS is what the search engines are looking for these days, and it’s exactly what an innovative link building campaing campaign should be practising.
If you think it sounds vague, check back over the next couple of weeks as we explain things in a little more detail.
How To Build Links And Increase Traffic
SEO link building is a method of generating traffic towards your website by the creation of links to and from other websites. Successful use of SEO link building will not only help you to achieve high search engine ranking, but also generate niche traffic towards your site. Compared with Pay-per-Click (PPC) and other Internet advertising, link building is a far cheaper and more effective method of generating traffic. However, link building is one of the hardest elements of website promotion to make a success of. Thankfully, there are methods which can be used to utilise the free link building services provided by blogs, websites, forums and directories on the Internet.
Blogs
You will notice that nearly every website these days has a blog. You should consider creating a blog for your site as it can help in a few different ways. Firstly, it will provide your site with a free back link to contribute to link building. Secondly, it can help your site to achieve a better search engine ranking. Thirdly, if the content of the blog is good enough, it will bring traffic to your site from interested readers. You don’t need to be Shakespeare, or even Stephen Fry, but a decent, well written blog with frequently updated posts can do wonders for your site.
Social Networking
Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are incredibly popular and can be great tools for creating links, as well as generating traffic. After creating a profile, you can raise awareness of your site by consistently interacting with similar minded people in order to generate relative interest. By interspersing your chats with product related information that includes (subtle) links to your site, you can increase traffic and spread the word amongst people and groups within your industry through SEO link building.
Forums
Internet forums are used for people to engage in discussion on particular topics. It is on these sites that people who have interests in hobbies and industries relevant to you talk shop, so they are good places to establish a presence. Links to your site can be achieved by including web links with your name at the end of all of your forum posts.
Articles
Many people search the Internet to read articles about their favourite subjects, so why not take advantage of this and write some relevant articles about your service or product and submit them to various article directories, and then use link building to increase traffic to your site from these sources? Most articles let you add site links in a corresponding box, thus providing you with a one way link and a method to help bring interested visitors to your site. It stands to reason that if someone likes your article enough to click through then they will be positive enough to consider purchasing whatever product or service your site promotes.
There are other ways to garner the free link building services provided elsewhere on the Internet, but if you successfully use the above options then you will soon be on the right road to improving the fortunes of your website.
How Professional Link Building Services Can Help Your Business on link building
Link building can be incredibly time consuming, but it can also be well worth the effort. By spending the time to forge some quality links you’ll be welcoming streams of traffic to your site, which can ultimately result in higher search rankings and even increased profits. But, if you haven’t got the time or the skills to build links successfully, why not consult the experts?
A link building company will be able to bring numerous advantages to your business. For starters, they’ll be able to get you the quality links that you’re looking for. A specialised company will have all the skills and experience necessary to take your link building endeavours to the next level, giving you much better results than you’d have been able to get otherwise.
You could well have found it hard to get quality links, particularly if you’re new to the area of if you haven’t got the time to devote to it, but by consulting the experts you can guarantee results (if you choose your company wisely, of course). And after all, quality is what it’s all about – there’s no point spending time trying to get links only to find they’re not doing much for you anyway, so it’s always preferable to leave it to people who know what they’re doing.
They can also save you time. You may not have the time to spend on technical areas such as SEO link building, and that’s why you need to talk to the professionals. They’ll be able to complete your strategy for you so you’re free to concentrate on other things, and even if you’ve got a technical team already in your company you can instruct them to work on more profitable projects while outsourcing the rest.
The amount of time saved by outsourcing can be invaluable, and can leave everyone else free to work on bigger projects. The outsourced company will also be able to deliver results incredibly quickly thanks to their level of experience, so you’ve saved even more time by getting that traffic to you quicker than you ever thought possible.
Another big advantage is that a professional company can also save you some cash. In the cut throat world of business time is money, and you don’t want to be wasting your efforts on things that don’t directly lead to profits. By outsourcing your link building needs you’re saving money because you can devote your time to other things, and you also won’t have to pay anyone else’s salary to do things that you don’t really want them to.
Of course, you’ll still have to pay the link building company, but you’re only paying them for the services they provide (rather than a set salary) and the increased traffic that they can generate will surely outweigh any money that was spent on them.
As you can see, professional link building services can help your business in numerous ways. If you’re in need of some quality links but don’t have the time, money or energy to spare they’d be well worth considering, so look around for a reputable company and look forward to your search rankings (and revenue) soaring.
How Quality Backlinks Can Help Your Business Thrive
When it comes to SEO and improving your business profile online, any tool you can use to your advantage is always going to be worthwhile. You can’t hope to reach those lusted-after top spots in search engines without pulling out all the stops, and link building is just one of those tools that you should always have at your disposal.
Link building is a great way to get picked up by search engines and to get more traffic to your site, which in turn can see you jumping up those search results. Quality backlinks really can help your business to thrive, and if you spend the time to learn about the area and to try out new techniques you’ll get better results than you ever thought possible.
Backlinks need to be placed strategically across the net, as the whole purpose of them is to have other websites pointing back to yours. Search engines will pick up on these backlinks on their regular crawling missions, and the more you have the higher your website will be ranked.
Always place backlinks wherever you can, ideally in those places that are legitimate. Consider writing content for sites such as Ezine and embed your link in the article, or post comments on related forums or blogs with your web address in the signature. Link swapping with other webmasters is another great technique, and if you go for quality sites you’ll have no problem appealing to search engines.
Techniques such as these are ethical and can lead to great results, and are always preferable to underhanded techniques such as spamming. Spamming and many other forms of “black hat” link building will see your results suffer and are never worth the time you put in. Search engines will penalise you for it and your site could quickly become blacklisted, so you never want to be engaging in such techniques if you want results.
Of course, you may not have the skills necessary to be successful at SEO link building, or you may find that you don’t have the time to devote enough energy to it. In these situations, it might be preferable to consult a specialist link building company to do all the hard work for you.
By seeking out link building services you’ll be able to see results in the quickest time possible, as they’ll have all the experience and the time necessary to make your strategy a success. Investing in such services may seem like a waste of money, but in reality it can do no end for your business thanks to the sheer number of quality backlinks they’ll be able to generate.
As you can see, quality backlinks really can help your business to thrive. They can see your website soar to the top of search results to generate more traffic and subsequently more income, so spending time on your link building strategy (or getting the professionals to do it for you) will be one of the best ways to target SEO and to improve your business.
How To Use Link Building To Your Advantage
In the quest for better page ranks, a sound SEO strategy should always be employed. You can’t hope to reach that top spot without one, and the primary weapon in your toolkit should be link building. SEO link building is one of the best ways to reach the top and the effort you put in will soon be rewarded, and there are plenty of ways that you can use the strategy to your advantage.
The first thing that you need to do is make sure you’ve got the time to devote to your link building project. You can’t hope to get quality links if you don’t put the time and effort in, so always make this a primary facet of your SEO campaign and you’ll soon see it paying off.
Then, you need to start focusing on quality. Far too many people wrongly assume that any links are good for business, but that isn’t always the case. Search engines place a lot of stock on where your backlinks come from, rightly thinking that a backlink is a vote of confidence from another site. If you’ve got links from sites that aren’t well respected themselves then search engines will view you as being in the same category, and won’t give you the increased page ranks that you’re looking for.
Get links from pages that are already high up the scale, however, and it’s a different story. You want to be getting the links that will raise your profile the most, and the best way of doing that is to approach already well-ranked pages. Search engines will always look fondly on solid links that come from well respected sites and will judge that your site is in the same range, and you’ll soon see your page soaring up the list.
You’ll also need to get as many quality links as possible if you want to appeal to search engines, as if you only have a couple that’s not a particularly good vote of confidence. We come back to time again – you need to be able to spend the time to forge those quality links if you want to use them to your advantage, so always make sure you can get good relationships with other webmasters and directories.
But, if you don’t have the time or the skills to go about it, what can you do? You could always pay for links, as this way you’ll still be in control of your campaign whilst getting the links that you want, but often the best way to use link building to your advantage is to consult the professionals.
If you head to a link building company you can pretty much guarantee that they’ll be able to give you results, so long as you choose them wisely. They’ll have the time and the skills to see your campaign thrive, and you’ll soon see the advantages in hiring them.
But, whatever link building route that you go down, whether it’s doing it yourself or hiring someone else, always remember to never overlook this most important of strategies and always get as many quality backlinks as you can to see your profile soar.