Reciprocal Linking - A Dead Past-time
An article By Gary R. Hess
Building links doesn’t always have to be so stressful. Many sites tell you they’ll increase your links by 1000 overnight if you spend $39.99. I’m here to tell you, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality.
Although quality does help, it’s hard to judge what is and what isn’t. First, reciprocal links aren’t great, so don’t spend hours upon hours of sending hopeless spam mails to sites who, if you have good content, would link to you for free.
The best way to gain links quickly is article submission. One article, if well written and of high quality, will generate 10-15 links. Think of the possibilities! Write one article a day for a week and you may end up with 100 links. That is, 100 non-reciprocal links.
Why are non-reciprocal links so important? Search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, are now counting reciprocal links for less. There is even speculation of the recent update that Yahoo! is penalizing sites which have links pages. Even if this were not the case, non-reciprocal links are more important for one reason, visitors. Visitors don’t like to see sites with worthless links to websites they don’t want. Why have a link to a travel website if you are in entertainment (besides the obvious, but you get the point)?
Even if you do have a reciprocal link to a site which is your competitor, you may lose visitors by giving them higher link popularity.
Should I not link to anyone then? No. In fact, you should link to as many authoritative sites as possible (authoritative sites are sites which are ranked 1 or 2 throughout your genre).
Links are very important on every site. Don’t just give them away, choose carefully. Link to authoritative sites with great content which you know your visitors will appreciate. Just ask yourself, “If the link is not for the visitor, what use is it?”
So, I’ve done the whole article submission thing, what other ways can I gain link popularity? Directories and great content. Content is king and is becoming more-so with the evolution of search engines. When a site owner finds an article useful he or she generally places a link to it, even if it is just a blog, it’s still a link. But whatever you do, don’t do the silly thing and spam blogs. That will only get you banned.
Directories are also a major part. If you write a great description and have an editor in your field at DMOZ.org, submit it and forget it. Either you will get in or you won’t. If there isn’t an editor, try becoming one. It will only take a few hours of your time, just don’t get too hopeful.
If you can’t get in DMOZ, don’t worry, there are tons of other useful directories out there. Tons of free directories. Don’t spend $10-$20 on a directory submission unless you know they are worth it and will generate quality traffic. Google and others are starting to crack down on directories who require a fee in order to get listed.
In conclusion, seek out quality one-way links by linkbait, article submissions, and directories. Don’t fall for reciprocal linking or other blacklisted SEO techniques.
Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Gary_R._Hess
http://EzineArticles.com/?Reciprocal-Linking—A-Dead-Past-time&id=1550840
but article submission doesnt seem to be an answer as it cannot be done easily and effectively unless we have a rewriter and submitter.. right?
Well your right, to submit constantly you would need a submitter of some kind (or a blog that can ping sites like technorati) but I’d like to think a page with great content and few links will outrank a site with rubbish content and more links.