The Pros And Cons Of Link Trades

Competition has never been tougher on the net. These days it’s difficult to get a foot hold in the market. With Google, MSN, and Yahoo indexing millions upon millions of pages how the heck do you get ranked. Well one way is by using link trades. But there are both pros and cons to link trades.

Link trades take a while to build and are somewhat time consuming if you do it right, but link trading with webmasters that have sites that have similar content to your site can give you excellent results.

On the other hand link trading with any web page that comes along can actually be detrimental to your web site. And trading links with link farms or sites that’s only purpose is to boost ranking can get you banned from the search engines. So before you start building your link directory you should understand the rules.

These days’ link trades seem to be getting worse and worse, with more and more sites running sloppy and unprofessional link pages. How many sites have offered to trade links with you that have nothing but pages and pages of links with no relevant content, no categories to organize the links so a visitor could actually use them? How many times have exchanged a link in good faith only to discover shortly after your link is no longer on their page. Sadly, a few unscrupulous web sites are really making link trades bad for everyone.

Another problem that seems to be on the rise is the hidden link page. No link from the home page, in fact buried so deep it would take a lifetime to find it. So what’s the point of building this type of link page? It certainly has to relevance to visitors so one can only guess it is strictly for the hope of placement in the search engines.

But search engines are getting much smarter. Hi tech algorithms are getting better and better at detecting web site tricks that aren’t above board. And for the rest of us that are trying to run legitimate web sites this is a good thing.

If you are going to build a link directory and trade links then do it right. Treat your link directory like an important part of your web site. Give it the attention it deserves so that it is a useful resource to your visitors and so that you and your link partner can benefit from increased traffic.

Sadly too many web sites focus on link trades just to build their placement in the search engine world, but there is a lot more value that can be accomplished with good link trades. You can increase the amount of targeted traffic that makes it to your site.

Your link directory should have proper title tags that relate to the content of the link page, it should be neatly organized, and it should be themed with all related links being grouped together. It should also be easy to use and easy to find and you should provide access to your link page from your home page. And just as your link directory should be organized neatly so should the link directory on the site you are considering trading links with.

If you want good quality links then you are going to have to build a quality link directory. Reputable sites aren’t interested in exchanging links with underhanded, unorganized sites.

Look for quality link sites that have a related theme to your web site. Some people don’t like to trade with sites that are in direct competition. Personally I invite these types of links. My theory is that if I don’t have what they are linking for and I can provide a link to a site that does then that’s good customer service. And it works in exactly the reverse as well, bringing traffic to my site.

It’s a personal choice. But at least make sure your link trades are with relevant sites. A Web Hosting site that trades links with a Sports site really has no relevancy. Some sites do a nice job of building a large link directory with many categories. You could think of it as an online mall directory. This can be a nice touch for your customers. How the search engines react to it is highly debated among SEO professionals.

The time you spend to build quality links can add up quickly so set your standards high so that you are not wasting your valuable time. When a site approaches you for a link trade always visit the site to ensure their link directory meets your high expectations. Accept nothing less. Your site is worth it.

Link trades have the potential to drive volumes of targeted traffic to your site and to the site of your reciprocating link partner. This targeted traffic can be worth far more than the links value is to your search engine placement. So use link trades to boost your business and your sales. Smart link trades and long term link relationships can be a real business boost.

Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.