Reciprocal link building which is the process of exchanging links between websites to gain more authority in search engine listings is considered to be one of the most powerful SEO techniques.
Is it the best way to get links?
A great deal has changed in how the search engines rank websites in the last couple of years. However, links into a website still remain a major ranking factor. Also, there are now more options to getting links back into your website and some of these methods do not require you to give a link back.
First off, is it a big mistake to give out a link to get a link? No. It is not a big mistake. However, it is better to get a link to your website without having to give a link out.
Why?
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To give a link out means that you need to have a page or method on your site to provide these links. This requires some time and effort on your part or on the part of your webmaster.
When you give a link out to another website you are bleeding off a bit of your website rank. If you have worked hard to push up your website ranking then perhaps you can afford to bleed off a bit of this but to provide too many links may results in a drop in ranking.
Another complexity is that you may provide a link from a level 2 page but you may receive a link from a level 3 (or lower) page. In order to balance the benefit of the link into your site with the link out of your site the links should be at similar levels on each respective site. You could ignore this but if you provide links from a level 2 page and receive the reciprocal links from a level 3 pages then you have not exchanged links in an even and balanced way.
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Links out of your site results in page rank and position bleed.
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Therefore, it is better to get links into your website without having to give a link back.
If you visit almost any search engine optimization forum you will see whenever there's a question about reciprocal link building the 'gurus' reply that if done effectively with proper keyword-rich text links then it is a valuable way to boost search engine position.
The reason this is the case is because search engines perceive a link from one website to another as a kind of 'vote' for it as an authority on a particular topic. If two websites with useful and relevant information put a link to each other (which is a very often case) then the search engines see these links and it can make both sites more authoritative. This is certainly good.
However, we want to make the case for getting links into your website without having to give out a link in return. This will help your site without the chance for page rank bleed and will also not require you to spend time and effort on maintaining a link page on your website.
Advice:
- Lay the groundwork. Build a site that is well designed with depth and variety of quality content.
- Make a list of sites to get links from.
- Contact the site owner and request a link. Define the text that you would like for the link and the URL of your website.
- Keep track of whether you get the link. Sometimes there is an agreement to provide a link but the link is not set up.
- Do not provide a reciprocal link unless your have to do so in order to get a link.
- Try to get a link from a level 2 page or even from a home page.
Next Step:
If you would like Website Link Tactics to help you to get links into your website
that are keyword-based and embedded in paragraphs with text related to your
business then give us a call.
We will be happy to discuss how linking can help boost up your position in the
search engines and help to drive targeted traffic to your website.
Also, you can simply fill out the form on our Inquiry Page and we will get back to
you shortly.
Printable Version: Reciprocal Linking - What's Best for Your Business (PDF).
