Link learning is the first step before link building because what's the point of getting links if the either hurt your website with search engines or don't bring you traffic you can use.

 

Link Trade Partners
Before you begin, you should consider your strategy with respect to the websites to which you plan to link. The key is to trade links ONLY with relevant websites. A relevant website is a website that shares your target audience. If a website would be of interest to visitors to your site, and vice-versa, then it is a good prospective link trade partner. Trading links with irrelevant websites is a waste of time, mainly because irrelevant sites don't share your target audience. As such, the chances of generating qualified traffic from them are not good. So you link learning lesson here is that your time is much better spent linking with relevant sites.

You should be trading links with relevant websites all over the Internet, not just other commercial websites, or other SOL websites. The entire Internet is open for link trades, regardless of the type of site, or where they are hosted.

Give careful consideration to whether or not you want to trade links with direct competitors. In many cases, you may not want to do it, though there are times when this strategy might be appropriate. For the most part you want to trade links with other websites that share your target audience, but are not your direct competition. For example, if you sell office supplies, you might want to trade a link with a graphic design website, but not with another office supply website. Remember that people who buy office supplies (businesses) also buy graphic design services. The possibilities are virtually limitless.

Web Site Link Page
The focal point of your link trading strategy is your "link page." This is page on your website that is dedicated to listing all the links to your link trade partner websites. The concept is that you don't want to have links to other sites all over your website. You should have a single page (or as you grow larger a single multi-page hierarchical directory) of links. You can easily control links using this approach, and you will actually provide a valuable resource for visitors to your site. A link page is a very common feature of successful websites on the Internet, and you probably have seen dozens or even hundreds of examples. If you would like to see an example, simply access your competitors on the web and examine their main pages. The majority of them will probably display a link labeled: "links", "link page", "other websites", etc… Click on these links to view the link pages of your competitors.

When you construct your link page, make sure that when a visitor clicks on a link that it opens in a new browser window. The important link learing lesson here is by using this method, you never actually lose a visitor to your site.

Creating an Effective Link Page
The link page for your commercial web site should be an automatic extension of the design of the entire electronic storefront, and should contain the following elements:

• Header- The "header" of the link page should be designed as a headline / title for the section. Use strong advertising copy and create emotion and a desire for other merchants to participate.

• Reciprocal Link Invitation- Near the top of your link page, you should invite other relevant websites to trade links with you. You should provide appropriate instructions, including which types of sites are eligible, what your link should look like on their link page (URL, Title / Headline, Opening Statement / Description), and a contact email address so you can be reached regarding link trade requests.

• Style - The style of the link exchange page should be clear and easy-to-understand. Consider using a standard directory style that lists website links by (relevant) topics and subtopics.

 

Once you have identified a website with which you would like to trade a link, simply send them an email. Most websites display a contact email address, which you can simply click to pull up a blank email. You should have a template link trade request letter that you can simply copy, paste in, customize if needed and send. Using this technique, you should be able to send dozens of link trade request emails per hour. The following is a sample email that you can use as the basis for your link trade email request:

Sample e-mail:

    Subject: Link Trade Request

    "Greetings, my name is_________, and I'm the webmaster for (name your web site). I came across your (name their web site) whatever.com while surfing and I think we could both benefit by trading links. I have found that trading links is one of the best sources for increasing qualified traffic to my site.

    If you have any interest in exchanging links with my site, here is my information:

    URL: www.mywebsite.com
    Title: The Title of Your Website (no more than 4-8 words)
    Description: An overall description of your website. (no more than 25 words)

    Just email me back with your info, and let's see if our sites are compatible for link trading. I look forward to hearing from you.

    Your name
    Webmaster
    you@emailaddress.com

Make sure that you customize each email with at least the address of the site with which you are requesting the trade. Customizing the email will dramatically increase your response rate by communicating to the reader that your email is not a spam-type form letter. Also make sure you get to the point quickly. Request letters that are too long won't get read.
Summary

 

Response Rates
Acceptance of your request will vary depending upon the quality of your search and the content of your e-mail offer. You should expect a 10% to 20% positive response rate. If you want 100 links to your site you might have to send out 500 link trade requests.

Continual Promotion Process
Link Trading is an ongoing promotional program. With literally millions and millions of web sites on the Internet, the possibilities for reciprocal link exchanges are endless. Don't be content to stop after sending the initial batch of link exchange proposals.

 

It is important to note that all your link learning lessons focus on you getting links, the more links to your webite the more traffic you get, and the higher your link popularity will be.