With other online efforts booming, it’s no secret that link trading is starting to quickly become a thing of the past. It simply doesn’t seem time-efficient compared to the quick-paced world that is viral online marketing, and we can all agree that link building takes some massive time and effort. However, don’t cross it off your list just yet.

The key factor to link trading is not the amount of time you spend doing it (although, time can be a huge factor to those who have none), it’s the way you go about link trading. You have to do your research and prepare a plan before you begin trading with just any site. Your effective site plan always begins with on-site optimization.

You may be starting this whole process without currently having a domain. This is not a bad thing, in fact, this allows you to research different domain URLs and decide which one will best match your niche. There are different types of domains out there from .com, .net, .info and even .gov domains that can usually be purchased for around ten dollars. However, if you are looking for a specific URL, or if you are trying to purchase an older domain that already has link worth pointed to it, be prepared to pay some serious cash. Either way, keep in mind the target audience of your site, and try and pick a URL with the keywords that you would like to go after, which we will go over in another post.

Now that you have a domain, it’s time to discuss the SEO optimization that needs to be done in order to maximize the effectiveness of your link building campaign. One of the most overlooked (and possibly most important) things you can do is add H tags throughout your entire site. These tags are one of the first things that search engine spiders will see upon entering your site, and they also help your user to understand the content that will be on that page.

A good practice is to place your top two key words first on the H tags, and your site name last. This is because you will already be getting “weight” for your site name from the URL so it’s not as important to have that be first. Another good idea is to always add meta descriptions and meta key words to your pages, for the same reasons as the H tags: it’s going to be some of the first info search engines retrieve from your page.

But your hard work isn’t done just yet. It is crucial that you write interesting, key word rich content on your website. All the prior prepping is only to back up your website, not to forefront the SEO itself.

On the next post, we will discuss the value of key word research and how a little more time spent there can greatly affect your income later.

Hosting one of your blog articles on another domain is not a new idea. SEO experts and even the common blogger have been implementing this strategy for a few years. The benefit of hosting your blog post on another domain rather than your own is that your post will get a hyperlink (or possibly two) at the bottom of the post. This link serves two purposes:

1: Directs readers to your site. Since your article is hosted on an outside blog, it will be exposed to a multitude of different readers, many of which who may have never been to your site.

2: Build external, one way backlinks to your site. This is the most important part of “blog swapping”. Spiders will index the post and count the backlink as an external, one way link to your site. We all know how important external links can be to your site optimization and key word rankings in major search engines.

Now that you know the importance and value of hosting your blog article on another domain, you need to know that there are also a few downsides to this strategy. It can take a considerable amount of time to get your post added on another blog. You have to go through all the time-consuming steps of writing the blog, finding a website that you would like to host it, and emailing the webmaster. Most webmasters require that what they post be original content that is not republished somewhere else on the web. Also, once you email the site your post, you may not hear back from the webmaster concerning the publishing status. This means you’ll have to spend time and effort regularly checking their blog for your post.

Before you give up on this, try one tool first. It is called FreeTrafficSystem.com. This site is an easy to use blog submission tool that allows you to post to up to thirty blogs that are relevant to your site, with each article still being unique so as not to get banned by search engines. How is this possible? This site beats their competition by allowing what is known as “spinning” of your blog submission. “Spinning” a blog means that you can take one sentence and change it to a different sentence as many times as you would like. Then when the blog post is submitted to these thirty blogs, the system will randomly select one of the sentences you added to ensure that every post comes out a different and unique way. But it’s not just the post that can be spun. You can spin the titles, keywords, and description as well!

Another great feature is the ability Free Traffic System gives you to add your links wherever you want in your post. You are allowed two links per post, but remember that you can spin them so you have an optimal number of hyperlinks.

Not only is the software advanced and easy to use, it is the most time efficient blog submission tool out there. You can take one article, spin it, and submit it to up to thirty blogs, and it will all be original content with diversified links back to your site. This gives you a number of sixty backlinks from that one article!

Blog submissions still not your cup of tea? If you have a blog and you’re wanting more content, Free Traffic System can help you out with that as well. All you’ll need to do is add your blog to their system and select which category your blog fits into. Then when someone with a relevant blog submission submits, they will be able to select your site for the list. It’s beneficial to both sides, they get a linkback, you get free content. We have used this tool on some of our SEO and pet related domains and have seen twenty posts come through just in the past two weeks! Free Traffic System is an SEO tool where everybody wins.

Lavalinx rolled out a major upgrade this week, making it easier than ever to get relevant one way links for your site or blog.

Here are a few of the major upgrades:

1. The whole front-end website was redesigned with a more bold look-and-feel that covered a number of important usability issues. Now whether you represent an SEO agency, or if you just have a personal blog there’s an easy to follow path to signup. In fact, we have signup calls-to-action all over the website, so there shouldn’t be any problems signing up for an account.
2. The core functionality in Lavalinx for advanced link trading and social bookmark management and exchange has been an extremely effective SEO tool for those that got their sites set up properly. However, getting a site setup properly has been a challenge. We spent the last couple months developing a setup wizard that makes it easier than ever to get your site set up for advanced link trading and social bookmark exchange.
3. We’ve added an Automated Trade Suggestion tool that makes finding relevant link partners easier than ever. Why? Because our comprehensive algorithm does it for you. Based on tagged pages we can find the most relevant reciprocal, triangle and parallel link trades. Just keep your pages tagged properly and we’ll keep finding the most relevant trade scenarios.
4. We’ve totally revamped the way social bookmarking accounts are managed making it a simple process to setup and manage your accounts. We’ve also differentiated between social bookmarking sites that can be used in trades, and ones that can be used for private or personal bookmarking.
5. We are now offering a Wordpress plugin that will “talk” to Lavalinx allowing bloggers to more easily manage Receiving and Sending pages and Social bookmark pages.
6. We fixed a number of bugs and made a number of smaller improvements

We are constantly looking at ways to improve and innovate the link building process. We appreciate your feedback.

As most webmasters have probably noticed, link building via link exchange is making a strong come back. I have a number of sites that are receiving link exchange requests almost every day now. I think SEO experts are seeing great value in diversifying their link portfolio, and link trades are making up a good portion of that portfolio.

I asked a couple of our best link traders if they’d share some advice on link building through link exchanges. These link builders are averaging a 25% conversion rate on link trades and are completing a boat load of links each month.

Aubrey’s advice

Aubrey cranked out 77 reciprocal and triangle link trades last month with a 25% conversion rate. All trades targeted industry-relevant websites.

On looking for trades:
1. Start at a relevant site and use their links pages to find partners. This is a lot easier than always looking through a search engine for people to link to, and it gives you quite a list.

2. Bookmark! If you find a site that has good resources, make sure you keep a note of that page. This way you don’t forget it if you wanted to trade with them or their partners. This works best if you keep different bookmark lists for each site that you own.

On trading:
1. Trade with a variety of websites. Sites that are related, sites that are slightly related, or even sites that aren’t related but are willing to link to you. As long as their sending page checks out good (indexed with no robots or nofollows, etc), there is no reason to pass up a link from an indexed page.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for a trade other than a reciprocal. Even if they have a reciprocal form, sometimes a simple personal email will do the trick and you will both be able to benefit from a triangle or a parallel trade. The worst they can say is no, or, “I only accept reciprocals” , in which case it’s still a good deal.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for a different page than the one that they put you link on. Gently explain your reasons, and let them know that you are giving them a quality page and that you would love to arrange the trade in a way that will benefit both partners equally.

4 Ask the webmaster if they have any additional sites they would like to trade with or include in a trade.

5 Ignore page rank for the most part. It’s still important, but it’s always changing. A webmaster may require for your site to have a certain page rank before they link back to you. Example: webmaster wants a PR 2 for a page that doesn’t have any page rank. Solution: Don’t back down from requesting the trade. Email them and let them know that since both partners pages are of good quality, a link back from your site will benefit them with or without having to have pagerank.

6 Pay attention to Cashed, Indexed, and make sure the site doesn’t have any robots blocking spiders from following your link. Also make sure you check for nofollows, noindex and frames. Remember, Pagerank is just the icing on the cake if it is present.

7 If your link is removed, email the webmaster and ask why. You never know, they could have had their site hacked or had a crash where all the links got taken down.

On being a nice link partner:
1. Watch the way you word things so they don’t come across rude. Always be polite!

2. Don’t let your link be “out of sight, out of mind”. Reply to emails in a timely manner. The person on the other end will appreciate knowing that they are important to you, and if you are good at a fast reply you have a better chance of getting the link accepted.

3. Learn to be good at accepting criticism of your site or methods of trading. If someone emails you about exchanging links and they are rude, just either don’t email them back or email them and kindly thank them for their consideration and let them know that you will trade with them in the future if they are ever interested.

Margo’s advice

Margo completed a whopping 143 reciprocal, triangle and parallel link trades last month. She had a 41% conversion rate on on reciprocal trades and 25% on triangles.

Having a tool like LavaLinx to simply cut and paste makes it very easy and saves a lot of time.

Having dynamic sending pages also makes it easy, because I can create a trade and immediately submit it! I know the link is on the page and the trade partner can see their link is up ! I don’t have to keep some kind of list to go back and check with partner b to see if their link has been installed yet, so I can finally ask for a link exchange.

Always respond politely, and usually briefly, to webmasters seeking link partners if you want to keep their business. You never know who may have more sites to trade with, and they will offer them if they like working with you and they like the way their link looks on your pages.

Follow their lead in emails-if they are super friendly, be friendly back, if they are more formal, follow suit.

Check any possible site-some stick within their own specialty, but many have specific pages dedicated to other subjects of interest to their customers.

Marci’s advice

Marci completed 113 reciprocal, triangle and parallel link exchanges last month. She had a 40% conversion rate on reciprocals and 20% on triangle and parallel trades. All trades were made with relevant websites with SEO value.

Marci has also begun work on her own website, where anyone can create their own Personalized Greeting Cards, and looks forward to success on that site.

Advice for link trading:

1. Everytime you come across a potential link partner, check the cheating tactics (robots.txt, nofollows, noindex, iframe, frameset) and check to make sure the page is indexed in Google before proposing a link exchange.
2. Keep URL’s as bookmarks of previous link partners, then go to their partners’ sites and ask for exchanges with them as well.
3. Any follow-up email with the webmaster or link manager, try to use proper vocabulary and make sure to be nice, even if they weren’t very nice to begin with.
4. Try to be honest and up-front with anyone you’re doing a link trade with (example: letting them know your company is honest and will never try to cheat them out of the exchange).
5. Thank them for their time and consideration.
6. If they don’t understand something, take the time to write it out to help explain things better, and ask if they still feel confused.
7. Try to place their link on a relevant page within your site (we’ve had great success lately within our blog posts) so they will have the best benefit out of the exchange as well.

Some of the topics covered in this podcast are listed below.

A few link trading basics

1. Search Engines rank pages not websites.
2. Relevant link trading does work and will always work because it’s good for your users.
3. You may not have control over who links to you, but you do have control over who you link to. Let’s face it when you place links on your site to other sites you are recommending these sites. Make sure you place them on a relevant page and make sure they are worthy of linking to. I think that Search engines do take into account who you link to and that your site will gain authority by linking to sites the help the user.
4. Avoid placing links in big lists on a links pages, or making a “links” directory.
5. Don’t try and cheat on links. The experienced SEO will see it in a second, drop your link and keep you from trading with all the sites that they are working on. So you’ll lose way more than you’d ever gain.
6. You can also trade image ads and use alt tags to diversify your backlink portfolio.

Emailing link trade requests

1. Send personalized emails. If you can find a name use it. You can also include their domain in the subject line.
2. It is a common courtesy to place their link on your site first, although I’m seeing less and less of this.
3. Don’t send emails that say you’ve just deleted their link or something like that when you’ve never really traded with them. With Lavalinx I know all the sites that I’ve traded with and I can easily search them. Yes this method gets my attention, but then it just annoys me when I find out that I’ve never traded with them and they’re just using it as a hook to get a better open rate.

Pages that links are placed on

1. Ideally you’ll want your link on a content page or blog post with your links placed contextually within relevant content.
2. The page needs to be indexed and cached in Google.
3. Don’t worry about Page Rank. Too many webmaster get caught in this trap.
4. The page should be related to the page on your site that the link is pointed to.
5. Make sure no link cheating methods are being used, for instance:

a. nofollows in links or in the meta tags
b. javascript links or redirects
c. links in frames
d. links in iframes
e. robots.txt disallowing the page your link is placed on.
f. Some pages even with Page Rank may not be indexed.

Your anchor and link description

1. In your anchor text use the keywords that user would use to search for your service or products in the search engines.
2. If possible, place your anchor text contextually within your description
3. Diversify your anchor text backlinks. For example if your site is about online education use online education, online degrees, online classes, online schools etc in your anchor text
4. have your links point to more than your homepage. Remember Search Engines rank pages not websites.