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.