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.

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.

Now you can manage all your social bookmarking sites in one interface including knowing which of your pages you have bookmarked personally as well as getting other social bookmarking users to bookmark your pages.

What’s so great about Social Bookmarking?

1. Instant social traffic. A well written news article or blog post has the potential to drive massive traffic to your site. (I have had over 20,000 searches in a single day from both Digg and StumbleUpon!)
2. Hundreds of one-way links to your website in a short amount of time.  (Many of these are hard links, but even those that are not probably influence the rankings anyway.)
3. Backlinks appear very quickly in Search Engines.  Most links on regular pages often take weeks or months to be indexed.  We have seen a majority of our social backlinks get indexed within a couple days.

Why exchange Social Bookmarks?

1. More links.  If you bookmark a page in 10 of your favorite bookmarking sites, you get 10 links.  If you do 4 exchanges with other users that each have 10 bookmarking sites, you can get 40 links.
2. Different discoverers.  It is much more effective if all of the recommendations for your pages don’t come from you.

1.    External trade process

• Sending Domain: At the beginning of the external trade wizard we ask for the domain of the site that will be sending you a link. We also check to make sure the domain name is valid. The reasons why this is the first step in the external trade process is because
  1. if we already have that domain in our external trade database most of the link information for that domain will be populated in the link wizard automatically
  2. if you have already made a trade with that site, you can be made aware of this fact before you go through half of the linkwizard
• Form URL: Now when making an external trade you’ve probably noticed that we’ve added a few steps. We found that 30-40% of external link trades are made through an online form, so now you can store the form URL. This will make it easier to follow up on trades made through a form.
• Email Checker: Each email address added is checked to make sure it is a valid working email address.
• Tagging: At the end of the external trade wizard we’ve added tagging functionality for sending and receiving site pages. Tagging pages will help LavaLinx users to find the most relevant web pages in link trade scenarios.

2.    External sites – Every time an external trade is made, the site will be stored in a way that will allow you to use it in trades with your other sites more easily.

3.    External Trade Directory – Now has search functionality for finding the most relevant sites to trade with.

Here are other major projects that we have in the works

1.    Automated Trade Suggestions – Lavalinx itself will be able to propose trades to you that match the themes of sites and/or pages.  This functionality will serve a two-fold purpose:  1) it will allow link traders with no time to still be able to take advantage of the system, and 2) it will allow less savvy link traders to make the right types of trades without the struggle of learning all of the SEO rules before trading.

2.    Social Bookmark Management and Exchange – You will soon be able to do much more than simply bookmark your own pages or articles in a couple of your favorite social bookmarking sites. Cross your fingers, we may just revolutionize the SMO (social media optimization) industry.

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.