Exchange Links
Link exchange is the act of exchanging links with other websites as a way of increasing traffic to your website. It’s also a strategy of building your site’s popularity through creating inbound links. It happens when one site offers to link to the other in return for a reciprocal link. While link exchange used to be the biggest contributor to many websites’ global popularity and a method through which websites could get higher rankings, nowadays it’s no longer recommendable to exchange links anyhow for various reasons.
The first major reason is that Google does not like it. Google detests links built artificially. It prefers links built naturally through, for example, the provision of quality content on your site. However, content marketing takes time and that’s why many webmasters find it easier to exchange links as a way of building inbound links to their sites. The quickest link building methods are not the safest. Take care!
The second reason is that when you exchange links to websites of poor quality, which are also not relevant to your niche, you devalue your website. Remember that you spend much of your time trying to build your site with quality content that pulls traffic to it. By so doing, you also build your popularity, believability and credibility. It’s, therefore, not wise to waste your effort by linking to a site that is not in line with the kind of business you are promoting.
Link Building is Vital to your Business Success Online
That said, it’s vital to know that building backlinks to your website is so crucial to the success of your online business. Links pointing to your site help you to build your popularity. The more other websites link to you, the more search engines conclude that many people like your content and the more they find your website very resourceful. Remember that Google’s customers are people who search the internet other than webmasters. It’s by people searching that Google earns income. What this means is that websites that attract more people to search the internet stand better chances of ranking high for their popularity. But effective links should be built naturally.
On the other side, you do not need to get scared. You can still exchange links with some other websites, provided you are mindful of the danger in it.
What Should You Bear in Mind Before You Exchange Links With Other Websites?
Let me share with you some of the most important factors you need to consider when accepting or asking other websites to exchange links with you.
1. Quality of the Link You Exchange
As you exchange links with other websites, you should find out more about their quality. Quality links are those links from websites that rank high, sites with useful relevant content, sites with relevant links linking to them, sites that link to content related to your niche, sites with high traffic and sites that link to other top-ranking sites. You do not need to get so many of them. One quality link from a big site is far better than many low-quality links. Always avoid low-quality links from small websites!
Alexa.com can give you a measurable standard on the traffic rank and links pointing to the site you intend to exchange links with.
2. The Relevance of the Link
Relevance of the link refers to links that are related to your content and your niche. For instance, if your area of specialization is article writing and you choose to link to a website that deals in cars, the two are actually unrelated. You risk being punished by Google for being manipulative by artificially creating links for the sake of getting a high rank. Avoid this kind of scenario as you exchange links!
3. Status of the Website with Google
To exchange a link with another website, it’s recommendable to first find out how it’s viewed by Google and other search engines. If a website is blacklisted by Google for any reason and you link to it, you will have wasted your time, energy and money invested in building your online home business. Google will wake up only to find your rank dropped to oblivion. Yes, it has happened to many online businesses, including big ones, and I wouldn’t like you to share the same adverse experience.
Before you exchange links with any websites, try to find out first whether the sites you intend to exchange links with are not blacklisted. You can do this by checking out the site on Google’s Domain Blacklist located at onlinealley.com/seotools/googlebannedchecker.
4. Number of Links
Exchanging links with sites that have very few inbound links is of no benefit and value to you. These are majorly new sites that have not yet built trusted inbound links. They have not yet built their popularity with the search engines. Building your global link popularity is very vital to the success of your online home business. Always link to sites that have a reasonable number of quality and relevant inbound links.
5. Natural Links
When you exchange links with a website that has not created links naturally, you risk doing it the wrong way. Google values sites that have naturally built links overtime because such sites are found to be useful to the internet users from which Google earns a living. Remember that Google benefits from the activities of the searchers, not webmasters.
As a tip, as you exchange links, do it with sites related to your niche. Secondly, do not hurry to have hundreds of links pointing to your site within a very short period of time. It will easily be noticed that your links are not naturally built.
6. Quality of Outbound Links
Check to find out about the quality of outbound links of the websites you intend to link to. If the site links to other sites of low quality, it’s advisable not to link to it. This can lead you to trouble.
As I conclude, I would like to remind you that exchanging links is tricky and can lead to frustration if you do it the wrong way. Be cautious as you decide to link to other sites in order to avoid losing your business. Do you find this information useful to you?
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