Best place to get mutual link exchanges

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birstallbabe

Looking to do link exchanges with other sites selling similar products baby/toddler/pre-school children any ideas, anyone interested please let me know

thanks
 
why would they do that I always thought the link exchange was intended to be mutually beneficial. I am developing links to relevant sites/forums only, taking time though

What he's saying - simply is that you have good content on your site then people will link to it naturally - without you asking.
For instance the BBC site has millions of links and they never asked for one of them.

That's the idea of how the web and google works - but some of us are not blessed with a team of highly paid journalists and unlimited resources - so have do a bit of link manufacturing instead :)
 
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Clinton

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    why would they do that I always thought the link exchange was intended to be mutually beneficial. I am developing links to relevant sites/forums only, taking time though

    Not necesarily. Some of the best SEOs swear it's a waste of time.

    Bear in mind that nobody knows for sure exactly what works and the extent to which it makes a difference. If you're building reciprocal links you're doing it because you heard from someone that it's good - not because anybody knows it's good.

    I believe your time would be far better spent doing something else. Anything else.
     
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    eventdomain

    If you're building reciprocal links you're doing it because you heard from someone that it's good - not because anybody knows it's good.

    Exactly.

    Link swapping used to work well, but this was about 4 years back. Now, its a lot of effort for very little gain, when all it takes is someone with £20k injected into SEO, because their manipulating the results pages to a higher level than others and winning the keyword/phrase battle due to SEO budget.

    Search engine rankings are controlled by the engines - each engine has its own ranking/listing policy, and if they want to drop sites, they will and there's nothing anyone can do about it, except to buy paid adspace on those engines to stand out.

    The free SERPS aren't an entitlement, its 'Gratis' or an Offer that is free, and like any offer it can be taken away or reduced, IF the offer is abused.

    The engines dont have to give anything, they do it to drum up business eg: like free coffee/tea you get with every fry-up in cafes. Free extras can work very well, and often lead to more sales/future business, word of mouth and this is exactly why the engines give the free rankings.

    But winning the free listing game is so underestimated, as its a battle you cannot possibly win - simply as there's too many others all doing the same to stop you rising above them.

    The average website hasn't got the trigger/igniter to do this. There just isnt enough No 1 spots for everyone or enough room on page 1 for the thousands of companies that exist.
     
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    Clinton

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    I find this talk of "reciprocal" link exchanging strange. I see the term mentioned in numerous places.

    To those of you who talk about reciprocal link exchanging, care to explain to me the difference between "link exchanging" and "reciprocal link exchanging"?

    I've got the same problem with "mutual link exchanges" mentioned in the title of this thread.
     
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    RedEvo

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    I find this talk of "reciprocal" link exchanging strange. I see the term mentioned in numerous places.

    To those of you who talk about reciprocal link exchanging, care to explain to me the difference between "link exchanging" and "reciprocal link exchanging"?

    I've got the same problem with "mutual link exchanges" mentioned in the title of this thread.

    You link to me, I'll link to you = reciprocal linking.

    d
     
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    birstallbabe

    "Do reciprocal links where it makes sense. When link building ask yourself if you'd want the link if search engines didn't exist, that will give you a solid indicator as to whether it's sensible."

    Aah I like this one, but this suggests that relevant sites irrespective of methodoly behind them advertising etc are good links if relevant to your site, am I right in this assumption?
     
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    davek17

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    Hi THere

    I thought reciprocal or mutual links (Same thing to me!) were not the way to go these days, instead inbound links only are what matters. If you think about it, it makes sense as mutual links do not g'tee the quality of the website content like a sole inbound link does as mutual links are kind of saying you link to me and i'll auto link to you.

    We don't mutual link anymore, in fact we don't like linking to anyone anymore unless it is very topical and enriches the content, the manufacturer product page for instance, but even this is now debatable as far as I last heard!

    I do understand your frustration at the paid for links. We have big, rich competitors that have clearly got 1000's of links from 2 or 3 sources and are paid for but Google does nothing about them and the link report page seems to have dissapeared now too.

    Despite this concentrate on getting good inbound links and focus on the keywords that are unique to you and in the long tail that require less inbound link focus to get you up in the listings. That's how you get to Number 1 for good relevent business generating visitors. It might sound odd but it really does work and a blog article written well for SEO can get on the 1st page quickly with very few inbound links for the right keywords.

    Revert to practical sales/marketing and you will win out. One well written email to the BBC could do what £100's worth of rubbishy links can do for you.
     
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    eventdomain

    We hardly bother with reciprocal linking and haven't done for last 2 years - its so doesn't work and is so time-consuming its not worth it.

    We removed our link page and replaced it with a new method, and having got rid of what Google devalued so much, feel cleaner and now have a dominant link trigger in place. Its not cool to have link stuffed link pages for the purpose of link swapping anymore, and IMHO makes a website/company look desperate for free advertising and unprofitable enough not to be able to afford advertising.

    Its a wonder why so many go out of their way to devalue their presence on the web by including a links page, and its so 1990's - link swapping isnt a large scale promotion thing, yet its treated that way :(

    There are far superior ways of getting votes and positive reviews for websites, yet noone seems to be thinking out of the box about how to do this.
     
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    SusanBryant

    I would absolutely go about writing decent, enjoyable to read content that other will link to. Guest blogging is also a great way to gain links back to your website - without having to return the favour. Have you tried parenting websites? You can approach them with relevant articles containing a link back to your website - many of these websites are screaming out for decent content :)

    Susan
     
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    eventdomain

    I would absolutely go about writing decent, enjoyable to read content that other will link to.

    Most websites eg: 99% - are not set up or will accept content like articles or stories, so I'm not sure where this content is going to go. Also what so many just dont know, is that content is easy to obtain without relying on desperate site owners to provide it.

    I spent half a decade collecting content, so I know a thing or two about this.


    These sites, would have to be web designed with specific areas for the content, plus this individually written content would be so varied its a joke - and is why this doesn't work.

    And a question - how do people go about finding the 1% of all these sites in the first place? Too tough a job to track down the many 1000's of sites you'll need for this to deliver a low visitor rate that's likely so general an audience, you'll never get the hit rate, never mind any conversions.

    I believe that written content is largly a spamming tool, and any website worth its salt will never allow such dubious articles from people they've never met before, nor has any professional background in the content delivered.
     
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    eventdomain

    So I take it would be a waste of my time then?

    Mostly, yes - you need to go into this knowing that whatever you promote within an endless medium like the internet -

    1. The results are never what you think they'll be

    2. Using old methods are often very time-consuming

    3. Most of what's mentioned on forums is SEO and not true marketing

    Marketing is the anticipation and fulfilment of a consumer need, and nothing to do with Joe Bloggs web designing his site at all.

    Its about knowing the market and reaching it, so placing your site in an untargeted media such as a General engine who's only goal is to serve everybody, cannot possibly direct enough of the right traffic to you.

    The major search engines are not platforms or tools geared for individual businesses - they are Mass feeders of information, no good when you want to reach your customer segment. Market segmentation is very in, there's bound to be a lot of highly targeted portals out there that will reach direct with the right customer - find them and buy ads on them.

    SEO might be free, but its results are unfocussed and there's no point in getting a bunch of visitors to your site and them not making enquiries nor buying from you. Major search engines sends the visitor to the wrong website a lot of the time, and that wastes their time.

    The search results these days are awful - they need a code book to decipher whether its the right site for your needs, or whether its just a keyword jammed webpage. You wont know until you click it!

    -- not exactly a 100% accurate map of direction.......
     
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    davek17

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    EventDomain, if you use the right keywords, find the right links and spend effort in the right areas it does pay off. A link from a page ranked page of 7+ is always going to do loads for your SEO if its relevant.

    What doesn't work anymore in my view is using links and keyphrases like Nokia N95 when you sell Nokia N95's and then trying in vain to get the same 5000 inbound links that say Expansys has for its N95 page on the same keywords. These major terms are so competitive now that they are a waste of time spending any effort on. I do agree with you in terms of a lot of people see online and SEO as a silver bullet and this is what a lot of these SEO companies lead you to believe.

    Without committment, intellignece and a knowledge of your customers and market trends and without someone in your business doing SEO daily you'll always be fighting against bigger, better competition. Find the niches in everything you do.

    There's a great little book that talks about a samll toy company who couldn't get anywhere with phrases like "toys" or "Kids toys" as ToysRus and Argos pretty much had these sewn up. It wasn't until they started using "Wooden toys" or "Environmentally friendly toys" that they got great success.
     
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