Links to Success

Did you know that web linkage is responsible for a significant amount of web traffic?

Search engines are still extremely important but many of the most successful e-commerce sites claim that linkage programs offer a tremendous source of web traffic.

It makes sense. The nature of the World Wide Web encourages serious web surfers to navigate from site to site through the links to other related sites and resources "found" on the sites that are visited. People sometimes forget that the name "web" itself is based on an extensive interweaving of sites, similar to links in a chain.

It's important for any site owner to seek out and invite related web sites to "exchange" reciprocal links. The site being invited should be interesting, provide good links and present useful, relevant information that complements what you are already presenting.

A web site with an extensive listing of quality links offers several advantages. First, the site is perceived as being a useful resource, and justifies revisits. Second, it's more effective than just placing banner advertising on other sites, since a reciprocal hyperlink is considered to be more believable. Finally, it helps your site's ranking with search engines that place some importance on link popularity. This is especially important with Google.

Business-to-business web sites require extensive research to seek out, invite and establish appropriate reciprocal links with other sites. For others, "non strategic," or general links to other sites can be established quickly by checking out some of the reciprocal link exchange services that exist for free on the Web.

A word of caution about reciprocal links. Be sure your site includes navigation within the HTML code to prevent your site visitor from leaving entirely. A simple method to prevent this is to modify the links so that a new browser window opens. This can be done simply by adding a "target" attribute to the links, and set it to the value "_blank".

Geoff Caplan is an Internet marketing consultant and copywriter with 11 years of continuous experience. He has presented seminars and has worked with major web brands, including eDiets, and myTravelUSA. He can be reached at [email protected]. His site is http://geoff-caplan.com