In Part 1 we discussed Directory Submissions and Forum Posting as ways of getting free backlinks to your web pages.
In Part 2 I was going to teach you about the following techniques for getting lots of inbound links to your site:
- reciprocal linking
- rss feeds
- article marketing
But, I’ve written so much about reciprocal linking (had to split this in to two parts), you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out about RSS Feeds and Article Marketing!!! This 3 Part series on Getting Inbound Links suddenly became a 4 or 5 part series 
So let’s get started with today’s technique …
Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking is a method whereby you put a link from your site to someone else’s site, and in return they link back to your site. Traditionally that is why you see “links pages” on a lot of sites, it’s the site where they place their outbound links to other sites, usually in return for a link back.
Reciprocal Linking should be an integral part of your linking strategy, but not the most important component. When it comes to inbound links, one way links are better, and for that reason, the techniques in my next 2 or 3 posts are superior. But reciprocal linking still has a part to play in getting high search engine rankings (serps).
initially it can be a struggle to find linking partners who are willing to reciprocate. It’s a “chicken and the egg” scenario.
It’ll be rare that you’ll find another site that has decent page rank willing to trade links with you if you have a new site with zero page rank because there is nothing in it for them!
So in effect you need to have inbound links to get inbound links!
I therefore suggest that you concentrate on attracting reciprocal links only from other related sites that have a Page Rank of 3 or less, until you have at least a page rank of 3 yourself, or at the very minimum you have decent traffic numbers to your site to entice potential partners with!
Leave contacting the higher ranking sites until you have PR yourself.
So how do you find potential link partners?
A simple free way to find potential sites to exchange links with is to simply search Google. Type in one of your keywords into the search box along with the words “add url” or “add link”, for example:
Keyword phrase add url or keyword add link
The results returned will show related sites that are willing to exchange links.
Usually the returned pages will show you exactly what you need to do to exchange links with that site. Normally, it’s as simple as adding your site details to the fields on the returned page, and then copying the code they provide and adding it to your own links page.
Now, when you create a links page on your site so that you can paste the other site’s code, or add their link details manually, I really suggest you do the following. Make your page more than just a “links” page. Don’t just simply display a lot of links on the page. Add some relevant content as well to make the page more attractive to the Search Engines. Don’t call it Links Page, call it “sites of interest” or something more inventive and keyword friendly. Ensure it links directly off your homepage. Make the page a directory page that includes descriptions of the sites you’re linking to and add some related content. Split the site links into sections with good Keyword headings. Get some inbound links to it.
Why do all this?
If you do all these things, your “links” page will earn a decent Page Rank. If it earns a decent page rank, more sites will request to link with you, saving you the leg work. Plus, remember the chicken and egg scenario? If you get good page rank for your links page, better ranking sites will reciprocate links with you!
So don’t just throw up a links page, put some work into it. Remember the more related incoming links you get from quality sites, the further up the search engine rankings you’ll go!
The rest of the article is continued here …
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