Links and Linking Strategies

You wouldn’t think that the links on your site would make too much difference
to the traffic on your site, but they do. The Web is an interconnected
group of pages. The connection from one page to another comes in the form
of a link. So, both on your site and from others’ sites, links are an essential
part of drawing people in.
One of the easiest ways to begin building a linking strategy is to contact the
owners of Web sites that you like and ask them for a reciprocal link. Reciprocal
links are when you put a link to that site on your page in exchange for a link
back to your Web site. Reciprocal linking strategies are very common on
the Web.
Another way to get people to link to you is to offer something completely
unique on your Web site. For some, that means adding a special download
to the site that’s not available anywhere; for others, it means adding videos,
podcasts, or some other element that’s completely unique. Whatever your
draw is, keep it unique and fresh. A podcast or video can be effective for a
few days, but after a while, it loses its effectiveness and needs to be replaced
with something new.
When you have an intricate linking strategy in place (one that leads to other
sites of interest and back to you from other sites), you start seeing the
results of the strategy — more traffic. The linking strategy takes a little time
to create, but it’s well worth the effort.