One of the first things people discover when they start looking for
ways to promote their site are link exchange sites. Simply submit
your URL and put their banner on your site and they will start
sending your thousands of visitors. By making just few exchanges it
should not take long before your site becomes inundated with
visitors.
When was the last time you cruised a link exchange site looking for
somewhere interesting to go? The fact is people look for sites with
search engines or by search lists and recommendations at related
sites. Link exchanges will produce few if any visitors and if they do
they will probably not be prime candidates for your product or
service. That is not unless you have a link exchange site yourself.
Placing a large number of banners on your site can also have a
detrimental effect since they will slow your download and if
affective, will siphon off your visitors and potential customers.
Worse still, banners for general-purpose link exchanges can look
unprofessional to experienced web surfers.
So link exchanges are a non-starter!
Not necessarily. There is actually a growing value to having these
links to your site. Many search engine, especially second generation
engines, are starting to use site popularity as a way to rank your site.
In other words, a site with 100 links to it will rank higher in the
search results than a site with only 5 or six. It is consequently
important to establish links to your site both for the traffic they can
generate directly and for the indirect value of improving your search
engine ranking.
Although Link Exchanges can be of value, it is better to put your
initial efforts into exchanging links with related sites. Not only will
they generate more visitors, the visitors they do generate will be
better qualified. Join a Web Ring related to your topic if one is
available or create one if not. Avoid putting too many links on your
home page. Create a link page if you have a lot of links and put the
Link Exchange banners at the bottom if you do decide to use them.
You can determine your site popularity on many search engines by
entering a special code. Try these searches replacing "yoururl.com"
with the URL of your site.
"IMS Web Tips" is a weekly news letter for all web site managers regardless of experience who are looking for detailed information on
creating, maintaining and promoting their web sites.
