Link Exchanges And How to do Them

The link exchange requests you receive often have a bad effect on you as they are badly crafted and all look too similar. As a result it's often hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.

So what can you do if you want to develop your own link campaign? How should you go about it?

If you want to get quality back links from authority sites, you will have to send link exchange requests that inspire and help the webmaster so that your request stands out. The secret of successful requests is to write link exchange messages that are not seen as spam by its reader.

Get the reader's  attention

If you want people to read your link exchange messages, they should not sound like the dozens of other email's that the typical webmaster receives each and every day. Try to use the recipient's real name throughout your message. If your link request starts with "Dear webmaster" then it's likely that it will be moved quickly to the trash bin.

Be personal

Write a personal message for each recipient. Use a real email address with a real name as the sender address. Free email addresses and email addresses with numbers look like spam and will not be dealt with by the webmaster.

Create interest

What's in it for me? You should answer that primary question as soon as possible in your email. Do not list any features. Focus on benefits. First, nobody is really interested in the great features of your website. Tell the recipient how your website solves his problems or the problems of his readers.

Appeal to the ego of the recipient

Tell the recipient that you will list his site in some special category or that you have already linked to his site. It's easier to convince people if you appeal to their ego.

Create desire

The recipient of your link exchange email will not react to your request if you don't create desire.

To create desire out of interest, you can tell the recipient that you downloaded his eBook, subscribed to his newsletter or RSS feed, etc.

The webmaster you send an email to is far more likely to reciprocate if you have already done something in advance. Give the recipient the feeling that he's special.

Make action as easy as possible

Don't make the webmaster think too much. Make the linking process as easy as possible by giving him copy/paste HTML code with your link information. Of course, the code should only be an option and you should not insist on that code. If the webmaster wants to use another code to link to your site, that's okay.

Be sure to include your phone number and your address in your link request email message.

A sample link request

Hi, Name of webmaster,

I am the webmaster of xxxxxx.

I have been searching for good online website partners through Google, for mutual website promotions and traffic development.

In the process I came across your website http://www.xxxxxxxxx and after browsing through it I found it very informative and useful for the visitors to xxxxx. I therefore believe it would be beneficial for our companies if we swapped links.

This exchange will go towards improving our sites ranks in the major search engines, especially Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Please consider adding my link to your site on a suitable page, preferably: http://xxxxxxxxxxxxlinks.html.

In response to this, I will add your website to our own links page http:/xxxxxxxxx/links.html.

Here's the information you need to upload our link:

Title: xxxxxxxx

Description: xxxxxxxxx

URL: http://xxxxxxxxxxxx

Please let me have your reciprocal link so I can add it to my links page - http://xxxxxxxxxxx/links.html.

If you have a unique article, you can send it to me with a back link to your own website and I will create a separate page for you in my article directory. Please make sure that the article is not a copy from any other website. I will also be happy to add a guest blog post to my xxxxxxxx Blog.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards, Your name

Your email address and telephone numbers.

P.S. If you are not the webmaster please forward this email to the appropriate person.

Follow these simple steps to get those valuable reciprocal links flowing.

Of course if you already have a large and useful site you will often find that other webmasters beat a path to your door to request a link on your site, without any action on your part.