Link Exchanges to help Elevate your Pagerank

If you’re like many new online business owners, you may think that putting up a website or blog will attract traffic like a bee to honey. In order for people to find your site, it’s good to be seen on the first 3 pages of search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. And a web link exchange can help you do just that.

Why the first 3 pages of the search engines? Because the chances of someone spending the time it takes to search through pages and pages of listings are slim. Think of how you search for something. Do you go beyond the second or third page or do you just give up and try a different set of keywords (or forget it altogether and go on to something else)?

Part of the way you rise in the ranks of Google or Yahoo is to have a number of sites linking to your site. From web 2.0 sites to video distribution sites to article databases, the more sites you have pointing to you the better off you’ll be.

But how do you do that?

You can direct link to your site via the methods listed above but you can also do a link exchange with a site that complements yours. Some web link exchanges are free and others charge a set fee to give you a particular number of links each month.

The issue with mass exchanges is that chances are good that you’ll get some links from sites that either have no relation to your site or your niche or they’re sites you’d rather not have pointing to you.

The best way for you to keep track of your link exchanges are to do them personally. You can search the terms “link exchange” or “web link exchange” with your niche topic to see what appears in the search engines.

If there isn’t anything you like using that method, use some keywords to see what your competitors’ sites are like. Sometimes they’ll have a related links page. Take a look and get ideas for sites that won’t be in direct competition with you but will work well with yours.

Here’s an example: a vegan chef might be interested in linking with someone who sells a vegetable gardening product. You would write to the site owner – look for a contact form or email address on their site – and ask if they would be interested in a web link exchange. These are very often free link exchanges between colleagues and you may even meet a new friend who can help your business.

Try some link exchanges to help elevate your page rank in the search engines. You may even find a new joint venture partner.