Finding one-way links with a link exchange – Without cheating

Many webmasters use more or less automated link exchanges to increase the number of inbound links to their websites. Even though reciprocal linking may prove successful for some websites, using the same services to attract one-way links would of course be a better idea. In fact, using the right services may very well leave you with inbound links to any or all of your websites, not just the one exchanging links.

As webmasters begun to understand the importance of inbound links, the services offering likeminded webmasters to exchange links have grown in numbers. Some are completely automated, others are just directories where you can find website owners likely to be interested in exchanging links. Some services have taken it one step further and are rewarding users who are promoting the service. This is made possible by an affiliate program. Some services offer a monetary reward, while others will give you links.

The two services I have tried for this experiment are Link2me and Link-Vault, two completely different services that, in this particular case, complement each other very well.

Where Link2me is a traditional, semi-automated link exchange where you manually add links to your pages, Link-Vault are utilizing a script to place all links. Link-Vault isn’t a link exchange where people do reciprocal linking; it’s more of a huge link pool, filled with pages from all over the world. You link to a few sites, and other sites link back. In theory it’s a brilliant idea, and it gets better as the link pool grows.

In order to gain inbound links, you need to earn vaultage. The vaultage is the calculated into inbound links according to some formula. Earning vaultage can be done in two ways;

Adding the script to your pages and referring other webmasters to Link-Vault. This is where Link2me becomes useful.

When using Link2me, you are given the opportunity to specify your link page(s) for every potential link exchange. Using this feature will make many of the webmasters you ask for a link exchange to take a look at the specified page where you have placed the referral URL to Link-Vault in a prominent place.

Every visitor to that page will be a webmaster obviously interested in link exchanges, otherwise they wouldn’t be using Link2me in the first place. This interest is what you are taking advantage of when placing a link pointing to Link-Vault, it can’t be more on-target than this.

Considering Link2me’s 5 free exchanges/day and unlimited websites, you can make very good use of this even if you choose not to upgrade. If you, like I did, do upgrade you will get an unlimited number of requests. Asking everyone WILL give you quite a bit of visitors, all interested in link exchanges.

To sum it all up, here is what you need to do;

Join Link-Vault and get referral code

Add code to your link page(s)

Join Link2me, specify your link page and request link exchanges with as many websites possible.

Doing this a few times will give you plenty of referrals and thus plenty of free inbound links.

Art Related Affiliate Programs

Art affiliate programs - or any artistic program - can make a very nice addition to websites of many niches outside the obvious; Art.

The reason for this is simple; most people like art. - Wait a minute, you think, that can't be right. But it is, the only problem you are facing is to figure out a way to intrigue as many of your visitors you possibly can.

This isn't always easy, but if all else fails - trial and error will always work well. Just promote a new artsy product - or a new art affiliate program - until you find a program converting well enough – making you a nice commission.

There are different affiliate programs - all related to art in some way - that could be of interest. The question is what your visitors are likely to be interested in. A few choices are;

Painting affiliate programs

Selling paintings online isn't easy, but still some manage to succeed. If you can find a successful website – selling paintings - with a decent affiliate program, you may have a good chance of making some nice commissions. Most paintings are quite expensive, making only a few sales go a long way.

Finding good online web shops with an equally good affiliate program is hard in any small niche, paintings are no exception. But, as affiliate programs get easier and easier to join and implement, joining a new program is easier than ever. So, if you are not converting well enough, just find a new paintings affiliate program to try out.

Poster art affiliate programs

Unlike most art, posters are not expensive at all. This is perhaps the easiest art related product to promote but the commission earned on every sale will be significantly lower.

Posters can also be a very good product to promote on non-art related websites with the right type of visitors. The variety of posters makes it a very interesting when using affiliate programs:

If the poster affiliate program offers product links you can easily promote highly on-target ads on your website. A website about movies can link to the movie posters, a site about music can link to posters of various artists etc. This way of advertising often converts very well, as many of the visitors viewing the ad will have a specific interest in the motive of the poster.

Music affiliate programs

Promoting music related websites through an affiliate program is an excellent way of earning some extra cash online. There are many websites offering good commissions on various music related products.

The music industry is huge, making the variety of merchandise equally large. This makes for a wide selection of affiliate programs potentially right for your website.

You need to figure out what to promote, as well as how to promote the products. Often the content of your site will give you a good idea of what affiliate program to promote.

If you are reviewing records in any way, an obvious way of making affiliate commission would be to have a direct link to every record reviewed. Even though many internet users download their music, enough people still buys their records. There are many affiliate programs offering products such as; downloadable music, music players, instrument classes or instruments for sale, look around to see if you can find a good match.

Earn affiliate commission from your off-line experiences

What many struggling webmasters forget is that pretty much any experience could be a solid ground for a profitable site. Writing about personal interest also adds other advantages; it’s much easier to write interesting content in an area you feel comfortable with and you - as you already know your topic - get much for free, no need to research for ever before you can make your site.

A very good example of a topic familiar to most is vacations. Almost everyone go on vacation, and everyone has opinions in regards to that very vacation. No matter if you had a good time or a bad time, sunny weather or two weeks of rain – people will find it interesting.

Due to the high competition for travel sites, booking you airline tickets, hotel or car rental is often cheaper using the web. This is why the market for travel related keywords are so broad, thus making it more than possible to find a few good keywords to target.

Writing about vacations is obviously a good topic for a blog, but you can easily make a full site about it. Even if its only one vacation, one destination – you can add information about sightseeing, shopping, night clubs or attractions.

How would this generate an online income?

Any site with visitors is possible to monetize, it’s just a matter of how. If you are running many sites of different niches, finding a good versatile affiliate program might be a good alternative to the obvious; contextual advertising. If you – on the other hand – are running one, or a few sites similar in nature, you should really try to find the best paying affiliate program you can. If you can send many potential customers to only one affiliate program, the importance of high commission is naturally higher.

In this case – with a blog or website about travel and vacations – the potential revenue is good. You have the opportunity to advertise expensive products, often with high commissions making the niche more lucrative than most.

Just as most people have opinions and experience from traveling, many travelers try to find as much information of a destination before going. This is an excellent opportunity to present them with products related to that destination, or to vacations in general.

If you are lucky enough to attract people looking for the information to choose destination, you will have the possibility to present them with even more – on target – offers. The potential commission on a flight and two weeks of hotel for a family of fours is very high. If you choose your affiliate program well – and offer low airfares, cheap bookings and interesting information – you will no doubted earn quite a bit of money.

Promoting travel related affiliate programs give you an excellent opportunity to pre-sell the products you are advertising. Many affiliate programs have a wide range of products, ranging from expensive all-inclusive packages to small guided tours on a particular destination. Take advantage of your knowledge and experiences. If you have been on a spectacular trip, a major football tournament or just have an odd vacation memory, be sure to write it down, join a travel related affiliate program and you will be sure to make at least a little bit of money.

Make some money loosing weight

If you are one of many struggling with a few extra pounds, and are constantly trying new diets, exercises or training equipment, you have an excellent opportunity to get some of your spent money back, if you only make a small blog or website about the issue.

If you do a simple search on weight loss, GI-method, diet or any other weight loss related term, you will find yourself with more results than you can imagine. The only reason so many webmasters are competing for the same search term, is the enormous upside in that particular niche. Many of the webmasters competing have little insight in the actual topic, but are very good at search engine marketing and/or SEO.

If you have tried at least one popular diet, you can easily write down your experiences and your success – or lack thereof – using that diet, exercise or equipment. For others in your position, this information can prove very valuable, saving them time or money. If you can find products or services to promote - using online affiliate programs – you can get a commission every time you refer a customer their way. If you have tried numerous ways of loosing weight, why not write separate pages – or even different websites – covering all the methods you’ve tried.

A blog is the easiest way to go, but a website is easier to make profitable once established. If you have no, or limited computer skills, a blog would be a good start. For those of you with experience in HTML or any wysiwyg-editor should focus on making an easy website.

Although blogs can be very lucrative, a real website will often be more trustworthy, simply because it’s obvious someone has put some effort into it. The fact that a website can be made in just a few minutes is often – if not always – forgotten.

It’s possible to download some free blog software, to install on a domain you own. This is a great way for beginners; no HTML or coding needed, but you still reside on your own domain. When your website is successful enough, you can redesign it without having to move it from one URL to another. If you had your blog hosted somewhere else - on blogspot.com or such – you would have to hope people would follow the link to your new domain.

Finding affiliate programs related to weight loss is easy, the hard part is to choose the right one. A good idea is to use a few programs, evaluating the commission earned periodically.

The very nature of overweight makes it very likely for people to keep trying to loose weight, making recurring commission very important when choosing affiliate program. If you can recruit a few new customers, you could make a very nice commission if some of them stay true to the program over a period of time. If a method of weight loss is effective, chances are good many customers will stay loyal, thus making you even more money.

Figuring out what keyword to target may be tough for people inexperienced in affiliate marketing, but if you write good and unique content, visitors AND search engines will find you sooner or later. On top of naturally generated visitors, there are many ways of attracting visitors and/or improving your search engine placement. Generally this is much easier with a website than it is with a blog, but many marketers are using nothing but blogs to earn online revenue, so it’s not impossible at all.

The bigger your website gets, the more exposure you will get in the search engines, thus increasing your chances of getting visitors thereby. Try to find one or two keywords or phrases to target for each section of your site, and be sure to use that phrase in the internal links to that page. Even without proper research, you stand a good chance of targeting at least one term possible to reach a top placement for. Once you are making a little bit of money, it’s motivating enough to expand your marketing efforts to truly make an online income.