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.

Link Exchanges To Gain Affiliate Commission

Usually link exchanging is done to raise your link popularity or pagerank – But if done correctly, you may find your self with literally thousands of visitors – with one thing in common. Figure out how to USE this web traffic; don’t let it go to easily.

Exchanging links – weather you do it manually or use a service for it – is mainly to gain more link popularity – thus gaining positions in the search engines. This is perhaps the most common way of improving your page rank, and it’s very effective. But, a side effect most webmasters don’t think of is the traffic they attract while doing so.

If you are using a link exchange service to exchange links, you can – and should – try to take advantage of all the webmasters coming to your site and/or link pages. Most webmasters won’t take the time to check out your offers, but if you can present them with an on-target banner or text-link – promoting a product directly related to webmastering, link exchanging or anything similar – you will find yourself with a new way of making affiliate commission.

The link exchange I used for this experiment - link2me – has the option of upgrading for roughly $30, making it possible to send out unlimited link exchange request. I’m not sure how many sites they have in their directory, but – trust me – it’s plenty. They also have an option at every request, enabling you to present a specific link page to the recipients of your link exchange request. This is where you will have the opportunity to add well chosen affiliate links. This page should actually BE a link page, and I encourage you to actually utilize the service and exchange some links. If you ask for a link exchange with every site listed, you should find yourself with thousands of webmasters looking at your link page to evaluate if they want to accept your exchange request. A good addition might be SimplyLinking, allowing 20 free requests daily.

If you want to take this one step further, it is possible to further target the visitors by making several link pages – each with a more narrow advertisement, and choosing what page to show for each link request. Because you know what their site is about, you can find and add affiliate links on a detailed level.

Choosing the correct affiliate programs for this is easy, but it can take some time to get it perfected though. The best way of evaluating it is by using different affiliate programs on different link pages. Look in your web statistics and compare the traffic on each link page with the amount of sales or clicks to the affiliate programs, then choose the ones with the best conversion rate.

There are many affiliate programs with products or services for webmasters. A webmaster engaged in link exchanging is bound to be interested in others ways of improving their page rank, or other ways of marketing their site. This include services such as; Link exchanges, article submissions, directory submissions, SEO services or simple, everyday products such as web design and hosting. If you are a bit imaginative, you can probably think of many, many other subjects which might be of interest.

Using this method on every new built site will give you both page rank and possible affiliate commission, this while still building your link popularity.