You might have heard about the free link-building technique, link exchange, where you trade someone for a backlink.
It is as easy as this: You link to them, and they relate to you. Link exchange, also known as reciprocal links, is a pervasive link-building strategy among businesses in the same industry.
It is essential to mention here that according to Google’s guidelines, “excessive link exchanges “are listed under what Google calls “link schemes.” The crucial word in the guidelines is “excessive.”
This aspect indicates that as long as you don’t overdo it, or as long as you don’t turn link exchange into your primary link-building technique, you will be fine.
 |
| How to Master the Art of Link Exchange?: eAskme |
The potential problem with link exchange is that it is probably not the most efficient way to reach and build links.
Suppose you invest your time in finding websites you want to link and send them emails; offering them more value through a guest post might be more effective. If you were to ask for a link swap simply, it could waste the attention that the receiver of your email gave you.
So, you will certainly want to master the Link and Backlink technique by contacting relevant websites.
As you might have experienced, your email inbox is spammed a million times daily by various people trying to get a link to your website.
Take the time to see who is asking.
You will see that many of these websites are good when you do this. As the websites are reaching out to your site asking for a link, they will undoubtedly be relevant to your business and website.
Instead of ignoring these outreach requests, you will want to respond to the people you would like to get a link from and offer a link exchange.
Here are some further tips that will help you master the art of link exchange.
Assess the Website before Accepting & Giving Links:
To master the art of link exchange, you will want to start by checking the other website’s organic traffic. You will also want to assess what their content quality is like and whether they are publishing regularly or not.
You will also want to assess whether they are an authority in your industry.
And you will want to be sure they are a website you genuinely want to work with.
Can you trust their website?
You will want to assess these things initially before contacting the website or responding to their query.
You will want to assess their website’s domain rating and compare it to the organic traffic they get.
By determining the fundamental aspects of their website’s SEO, you will get a clearer idea about whether or not it would make sense to opt for a link exchange and whether it is relevant to the piece of content that you are getting and the amount of content they will be linking out from.
You will also want to assess who else they are linking to. Suppose they work with casinos or other dodgy websites; you dislike linking to them.
You should be extremely careful about assessing the other person’s backlink profile, especially if you opt for reciprocal link building.
Be mindful about checking who the websites link to and from which websites they get links.
Stay in Touch by Building a Database:
Many businesses make a common mistake with link building: they build a link, walk off into the sunset, and never contact the website owner again.
If you do the same thing, you miss many valuable link exchange opportunities.
If you want to make the most of your link exchange strategy, you will want to create a database of high-quality websites you can work with in the long run.
This way, you can partner up with the right websites, and the websites will keep sharing your content, and you can keep sharing theirs.
This way, you can foster an extremely excellent business relationship.
So, whenever you get a high-level backlink from a high DA website that gets loads of organic traffic and posts high-quality content, you will want to put their name, email address, and other details in the spreadsheet.
You will then use that database to stay in touch with them and follow up.
And, of course, you will also want to focus on your interpersonal relationship skills by being respectful. You must take their value and pitch them all the time.
You should ensure you give as much as you are taking, as this is essentially what reciprocal links are all about.
Another recommendation that will help you master the art of link exchange is that you will want to keep following up with your database every one or two months.
This way, you can build and foster a strong business relationship with all websites that are part of your database because it is much easier to get links from websites that already trust you than pitching to new ones.
If you think about it, you will see that link exchange lies a real competitive advantage for your website.
Even if the other websites refuse to share more reciprocal links, they might introduce you to more websites by sharing you on social media; the networking effect of link exchange is natural and beneficial for your business.
Offer Value at All Costs:
You will want to keep a golden rule in mind: relationships are everything regarding off-page SEO.
Reciprocal links can help you get a competitive advantage that most website owners don’t have, so you will want to leverage this link-building technique and get more organic traffic to your website.
Make sure to offer value by actively approaching websites. Instead of using the generic line of “link to me, and I will link to you,” you will want to give value, loads of value, and then see what you get back from them.
If you do this, it is a much more respectful and better, and more authentic way to start a business relationship.
Still have any question, do share via comments.
Share this post with your friends and family.
Don't forget to like us FB and join the eAskme newsletter to stay tuned with us.
Other handpicked guides for you;
