Is reciprocal linking dead?
Inbound links to your website are still one of the most critical parts of optimizing your site for search engines. At this point we can recognize why this is a weighted factor in search engine algorythms. It makes sense that inbound links to a site indicate some sort of favortism by users and other experts in the industry to the importance and relevancy of the site.
I have heard people say that reciprocal linking is no longer effective. While that is true to an extent, it is still fine to reciprocate links with sites that you feel an affinity with.
We have to look at it this way. The search engines job is to return relevant searches. They can’t achieve this if websites are succeeding in ‘fooling’ them that their site is more relevant for certain keyword terms then a site that truly is. If webmasters are reciprocating links with many sites, especially sites that aren’t relevant to their users — the links importance becomes muddy. So it makes sense that they will discount the links importance. It doesn’t mean they discount the links all together. The point is, reciprocate links selectively. Make sure it makes sense that you would link to that site and they would link to you from your visitors perspective.
The bottom line is, if it’s good for your visitor, by all means do it. Irregardless of what any search engine might think. In the end it is your visitors loyalty to your site that is going to make it successful.
Once you have established that a site is worthy of reciprocating links with or more poignantly cross promoting with,why not be innovative in your linking strategies. By innovative, I am not intimating that we engage in any kind of search engine trickery. We’re not talking about crazy four way linking schemes here…
What I am suggesting is that now that we understand the necessity of search engines placing less value on reciprocal linking - we shouldn’t make our legitimate, user worthy reciprocal links stand out in the same way reciprocal links typically do.
This requires some time and effort on the part of both webmasters — but good websites do require time and effort.
Talk with the webmaster — actually engage them in a conversation rather then sending them a spammy link request email. Review eachothers websites and look for areas that you feel confident that a mention of your site could blend in well in their content and at the same time benefit their visitors.
For example, if you sell website templates and they have a section of their site devoted to helping their visitors build a website - it would fit in nicely that they reccomend your website for as a resource for high quality templates. In turn, find a place on your site that you can recommend your partners site as a good resource for learning how to build a site.
Other ideas would be to write original, keyword rich articles for eachothers websites. Agree not to distribute the article in other places. This will provide each website with some new, unique content - something we all can use! Link to your site with anchor text from within the article instead of just in your bio at the end.
Be guest writers on eachothers blogs. Really go all out coming up with a blog entry that is link worthy and give it to the other webmaster. This may even get you some one way links! All webmasters and bloggers need good content that is not plastered in hundreds of other websites around the web. Give them a taste of what kind of entries you can come up with and they may welcome you to post any time you want.
These are three ideas for innovative reciprocal linking. They aren’t as easy as simply trading links at the bottom of your homepage or in your near useless directories… but the effort will pay off far more then traditional reciprocal linking ever could.
Here are some other articles you may find useful:
Developing a Reciprocal Link Strategy
Randfish on Reciprocal Linking
What Link Pages Should Look Like
Reciprocal Linking is Dead
Link Popularity
Add comment April 9th, 2007