Paying For Links

The reciprocal link principle is simple – find websites with good rankings and plenty of traffic, and trade links with them. But when you’re just starting out, why should a big important site give a little upstart like you any kind of link? Well there’s only one way to find out –ASK.

It helps if you have some kind of relationship with the site owner. But even if you don’t, you can sometimes use bribery to get a link from a well-ranked site. Ask for a link. If they say no, ask “Would you consider linking to me for $100?" You’d be surprised at how many webmasters will take you up on your offer!

This technique works best with privately owned sites that rank in the top 10 for targeted keywords in niche markets. There’s no point in trying to get a link from Forbes or Newsweek’s or Fortune’s web site. But if you’re selling weight loss products, and $50 will buy you a link from a small web site that’s ranked #1 for “low-carb dessert recipes,” you’re probably better off buying that link than buying $50 of PPC advertising. This also can’t hurt your own search engine ranking.

Get a simple written agreement about exactly what the link will say (keyword optimized) and the duration of the link – 6 months, a year, forever...

A similar technique involves finding all the sites that link to your competitors, and offering them a cash incentive to add your link to their site. To accomplish this there are a slew of products out there.

Software programs that will:

analyze a web page and reveal the main variables used by a search engine to determine its rankings

These include:

Incoming link popularity.
Link text (keyword ratio).
Keyword density ratio on the web page.
Keyword density ratio in the title tag.
Google PageRank rating (if Google is the selected search engine).

Analyze and optimize your websites internal links

finds relevant link partners by searching for:

Web sites that link to your competitors' web sites.
web sites that offer products or services complementary to yours.
informational web sites.