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October 12, 2009
Readers Question about reciprocal linking?
Hi John,
Am I to understand you do not agree with reciprocal linking?
Isn't this why Google is supposed to place such high importance on good inbound links?
Best regards,
JJ
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Dear JJ,
We do not encourage reciprocal linking (as a strategy) these days.
It's just simply not nearly effective as other ways of building links using much more influential strategies where you will glean much greater benefit.
You want links from authoritative sites that relate to your researched keyword phrase.
Years ago it was all about the number of links or link popularity. These days it is more about link reputation and all links are not created equal.
When we started our Search Engine Workshop Web site back in 2002 we had no links at all. Rather than go after reciprocal linking, we took the approach of just find 6 very good links from very authoritative Web sites. Those first 6 links were better than have thousands of very poor or weak or unrelated links.
Of course we have lots of links now, but with just those first 6, we became much more authoritative (as far as linking strategies are concerned.)
You know something has shifted when now suddenly everyone is bugging you for a link instead of you struggling all the time to try to find decent reciprocals.
We are also big believers on linking to people who we know and people we actually have a relationship with.
A few other easy ways you should consider thinking about
link building include:
- Working with news or media (it's 100% white hat because search engines understand syndication)
- Working with Press Releases
- Article Marketing - ( it's extremely powerful for link building when you do it the right way.)
- User generated content (let your readers submit content)
- Internal linking strategies (yes linking in the right fashion from within your own site can be beneficial too.)
- Blogging (Bloggers are a whole different breed than typical Webmasters - very easy to work with)
- Social Media Marketing (another whole new world that's here to stay.)
If you are interested in some mentoring or on-screen consultation, I have several spots open for October and November. I do offer in-depth consultation right on the screen. If your interested, please let me know and I will send you my rate sheet.
Also keep in mind as important as linking is, there many other strategies you can learn to balance out your Web site with top stable visibility and attract entirely new audiences of the most correct visitors who are searching for the products or services you have.
Thanks for reading the Free SEO Tip of the Day.
Highest regards,
John Alexander
john@searchengineworkshops.com
Search Engine Workshops Free SEO Tip of the Day
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Posted by John at October 12, 2009 11:04 AM