January 22 2009
A Better Way To Get Links
One of the latest link-building fads is the Article Swapping Trick. When you use the Article Swapping Trick you trade articles with another site, and thereby you swap links (because your article links back to your site and your swap-partner’s article links back to his site).
Does anyone see the potential problem with this tactic? It’s just Reciprocal Linking Made More Tedious because now you have to write an article and create a page for someone else’s article.
There still seems to be some disagreement or misunderstanding in some corners of the SEO universe regarding Reciprocal Links. Some people think they don’t work, or that they will get you banned or penalized. Let me set the record straight: Reciprocal Links still work fine … until you rely too heavily on them and get your site penalized or banned.
Search engines don’t care if you occasionally swap links with other sites. But they do care if you mostly swap links with other sites. That makes you look cheap and unimportant.
So here is a suggestion: DON’T swap articles with other sites. If you want to have an occasional guest blogger or reuse someone else’s article, or just have a guest feature article — do it. But don’t ask for a damn link back. Take that bad SEO advice you’ve bought into and return it for a full refund.
If you want links from other people’s sites, just give them unique, original articles that enhance the value of their sites. Stop embedding links to your content. Instead, ask them to provide the link where they think it’s appropriate. If you’re lucky, they’ll create a bio page for you and ask you to contribute more articles. If they just add your link to a long list of other contributors’ links, well, you’ll know not to contribute to their site any more (and you should have had sense enough to check them out in the first place).
What kinds of sites are best to contribute to? New sites, low Toolbar PR sites, sites with virtually no search visibility and no search audience. Why? Because any content you provide to them will help them grow and they, in return, will help you grow.
You don’t need high Toolbar PR links to improve your search traffic referrals. You need to work with Web sites that are young, aggressive, and ambitious so that they grow up to be your friends and allies. They’ll remember people who had faith in them and gave them support in their early struggling days.
And you’ll improve your writing skills without stumbling over yourself begging for links.
Stop asking for links. Start earning them. You’ll find this not only does wonders for your self-esteem, it significantly improves the quality of your link profile.
Written by Michael Martinez
