Be Smart, Swap Links!

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Be Smart, Swap Links

By Dejan Bizinger

Once you've made your web site and put it on the Internet, the
next thing you need to do is promote it. If you don't, then
people won't find your site. Same with newsletters: people are
not going to find you unless you tell them you are there.

There are many ways to promote your web site or newsletter. You
should already know that it is very important to publish your own
newsletter to keep in contact with your customers, visitors and
as a means of promoting your site.

You could try to have a high placement in the search engines, but
that's not easy. Especially, if you are trying to get listed with
some popular keywords which will bring the most traffic.

Then, another option is newsgroups. This technique can be pretty
useful, but you have to be careful to make sure you post
appropriately to the right groups and joining in the discussions
takes up a considerable amount of time.

I think that best means of promotion if you don't have too much
money for advertising is to exchange links with others. Then you
both benefit from it. Also, having many links to your site also
improves your ranking on many of the search engines, because of
the way their algorithms work, so its a win-win-win situation.

How to find swap resources

If you want to have many visitors or subscribers, then logically,
you should have your link in as many places as possible. Many
studies show that most visitors will come to your site from the
links on other sites.

OK, you think, now I only have to have many links on other sites.
Do you think that it is easy? Well, it is not too hard if you
know ways to achieve it.

First of all you have to decide which are those sites where you
want to have your link. You have to choose a target audience. It
is not very effective to have your link on a totally unrelated
site, but, on the other hand, you don't have to have your link on
competitor sites. So you need to find those sites that complement
yours. Then it is more likely that people will actually
click on your link.

Now, how can you easily find good places to advertise? You could
try the search engines. You will get many results, but many of
them are useless for your marketing campaign. You will get far
more results with less approaches if you find people who are also
already looking to swap resources from among specialist search
engines and directories.

When you have found good sites that match your target, you have
to contact them, of course.

Good site for finding swap resources is
http://www.swap-resources.com/

How to make and contact

It is very important to write a good email. You can't simply say:
"Hey, I want to have my link on your site". It doesn't work that
way.

First of all, you need to personalize your swap request.
For example it is better to say: "Dear Dejan..." than "Dear
Webmaster...". Include their site or ezine name in the email too.

After that you have to explain why are you interested in swapping
links with them. For example you can say that they offer valuable
information and you think that that it will be useful to your
visitors to come to their site. You have to tell them why you
should put their link on your site: i.e. what's in it for them.

By swapping links you can make some great online friends. After
that, you will be able to cooperate on many other things.

When you swap links don't only use the number of subscribers or
visitors for determining whether you will exchange links with
someone or not. The value of a certain newsletter or site should
also be important to you.

Also, another important thing is to know where your link will be
and how many other ads will be in the same place where you will
advertise. What is better for you; to have your ad placed in
amongst many in an ezine with many subscribers, or in newsletter
with less subscribers but where your ad will be only one? I think
that many of you would choose second option.

As you can see, swapping links is not so easy as it may sound.
There are many things you have to consider when you choose your
swap resource. It's a good thing that swapping links is one of
the smartest ways of free promotion of your site and newsletter.

______________________________

Dejan Bizinger is editor of ShowBiz Newsletter, high quality
newsletter where you can find useful tips and links about
web design, Internet marketing. Also, you will find texts about
Unix, C++, Perl, Java...To subscribe send blank email to
mailto:bizi-subscribe@listbot.com or at
http://www.answeraday.com/

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