The benefits of linking...
A baker's dozen points to ponder!
The benefits of reciprocal linking to a website
owner are considerable, but they are also widely overlooked and
even misunderstood. Very few of the so-called "web marketing
gurus" really understand the dynamics of linking. Everyone
knows that it is important to search engines, but very little has
been written about the real benefits of linking.
Here at LinkStrategy, we have extensively studied
the true value of linking, and we can provide a point-by-point summary
of the advantages of building a substantial link network. For sites
that serve a market of enthusiasts, like sports or a hobby, or are
in an industry that has a large number of resource or directory
sites, like careers, then linking should be the foundation of the
site traffic.
Each of these benefits is quite powerful. Cumulatively,
this list places linking as the “king of the hill” when
it comes to earning a return on your website marketing investments.
Because many of these advantages have never been exposed, please
read them carefully, and take time to reflect on their true meaning:
- Value: The
"cost per click" of a reciprocal link actually
decreases with every click. If it costs $5 to get a
link (on average), then the cost per click for that link becomes
less than 1 cent once you’ve received just 1000 visitors
from that link. And it just keeps going down indefinitely.
- Cost Protection:
Traffic from reciprocal links is immune from increased ad costs
due to traffic spikes or bidding wars. A traffic spike on Overture,
the largest pay-per-click search engine, might be a welcome result,
but it also costs more money. A traffic spike from a reciprocal
link, or even a steady increase due to ordinary web traffic growth,
is free with links.
- Reliability:
Reciprocal links continue to drive traffic, even if
marketing budgets get stretched thin. If you stop paying Overture,
they stop sending traffic, which is a very vulnerable position.
- Search Result Enhancement:
As long as there are free search engines, many of them
will reward you for being "popular", as well as for
being a "hub", which is a representation of the number
of links going out of your site, a commonly overlooked
fact. Search engine results tend to improve dramatically for sites
that implement good linking practices, both in and out.
- True Network Effect:
Reciprocal links are a widely-distributed source of traffic. They
are not reliant upon a single point of control, as are many other
sources of traffic, like search engines. Links represent a "fail-safe"
network. They are protected from the ever-changing criteria and
consolidation of the free search engines, and they are sheltered
from the competitive attacks that are now taking place with the
pay-per-click bidding wars.
- Stability: Reciprocal
links are extremely stable, in the aggregate. Sure, you'll lose
some links over time, but by and large, they tend to stay in place
indefinitely, providing traffic day after week after month after
year.
- Publicity:
The very act of asking for the link from another site is
equivalent to an industry-specific press release, but the payoff
here can be long term. You never know what will come your way
from making your market aware, especially if your product is new
or unique. In fact, a legitimate link
request to sites that solicit for them is the ONLY way to announce
yourself via email to a highly-targeted group of sites in your
industry, without "spamming".
- Branding:
The more links you have, the greater the "branding"
effect for your name. This broad awareness can improve the click-through-ratio
for your links. At the least, it makes surfers curious as to why
your site name seems to show up everywhere.
- Traffic Driver:
A well-structured links page can actually be used to
bring people back to your site.
It is a resource to your visitors, and they will come back to
it again and again.
Providing links to other sites is not a net traffic drain. This
line of thinking is simply flawed, for a variety of reasons. The
benefits of linking far outweigh the occasional click out of your
site by people who are ready to leave. A well-designed
links page opens all of the outgoing links in a new browser window,
leaving your site open on the users machine.
- Market Intelligence:
Reciprocal link traffic patterns reveal many of the real "players"
in an industry. This info, extracted from your site referral logs,
can be used to your advantage in other ways, such as for placing
banners or finding good affiliates and marketing partners.
- Minimal Oversight:
Unlike pay-per-click search engines and banner ads,
links take only limited management time once they are in place.
This is the opposite of pay-per-click, because when you are spending
money for each click, you need to constantly stay on top of both
your bids and your volume. That is a hidden but very real cost
of pay-per-click banners and ads.
- Asset Value:
Reciprocal links are assets of the business.
Like the bricks of a house, a few don't amount to much, but pile
them up, and you have a rock-solid foundation and structure. They
can greatly enhance the equity value of a website.
Please read this last one again...
- Affordability:
The traffic that comes from established links is essentially free,
but earning those links is not. It takes time and money to build
a link network. For the most part, building links is an upfront
cost, and should be viewed as a capital investment in site marketing
that is immediately expensible for accounting purposes.
For established web marketers who already
use extensive banner programs or bid competitively on popular
terms with the pay-per-click search engines, you'll find the cost
of an entire linking project to be just a fraction of your monthly
click budget. In comparative terms, linking
is a remarkably affordable short-term expense.
For those who do not yet spend money for online advertising, the
investment in links may very well save you from having to institute
other ad programs to get traffic.
There is nothing else in web marketing that
can compare to the long term advantages of links.
Web marketing costs are now on the rise. Specifically,
pay-per-click search engine bidding has become fiercely competitive.
Affiliate programs are wrought with problems of their own. Linking
is a stable, affordable shelter from the storm, and it works.
We can get you there faster and more affordably
than any other provider, and we can do it on a turnkey basis. We
make it easy for you. Please let us show you what sets us apart...
The next page on the tour is:
Do-It-Yourself? - or -
Use Us?
Find
out about reciprocal linking, the right way....Please
tour our site for a complete review of the benefits,
our unique process, our competitive advantage, industry specific programs and
custom services..
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