Getting linked is the very simple concept of having other web

sites link to yours.

Notice I said 'simple concept' not 'simple process'. It is a

lot of work to find sites that have a similar audience as

yours, then search their site to see if they even offer free

links to other sites, and then find contact information to

ask them to link to you.

Here are the top 5 excuses I have heard for not getting linked:

1. It takes way too much time

2. For every five I ask, I'm lucky if one actually links me

3. The sites that link to me always seem to have low traffic

4. I never get more than a few visitors a day from these links

5. I hate having to give a reciprocal link

My responses to these excuses:

1. Spend 30 minutes a day and find as many places as you can.

If you stay with it you will be amazed at how much you will

have accomplished after a couple of months.

Some days you may only find one or two sites, but on others you

will get lucky and find a place with dozens of resources listed.

You can then just visit each of those and wipe out a large

number at one time.

2. It is definitely a numbers game but if you don't ask you

will never know if they would have linked to you or not. There

are also many factors that can better your chances of getting

a return link. I will go into more detail below.

3. Many times this will be the case because the sites with

tremendous traffic usually want you to advertise with them or

have equal traffic counts for a reciprocal linking arrangement.

Several points to keep in mind, though. First, some of these

sites may not stay small forever, and as their traffic grows

you will hopefully start to see more visits from them. The

other thing to keep in mind is that if you stick with this

you will end up with a couple hundred links in no time. If

each site sends you only one visitor per day that is an

additional couple hundred visitors that you didn't have before.

And its free!

4. The answer here is basically the same as the last. Another

benefit of these links is boosting your link popularity for

search engine ranking.

5. Create a links page with links to other useful sites. Place

your reciprocal links on that page. Don't bury the links page

but offer it as just one more valuable piece of content for

your visitors.

Some larger sites require a graphic or link on your main page

to consider your request. I typically skip these and go to the

next site, unless their link adds value to what I'm offering

on my main page and if there is a good chance I'll get a great

deal of additional traffic from them. You can try it out for

awhile and if you aren't comfortable with the arrangement,

just remove the graphic and let them know that they can re-

move your link from their site. At least you have given it a

try.

To look at it another way, if you sell advertising on your

site you are sending away some of your visitors in exchange

for money.

In a link exchange you might send away some of your visitors,

but in return you are getting additional traffic to your site.

Typically you would have to spend your own advertising dollars

to get this traffic anyway, so it is the same as if you had an

advertiser on your home page.

Besides, hopefully your site will be interesting enough to

keep them around for awhile, and when they are done, then they

will go and visit your links.

Now that we've covered the excuses, let's look at how you can

increase your chances of getting linked from other sites.

First thing is that you really should have a quality site.

Don't just throw together a page of banners and expect people

that have worked very hard to get the hundreds of thousands

of visitors to want to link to you. Your link adds no value

to their site.

The next important item is to personalize your email to them.

Actually take the time to visit their site and find something

that you like about it. Find contact information and even a

name if it is listed.

Find the specific category or page that you feel your site

would fit well on and mention that page specifically in your

email.

If they think your email is generic they'll delete it right

away. I know I do. The latest fad is to use automated programs

to create theme pages and blast out automatic emails to every

site the program finds.

This may work to an extent but more than likely the only ones

that really benefit from this are the creators. The search

engines already know about this and have provisions to

penalize sites using these. Read through the second bulleted

topic on this page:

http://doc.altavista.com/adv_search/ast_haw_popularity.html

They have quickly gone the way of the FFA pages, or the Dodo.

If you make an honest effort at this you can expect a decent

return for your efforts. Look for shortcuts and your chances

of huge success are shorted.

The next logical question in all of this is how in the world

you find sites to link to you.

My favorite starting point is to find the sites that are

linking to my competition. If they are willing to link to my

competitor, they just might be willing to link to me too.

I use this great resource:

http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/

Its purpose is to show you how popular sites are in relation

to others, and it gives a ranking such as Player, Contender,

900 lb Gorilla, etc.

When you get to that link just enter in a couple of your

competitors, and your own URL as well, and click Generate

Report. This will show you how you rate as compared to your

competition.

The other nice feature is you can click on the results for

the domain for each of the search engines. Meaning, if it

found 200 links to a site listed in HotBot, you can just

click the number 200 in the listing and it will take you

to the HotBot results. Then you just visit each of those

sites, learn a little about them, then fire off an email

to the webmaster.

This method should give you a great start and keep you busy

for a while.

The bottom line is that there are many benefits to getting

other sites to link to you, just don't let the excuses

keep you from getting linked!