Building links with other websites is the second most important thing you can do for your web-based business (the first is having a useful, content rich website!). There are few better ways to improve your websites ranking on the search engines than to steadily build links with other sites that offer similar or complimentary content and services. (Side note; remember that your website needs to be "search engine friendly" with lots of text that is relevant, presented in a manner that is accessible to the search engines.)

Ideally, other webmasters should want to link to you, based purely on the fact your website is so informative and useful., but there are many different ways to build links. Many websites with high traffic offer paid linking programs. You pay them a yearly fee and they host a link to your website. This can be a good strategy, but make sure you have a way of verifying and monitoring how much traffic they are sending you.

A free an effective way to build links is through reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the practice of websites freely inking to each other for mutual benefit.

Link building can be a daunting task at first. Especially when you may need thousands of links to get to page one of Google for your targeted keywords. However, don't despair! Link building is like exercise, yoga, or meditation. The more you do, the easier it gets. Each week, Try to establish 3-5 new links to your website. After a year, you'll have somewhere between 150 and 250 new links!

You may be wondering, "How do I find out who to link with?" In general, try to link with websites that offer similar or complimentary services and content. This will "pre-qualify" anyone who comes to your site from these links, because they will already be looking for similar products.

Here is another useful tactic to discover sites you should link with. Go to Google, MSN, or Yahoo and search for keywords that relate to fields that are complimentary to your websites. For example, suppose I sell hand made sailboats. I would do a search for "brass sailing gear." The websites that come up for this search term are exactly the kind that I want to link with.

Approach companies you would like to link with a friendly email or phone call. Here is an example of an email that I use. Feel free to fill in the blanks and use it yourself:

 

Hello (insert name here),

We own (website name here) (www.yourwebsitesname.com). We are a leading (fill in blank) company in (insert city name) that specializes in (insert product or service). Our (product and service) are first class, and we are quickly gathering a large client base. We came across your website while browsing the internet. We are wondering if you are interested in starting a reciprocal linking strategy with us. This means that we would add a small advertisement and link to your website on our website, and you would do the same on your website. As we are not competing companies, this will help both of us to access new customers.

If you are interested, we’d love to talk with you about this. Please email me back at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX

Best regards,

(Insert your name, company, etc...)"

 

Create a customized letter such as this, and then use it to approach websites that you would like to link with.

Link only to useful, content rich websites. Linking to irrelevant websites or websites that have no content and are nothing but "link farms" will not help you very much and may annoy your potential customers.

Let's get linking! After all, it's called the "web" for a reason. It's good for business. We are making the internet a better and more user friendly place when we build links for our websites.