In my past post about reciprocal linking, I went over the importance of backlinks and how 2-way reciprocal linking is dead. I then went further in the strategy of three-way and n-way linking and posed the notion that this strategy is much more effective in the current state of the internet.

But now the important question:  How do you do it?

Before it was easy:  “You put my link on your site and I will put yours on mine.”

But now we introduce a third website.  What is this “third” website and how am I going to sell this idea to an external webmaster?

First, the trick to this all is to have a third site that won’t scare off the prospect.  Second, the second website is YOUR website.  Third, if the other party knows anything about SEO and link building, they should love the idea of this!

I do this all of the time!  My favorite “third” website is simply my blog! And if you don’t have one, you should get one! Either install a Wordpress blog (like this one) or use a simple hosted blog system like Blogger.com (which literally will take 5 minutes to set up).

Here is the concept mapped out:

In this case, you simply have the other part link to your blog while you link to them from your money site (or vice versa!).  Remember that search engines LOVE blogs from an SEO stand-point.  Offering to either link from your blog or to your blog only creates creditability in all directions.  There are no 2-way links and the other party is either going to get a link from your high PR money site or your lower PR, higher respected blog.  They win either way!  (And remember that this helps relieve some of the fear of link farming to other perspective websites)

But now your comment to me is:  Now I am not getting a direct link to my website!

True, but now you are building something bigger and more powerful!  Instead of trying to build one site with large amount of  backlinks, you are building your own authority website (with your blog) that is going to receive exclusive linkage back to your money site.

The Page Rank funnel will go back to your money site, and more effectively, too.  The two-way link would not have been worth much anyway.  But a link channeled through a blog (that has many other one-way links pointing to it) is going to create some authoritative momentum.

Again, I do this all of the time and I find that people are more welcoming to a link exchange, my  sites get indexed faster and more often, and at the end of the day, I find that I have TWO websites with high page rank and authority instead of one.

It is a win-win situation all around!