Just Ask Matt - Answers

Do Link Exchanges Still Work?

QUESTION: (Gerald) I have a number of people asking me to exchange links. I have read that this is good, but can’t find anywhere how to do it. Any suggestions, or is there an article you have that would help me. Appreciate it.

Good question, Gerald, because we really don’t hear as much about link exchanges as we did in the past.  I think the big reason for it is it’s effectiveness (or lack thereof).  Search engine spiders are much smarter than they were 2 or 3 years agos.  And most will recognize a “link exchange” rather easily.

For those who don’t know what a link exchange is, it is when you approach another website (usually with similar content to yours) and ask them to place a nice, keyword-rich anchor text link back to your website.  In exchange, you will do the same for them.  Remember that an important part of SEO is backlinks (i.e., receiving links from other websites pointing back to you).  A few years ago, a lot of this “linking power” was represented by a Page Rank.  Getting high Page Rank websites to point back to you effectively will increase your own page rank.

Personally, I think Page Rank is a bit of a farce these days (at least the public one).  I do think the major search engines (like Google) have there own ranking system based on popularity, but it would not be public.  Still, getting links from “authority sites” with relevance (to your niche) is always key. 

Now getting back to the question…I think link exchanges (or “reciprocal linking”) is really not going to help or hurt you.  Any backlink (in most cases) usually will help you.  But if there is a reciprocal link, the spiders will usually recognize this and probably not give you proper popularity for it. 

Again, like everything SEO, this is speculation, but I know there has been a lot of abuse of link exchanges over the years (like link farms, paid text links, etc.) to draw a lot of attention to it.  I used to do it quite a bit.  I don’t really do it any more (unless I am quite friendly with the website and we exchange primarily for the traffic, not the SEO).  I think your efforts would be better suited to article writing/submission, press releases, even directory submissions. 

You can also consider n-way link exchanges.  For a 3-way link exchange example: Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, and Site C links to Site A.  You can do this rather deeply, too.  But still, the search engine spiders are smart and may start recognizing the linking footprints.  The larger the “n”, the better off you are…but of course, this is a hell of a lot more work and requires some skillful coordination.

Personally, I have become somewhat of an a-hole about link exchange requests.  I don’t get as many as I used to, but when I do I usually ignore them. 

cheers…matt

P.S. If you want to know more about Getting Backlinks, check out SEOExciter.com.  (There are 10 free videos over there that shows you how!)

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Matthew BredelMy name is Matthew Bredel and as of March, 2007, I am a full-time, work-at-home internet marketer. For close to 10 years, I worked for a defense company which was an OK job, but I was so uninspired in life and frankly, I needed some more money. That is when I first discovered internet marketing! Now I admit that I didn't start making thousands in my first couple of months (in fact, I lost my shirt!), but I finally saw the "internet light"...

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What do I have in common with Lisa Suttora, Lynn Terry, Sydney Johnson, Deborah Carney, Rhea Perry and Rosalind Gardner? I’m a girl who gleefully makes her living online.
Some women who make money online start off in assistant or supportive roles, but many of them aren’t satisfied with that for long before they decide to [...]

What do I have in common with Lisa Suttora, Lynn Terry, Sydney Johnson, Deborah Carney, Rhea Perry and Rosalind Gardner? I’m a girl who gleefully makes her living online.

Some women who make money online start off in assistant or supportive roles, but many of them aren’t satisfied with that for long before they decide to try their hand at something of their own. Other women who work on the internet are successful business people or highly skilled technical people that partner with other talents to create products and services people want (or who learn how to do it all themselves. Women can be like that!).  The internet is filled with men and women who want to succeed and luckily, the internet is also filled with opportunities for those success hungry individuals.

Today’s blog post was inspired by FeedFront magazine, which recently featured a lot of success tips given by  women in affiliate marketing.

Internet Marketing: Increasingly Popular for Women

More women than ever are getting into internet marketing and it’s no wonder! There are some serious money making opportunities online and there are some big female audiences looking to buy online.  I started off in writing for the web about three years ago after starting to try to blog for some cash part-time. When I got past the first few scammy ads I found that there really were a lot of really viable opportunities for me.

I began to feed an insatiable appetite for information about how to make money with my computer from home. I met a lot of really interesting IM gurus and successful copywriters and because of my business background naturally gravitated to successful internet marketers who wanted to share information about how they made their living, I learned a lot. I also gravitated towards the work at home niche because I was living the journey of trying to make money on the internet.

Creating Multiple Streams of Online Income

I’m now a woman who dabbles in internet marketing who’s got several income streams happening.  It has been a great journey writing for and with successful internet marketers because I’ve learned a lot. As a writer, I have the writing skills that many marketers crave and as a specialist focused on this niche it really made sense for me to dabble in internet marketing myself with the knowledge I was gathering.

As I got into working online full time a few years ago I saw that mostly men were dominating the IM scene.  A few women were around but the scales were definitely tipped in the other direction.  Today, I’m seeing a lot of successful female entrepreneurs who want it all and a look at Feedfront’s cover truly illustrates that women in IM do mean business. They want to work without the binding chains of a cubicle, make their own schedules, and they want to work for themselves.  Sure, some of them are former CEOs and some others have started off as a virtual assistant or ghostwriter but eventually, many of the most passionate and motivated ones begin to venture out on their own with their newfound knowledge. Women are fast figuring out that anyone with determination has the ability and power to become a CEO when they create their own business. The ability to multitask and assimilate a lot of information as well as be extremely resourceful is inherently female,  so it’s a natural fit with a career that demands all of these things.

If you’re interested in learning about some successful women in internet marketing and seeing what opportunities can be available to you in the areas of dropshipping, affiliate marketing, auctions and other areas, TheWebReviewer.com has a lot of helpful information to assist you in your journey.

Cheers,

Dana

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One Response to “Do Women Rule Internet Marketing?”

  1. [...] my last post, I talked about Women in Internet Marketing. Today, I’m looking at the Sydney Johnston’s product: Auction Genius.  People still look [...]

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