It can really save you a lot of time to begin right now in planning a link strategy. It is a good idea to always look for similar web sites as your own to get a link from. When I see a page that I would like to link to the first thing I do is check to see if they have a link page and I am amazed how many sites do not have one.

You should read as much as you can about getting PankRank and how to optimize your site, as the more you know the better. Also you should try to stay up to date about the linking rules. It is good to read the site rules of important search engines. The rules can often change as they discover techniques that people are using to trick them. One day that technique can be alright with them and the next day they can change their rules and penalize your site.

Google clearly mentions on their web site what to avoid. Be careful of professionals that promise you a quick fix such as Link Farms or other devious tricks. Once they got your money for accomplishing what they said they would do (get you highly ranked) if you are later penalized by Google you are the one who has to suffer.

To find sites to link to type in key words in major search engines and then check out the result pages. Ask their site owners for a link. Everyone will not give you a link, especially the highly ranked, popular sites, who will often not contact you back.

When you find sites you like check to see if they have links on their site similar to yours. If they do, write down the sites that you like in their link directory and ask those sites for a link. Check your competitors and then see who are linking to them, then contact these web sites for links in return for you giving them a link.

It is best to get links from the site with the higher PageRank, as since they are ranked high on the search engines, links from these sites give a much higher value to your site if they link to you.

Ask only for links from sites you have already linked to and tell them where the link is placed on your site so they can check it. Send the URL code where their site is located. If they have plenty of links in their link directory, suggest to them what category your site would fit in.

Give them the exact text link that they should use. Put the HTML so they can just cut and paste the link to their site. If they give you a link then send them a thank you note.

Phone calls are more effective to get links, as people are less likely to turn you down when you talk to them in person.

If someone is already linking to one of your pages, then you can ask them to give you a link to other pages on your site that you think would also be of value to them.

If someone says they will not give a link to you tell then that you will still give a link to them as you consider their site to be valuable and then they may give you a link at this point. I personally will not take off a link to a site I like just because they will not give me a link.

I do a worldwide restaurant directory that lists over 6,000 places and often people write me to update a restaurant. Sometimes they just give the name of the restaurant, sometime they tell me just the name of the city (no country), sometimes they tell me the state and not the city etc. They often expect me to know where the place is located. I would much prefer that they gave me the information in detail in the exact format that I list all the places on the site.

For the most part only ask for links from sites that have something to do with your subject matter. I really hate when people ask me for a link for a subject that has nothing to do with me and I wonder what does this request have to do with me.

When using Google to find sites by keywords you should have the Google Toolbar downloaded to your browser so you can check PageRank for the sites that come up. (http://toolbar.google.com) When you find a site you would like to get a link from record their PageRank number. When you have found 50 sites start by asking for link from the higher ranked pages, as these will usually have more value for you to get a link from.

When asking for links take into consideration that password protected site are not accessible to search engines. For a link to be effective is should be placed on a page that is already coming up on search results.

You need to check sites fairly regularly that you have a reciprocal link with to insure that they are still linking to you.

Third Parties Getting Links for You
It is not a good idea to outsource all your incoming links as no one will care as much as you about getting good links. If you pay someone to get a certain amount of links for you they will often work to get the easiest ones possible and not worry about the website quality of the sites giving you a link

Also you may and should have requirements to get a link from your site and if you have someone else arranging links for you they may agree to something that you will not want to fulfill. For instance they may give you a link if you give them a link. Do you want someone else to decide that? Or they may agree to pay a fee for a link.

You should definitely make sure you can agree or say no to any link arrangement. This slows down the process and makes it hard for a third party to make anything if they are getting paid for each link they get.

A good strategy is to have a third party find sites that are good websites to get links from and then you can then negotiate with them directly. Then you request the link and keep track of the results.

Website professionals can help you write the letter to ask for a link from webmasters. They can write the description of your website. They can also help by giving you a list of search engine and directories that are important.

Contacting Other Web Sites for Links
When researching information for your website note down the webmaster or contact information for the site so you can ask for a link later. Also look at these site’s title and description for ideas of keywords to use.

The best way to get links is to email or contact Webmasters of sites that are similar to yours but not directly competitive and write them a personal letter.

Ask them to link to you and give them benefits why they should do this and also inform them how this will benefits their readers. First link to them and tell them where the link to them is on your site. Tell them where you think a link to your site should be on their site. If you think the link would be really good for you then you could call them, send a fax or write a letter. Tell them how your site will be of value to their readers. Personalize the letter you send to get a link as usually it is not a good idea to send them mass produced letters.

Start you letter with a brief site description. Tell them how the site relates to them. Give the exact URL where your page should be put. This also has the benefit of proving that you visited their site and though about it.

Send the Webmaster the HTML code so they can just cut and paste it directly into their page with virtually no work. I know this is what I prefer people to do when they ask me for a link. It really saves me a lot of trouble and they can get a link immediately instead of waiting a month or two. Pay detailed attention how they format their links and copy is exactly. I only put links in one format and no matter what someone may want I only do it that way so the pages looks uniform.

Also by giving them a description of your site that you wrote means you can insert the keywords that you have found to be helpful to you and not depend on another webmaster to do it for you.

Do not forget you are asking for a favor (one that will help both of you), so of course be polite and respectful. Make sure you write the person who has the ability to make changes to their site.

Make a link request letter in your word processor and then copy and paste parts of the letter that fit the site you want a links from. I have a certain standardized letter that I start with for everyone, and then I customize the letter to fit the site that I am asking for a link from. As I only link to sites I like and think would be valuable to my readers I tell them what I like about their site. Because if I did not like their site I would not give them a link.

Writing Articles
A great way to get valuable links to your site is to write an article on a subject you are presenting and expert in and then submitting it to a popular article syndication site.

You can also submit the article to other websites that you may think would like to use your article. Also you can write articles on your website and invite anyone to put the article on their web site and in return you request them to give you a link to your site for more information. At the end of the article you should put something about yourself and then ask readers to check out your site for more information on the subjects discussed in the article.

I offer anyone to put anything on my Newsletter on their site with the requirement they put a link back to my site. I also allow people to use information about certain state on their regional area in return for giving a link to my site for more information

Also you can ask sites to put the beginning paragraph or two of your article on their site with a link to the rest of the article on your site. At the end give a bio about you and another link to your website.

Writers will often want to let you use their articles as they get a link from you. This could be a good way to get good content for your site.

Consider having a reciprocal linking strategy with other sites to swap Ezine ads.

If someone wants to do an interview with you for an article in your related field, then agree immediately. Ask them to list information about you and your site in return. Plus giving interviews will get you free publicity and also increased credibility for your website.

Sites to submit articles to:
http://www.marketing-seek.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com

General Linking Rules
Give your links good description so people know exactly the subject of the website they will visit. Let people know what the pages are about that they link to.

On your website only have links underlined and nothing else on the page should be underlined. All the links should have the same color. Best is blue because this is the commonly accepted color for links.

After a link has been visited it should have another color, so visitor will know what links they have already clicked on. Purple is the best, because this is the commonly used color.

If you are linking to a non-HTML file such as Acrobat, Excel or Word you should consider putting a small icon next to the link, so people know they are linking to a non-HTML page.

Do not link to a page that is not finished or says “Under Construction,” as visiting will be disappointed and also think it was a waste of time.

Check to make sure that you do not have any broken links on your site. There are some free online websites that you can use to check for broken links.

If you use graphics to link, use the Alt Attribute to describe the link, because especially in places where people have bad connection they often turn images off in their browser.

Internal linking
Because PageRank is judged for individual pages on a site by linking pages together on your own site this will help to increase the PageRank of the individual pages on the site. Also by linking pages together it gives more resources for your visitors to view and keeps them on your site longer.

Linking Between Your Own Sites
It is a good idea to cross-link sites that you do if they are basically on the same subject. You can link pages of your site to other sites that you mange, and you can link to specific pages to help increase the PageRank of those individual pages. If you have a large amount of sites you may want to host these sites with different host companies because some search engine can penalize you for linking site with the same C Block IP address. They may consider these links to be artificial links.

I know one of my sites has a PageRank of 5 and when I started my new site NaturalNirvana.com I put a link from all the pages of my site to http://www.naturalnirvana.com and now this new site also has a PageRank of 5 with almost no work.

Renting Links
Some sites rent links from other sites to help increase PageRank. This is a form of advertising and some search engines may not gives these too much value unless the subject of the site where the link comes from has something to do with the site that it is linking to.

Posting in Forums and Weblogs
http://www.accordmarketing.com/tid/articles/blogs.html
http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/
http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=495&topic=16

As forums and weblogs have a large amount of regularly updated contents search engine tend to go through them regularly. If you write things in to them use a signature file with a link to your web page. The more posts you make with a link to your website on them the more times the search engine have a change to add them to their index.

YahooGroups has thousands of topical discussion groups on a large amount of topic and you can check them to see if any of them are on your subject

As Google indexes newsgroups, if you make a post to a newsgroup by using a signature file you can get a link back to your site.

Bhogs are popular now and it seems for now links from them have positive rating. But in the future a link from them may be considered to be like a link farm.

Unsolicited Links
An unsolicited link is especially valuable because this indicates that people really like your subject matter and gave you a link because of it. They are not just giving you a link because you requested them to do it in return for the link you gave them, but because they liked the subject matter of your site.

When you have a specific subject matter that people like you will get unsolicited links. When I checked the link that I have coming to my site many of them I never asked for.

Link Value
Good incoming links are considered to be like a vote for your page for the search engines. If the site giving you a link is on a similar subject as you it will be more valuable. If the link anchor text of the link includes keywords on your subject then the link is considered also to be more valuable.

Link Directory & Resource
Make your link page a high-quality directory on your subject. Link pages that are specialized on a single subject are considered to be more important. A set of randomly selected links on various subjects are not taken too seriously by search engines, especially if there is no description and they are on a variety of different subjects.

You can have various subjects in different sections. The more organized and easier to navigate your Link Directory the more valuable it is considered.

If all the sites on your link page have given you a reciprocal link then these links can really help your page rank, especially as they are on similar subjects as your site.

The quality of a link is more important than the amount of links you receive. It is best to choose to exchange links with sites that will make your directory better in reference to your subject matter.

A good quality directory of links will help you to get more links and people will approach you to be on your link page. Also a good set of link will receive good PageRank.

You should link to your Link Directory from your homepage. If you have your link page linked directly from the home page this will help insure that it will be picked up by the search engines.
It is best not to use as your anchor text the word “Links” but it is better to use the word “Directory.”

Do not make the title of your page “Links” but instead make the title of the page the subject your page is about and the word “Directory.” For instance:”Vegan and Vegetarian Resource Directory.”

You should put a description of all the links on your link page otherwise search engine may think you are a link farm.

Program to help Get Reciprocal Links
A good program to use to get reciprocal links is Arelis (http://www.axandra.com/). It is a program that looks through the web for sites that are similar to yours and who may want to exchange links with you. Arelis allows you to contact your potential link partners directly, which is the best way to get a link partner, rather then how some link programs use an impersonal, automated letter to request a link.

Zeus (http://www.cyber-robotics.com) is also considered to be a great program for helping to get links.

Link Farms and Being Penalized
If you link to a link farm you may be penalized. A link farm is a site that mainly only exist to give links to websites to help increase their PageRank.

Value of Links
A link from a high ranking authoritative site can be worth hundreds of irrelevant links.

Why Should People Link To You
To get people to link to you, you have to give them a good reason. If you have a good resource people will naturally link to you.

Offer an Award
Offer an award which people will consider to be a benefit to their web site and make it so the award links back to your site. The awards tell viewers of the site that received an award that the site is professional and well-done. Make it easy for someone who receives an award from your site to place your .gif with a link back to your site on their site. Have the code ready so it just has to be cut and pasted onto another site.

Make Your Own Directory
Make you own directory site or search engine and put your sites, your client’s sites, you affiliate sites and more. Web hubs with many links are judged by how many people click to go back a pages, which the search engine assume they are doing because you like the links on the back page and you want to find more sites. A hub site has many outgoing links, while an authority site has many incoming links.

You can find search engine and directory programs at The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Link_
Indexing_Scripts/) and The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Link_Management/Directories and_Portals/)..

Write Testimonials
Write a testimonial on a subject, restaurants or company. Companies often like to use testimonials on their site giving a link back to the site giving them the testimonial.

When asking for a testimonial let a Webmaster know that you will give them a link back to their site under the testimonial.

Your Own Affiliate Program
Have your own affiliate program on your server. If you use Commission Junction for affiliate services then the links point to their site and not yours. With your own affiliate program the affiliate links point toward your site.

You can find affiliate programs, some of which may be free at The CGI Resource Index.

Have a Link Page with Code for People to Use
Put a request for other site to link to your site, providing them with an HTML description of the site. Put you keywords in your linking code. Also give them small banners or buttons that they can put on their site.

Have Links Open in Another Window
When you give external links from your site have them open into another window, so if they get lost many sites later, when they close that window your site will still be on the original window.

Own Banner Exchange Program
By starting your own banner exchange service you can increase your link rating. You ask people when they sign up to your banner link program to give a link to your website. In exchange you promise them you will show a certain amount of banner ads on yours and other websites.

Web Rings
You can find Web Ring programs at The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website
Promotion/Web_Rings/) and The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs

Apply For Awards
Apply to awards programs. For Windows & .NET
Magazines Reader's Choice Awards. The Top 100 Winners published in September.

News releases to Newspapers, Magazines & Radio
Make a news release and email and fax it to newspapers and magazines. To find contact information of newspaper you can search for free at www.gebbieinc.com for the contact information of the newspapers in your region or industry.

Submit an article to a newspaper which may find its way on the online website of a newspaper.

Write a letter to the editor of a magazine. Contact local radio or television stations and offer them to use you for knowledge of your expertise on your subject.

Other Ways to Get Links
You can sign guest books. Take part in chat rooms.
Ask a question and include a link on forums that allow links.
Put you web address on stickers and t-shirts.

Offer something for free on your site such as a report that can be downloaded. Join associations or trade organizations within your industry and ask them to give you a link to your site.

Put your URL on your stationary, business cards, off-the-Web advertising, invoices, statements, print publications, T-shirts and promotional items.

Site can links to their customer and the customers to their suppliers.

By offering a contest or sweepstakes on your site, you can get free links from sweepstakes and contest directories.

Ask professional organizations and your local Chamber of Commerce to give you a link.

Give a list of sites that give things away such as The Free Site If you are giving something away then submit it to The Free Site which has a PageRank of 8 (http://www.thefreesite.com).

Keep Track of Contacts
Create a spreadsheet to keep track of details of who you have contacted, when and the results. You can also use a contact database (ACT!, Access, FileMaker Pro) to keep a record of this information.

Things Not To Do
Do not take part in emails programs that send emails to people asking them to trade links (link spamming), and do not put a link on your site for no other reason then to increase your link popularity. Only place links on your site that your readers will be glad to have.

Keep your links on a specific theme and if a website cannot fit in one of the subjects of your theme, consister not adding them to your links.

Do not join link exchange programs or farms.

If a link page is hard for you to find there is a good chance the search engines will have a problem finding them

Links that have hundreds of links on one page usually do not have much effect.

Anchor Text
What the text is that links to a site is considered important by the search engines. As sites will often link to you using the name of your website, if your website name has your important keywords then this can help increase your PageRank.

Search Engines Two Levels Down
Many search engines index only contents in the top two levels of your site. They have no idea that links exist beyond the secondary level simply because they do not search beyond the secondary level.

The Longer People Stay on a Site the More Search Engines Like Them
If people stay on your site for a while that indicates to the search engines that your site was useful for the keywords they entered. If people do not come back to the search engine to make another search that is considered good.