Free Website Content

When Requesting Links

When Requesting Links
By Sharon Housley

Link building is an important aspect of search engine optimization. Search engines view a link as a vote of confidence in a website or webpage. The more links from related sources the greater the webpage's importance.

When requesting links, use an email template that can be easily customized for specific requests. To locate prospective link partners, search Google or Yahoo for related keywords or phrases.

When looking for partners use this no-nonsense guide to request links from related websites.

Related
The content on the webpage you would like to link to should be related to the content of your page. However, competitors are unlikely to be willing link partners, regardless of the quality of your website. Look for websites that are related but not competing.

Current
The content on the website you are requesting the link from should be up to date. A new link on a page with a lot of outdated or inaccurate content will not typically benefit your website (or reputation). Valuable The content on the website you are requesting the link from should also contain valuable and unique content. This goes both ways; if you want people to link to your website, you must also provide useful content.

Seek Quality
Only request links from quality websites. If a website is cluttered with advertisements and is not a quality website, it is unlikely that the search engines will not value the link much. Make every effort to seek out quality websites.

When sending an email request be sure to include the following:

Personalize
Personalize the email request, be sure to mention the domain of interest and perhaps a specific web page for the link exchange. Personalizing the email will help the reader discern that your email is legitimate.

Compliment
Describe what you like about the website (be specific). Tell the webmaster that you feel their website has value, and that is why you would like a link to them and why they would like a link to you.

Explain
Explain why a link to your website would be relevant and beneficial to a specific website visitors. In your email request, detail how customers would benefit from the information on your website.

Be Specific
Provide specific anchor text and the exact web page URL and web page description on your website that you would like the webmaster to link to. Reciprocate and Thank If appropriate provide details about any links back that you have provided to the website. Also, be sure to thank the webmaster for considering the request.

Building links is an important aspect to increase the popularity of a website.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

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