There are links and then there are links. Usually links are your company name hyperlinked to your home page, and your company’s site link is listed with a number of other companies’ links. Sometimes, if you are lucky, there is a brief description attached to the link.
You should take a proactive approach with linking arrangements. Explore every opportunity to have your link placed prominently and, if possible, to have it differentiated from the other links on the page.
Once you have an agreement with a site willing to provide a link, you should ask if you could send them an icon and the HTML for the link. The icon (GIF or JPG format) should be visually pleasing and representative of your business. Within the HTML, include a tag line or call to action that entices people to click on the link. With the icon or logo, the tag line, and your company’s name, your link will stand out. Again, remember to include appropriate keywords in the text around the link to add to your link relevancy score to improve your search engine ranking.
If another Web site is generous enough to provide a link to your site, your image should be only a thumbnail, for you don’t want to take up too much space. This image could be your corporate logo or a graphic from a current promotion for one of your products or services. By having this image and tag line strategically placed on a Web site, the chances that a viewer will click through to visit your Web site are much higher.
To Add or Not to Add with Free-for-All Link Sites
There are thousands of free-for-all links sites on the Net. These sites allow you to submit your URL, and their program in turn adds your URL and link to a long list of sites. These sites will provide little to no traffic and the search engines don’t like sites that try to manipulate the link popularity element for search placement. STAY AWAY from these types of link sites.