To Participate Or Not To Participate In Link Exchanges?
A couple of weeks back I had a post presenting a very short and simple version of how link exchange started and the stages it has been through so far.
I ended the article with a question and promissed to come back and present to you my take on the matter.
The question referred to whether one should participate in link exchanges or not, given the fact that there’s word going around in certain spheres that not only is it not practical anymore (from an SEO point of view) to do so, but it can harm your efforts to rank high in the search engines.
As I said in that post I strongly doubt that such a thing can happen.
I’m no expert in SEO, however, there’s one thing I have learned so far, which I haven’t seen anyone disagree with: build your web site with your visitor in mind.
Forget about the search engines for a minute. Be honest to yourself and your visitors/customers. Put yourself in their position. If you were to land at your web site, what would you like to find on it? What would you like it to look like (design, structure, menu etc.)? Would you like to be provided with quality information/products? I bet you would! Would you like to be recommended some other quality web sites in complementary areas?
Now bring back the search engines into the equation. Follow the basic advice for any new website as far as SEO is concerned: choose significant keywords/keyphrases for each of your pages and put as much quality content as possible.
These should be your main concerns when it comes to search engine optimization. Don’t make link exchange more important than it actually is. Don’t make it your main priority, but don’t be affraid of it either.
There were times when experts used to write about how important it is to make a weekly plan for acquiring links through link exchange. They were advising you to contact up to 100 web masters in the attempt to get a positive response from at least 10. Since many web masters don’t update their article archives, you might still find such articles. So watch out! It’s not the way to go about improving your search engines position. Not that you shouldn’t do it at all, but it should probably be the last SEO tactic you try.
As I mentioned, there’s also folks who strongly advise against any type of link exchange because they believe you will be penalized for it. The reality tends to disagree. It hasn’t happened to me and I haven’t seen it happen to others who have a genuine link exchange directory with useful web sites.
The truth is that a directory of reciprocal links with web sites in related areas can bring you quite highly targeted traffic. Especially in the very beginning, that might be the only one you will get. Your visitors will also apreciate you providing, not only quality content, but quality external resources. They will learn to trust you which will bring them back and make them recommend you to others (either by word of mouth or through links).
Unfortunately many of those who have reached a certain level of success tend to forget what it was like when they started. Their attitude is also fueled by the advice given by SEO experts that one should not link to pages with low PageRanks. I’ve seen plenty of webmasters conditioning their will to link to a page by its PageRank. I admit that looking to the situation through the eyes of a very practical mind that is nothing but a good business decision. The reality, though, is that the world is not all money. So, when you make it big, don’t hesitate to help the little fella provided, of course, he or she is asking you to link to a quality web site. There’s many web masters who first build a good quality content rich web site and only after that focus on “spreading the word”. Again, don’t hesitate to give a hand.
Especially don’t hesitate to link to others when you start, even if they don’t link back. There’s a certain group of specialists who even say you might get rewarded for linking to “good neighborhoods” by the search engines. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense: you care so much about your visitors that you are willing to send them away to other web sites to find what they’re looking for in case they couldn’t get it from you.
Your generosity will, eventually, pay off!
There you have it: don’t be affraid of link exchange, but don’t make it your main concern and don’t hesitate to link to others (no matter what situation you’re in - a well established web site or just starting your journey).
Comments appreciated. 
