The first step is to
find a potential link partner with a matching web site. The easiest way of identifying potential link parters is by using a search engine link google.com and searching for keywords that match your site.
Then you need to
find out how to reach the webmaster. This usually involves browsing the site. You might find an email address, and more frequently these days, you might find a contact form. If everything fails, you will just have to guess. Using "webmaster@domain.com" is as good a guess as any.
Email the webmaster with a personalized email. To personalize your email request, it may pay off to determine the name of the person responsible for their site's link management. "Dear John" sounds so much better than "Hi Webmaster" when you address someone for the very first time. Keep in mind that these days, webmasters that open their email first and foremost scan for spam and delete everything that even remotely looks like spam. I know I do!
Next you should explain why you contact them. Be specific to make your email stand out from the usual spam. Write exactly why you think that the other person's site would make a good link partner, and how both your sites will benefit from the linking. Remember, there are
two main reasons for link exchanges, one is to increase traffic and the other is to increase your link popularity.
Link proposals are most successful when you go first and already provide a link to their site.
Let your potential link partner know where exactly (ie on which URL) they can find their link. Make it clear that they can alter the link text and HTML to something more to their liking.
Now you need to make it easy for them to link back:
Provide the exact HTML that you want them to put on their site. Avoid overly lengthy and wordy descriptions. Keep it as concise as possible.
Lastly,
ask them to let you know when and where they have placed your link. It may help if you let them know that your link to their site is only temporary and will expire if you don't get a response in a certain amount of time. 24 hours is perhaps exerting too much pressure, one week is a tad generous, but a couple of days may be just right.
Now you sit and wait for a response. If you haven't heard back from them and the temporary link period is nearly over,
send a reminding email to let them know that their link is about to expire, and how they can make it permanent (by linking back to you of course).
If there is still no response,
remove the link after the temporary period is over. Depending on how persistent you'd like to be, you can write another email some time later that says that you have removed the temporary link but if they are still interested, they just need to link to you, email you, and in turn you will instantly re-instate their link.
That's it! A lot of work, but definitely worth it.
Now, as you can see from the above, it is nigh impossible to manually keep track of dozens of ongoing solicitations and negotiations. Of course, this article weren't complete if it didn't present you with a solution!
Read here how
ALEGE-CM, the Add-Link-Exchange Gold Edition Campaign Manager, will allow you quickly find literally thouands of potential link partners, and how you can automatically keep track of an UNLIMITED number of ongoing solications and link exchanges from one central point-and-click interface, without firing up your FTP client or your email program even once!
Are you managing more than one site? Needless to say,
ALEGE-CM is a centralized link campaign manager that allows you to control the ongoing link exchange campaigns for an unlimited number of sites at the same time.
