Home Improvement Link Exchange

mrhodus

I am interested in exchanging links with home improvement related websites. For each link you give me I will give you a link on any two of these following sites:


Please PM me with your interest.

cbscreative

I'm going to advise against that, give you some reasons why, then suggest a better strategy. First off, just posting a request like that can potentially get you in trouble because search engines frown on this. They consider it an attempt to manipulate your ranking by artificial link building. They even go so far as to troll forums looking for posts just like that (they have the technology and they know how to use it).

Now suppose you get a response from someone who the search engines consider questionable (yep, they troll around looking for posts like yours too). By linking to them, you could be guilty by association.

Reciprocal links are not automatically bad, but search engines have been making a lot of changes to crack down on them because of abuse. It's reason enough to be very cautious. You don't have to worry about who links to you because search engines know you can't control that. But when you return the link, they pay careful attention and are always looking for more ways to punish abusers. Even unintentional abuse can get you in trouble.

Now I'm sure you're wondering what you should do. Start by building great content (yeah it's hard, but since many people are looking for a shortcut, it works very well). That is priorty #1! I'm not knocking your content in any way, but I checked a couple of your links and it looks very new (or put on the shelf since Feb). After you've built great content, look for related blogs, forums, sites, etc.

Blogs are especially useful. Not only can you gain a lot of insights, you can participate. By leaving sincere comments it might get the attention of the blog owner and other members. Many blogs use something called "no follow" on links, which just means the search engines will not log them. But, there is still a lot of benefit if your content is good. As mentioned, the owner and other followers of the blog will likely check out your blog, and might very well link to you. This does get the attention of search engines.

I could make this an extremely long post which I really don't want to do, but I suggest you do some research on blogs and SEO. Take note of how blog owners promote other blogs and study things like RSS and trackbacks. That probably sounds very technical right now, but you'll get used to it. One place you might want to start is www.copyblogger.com for great info on building content.

I have just one more suggestion, but it's based on your goals so it might not apply. It's usually best to get your own domains and pay for hosting. One problem with free hosting like wordpress or blogspot is they technically own your content. Should you decide to move later, you lose out on most of the effort you've put in to build it on space you don't own rights to. Also, if they make changes to the service, or change the terms to something you don't like, you're stuck because you have no right to complain about something free. IMO, $7 a month is well worth it to know you own your space.

WordPress can be installed on most hosting, so it's an easy migration. Blogspot however, which is Blogger owned by Google, is very proprietary meaning it most likely won't work anywhere except for their free hosting. You will always be at the mercy of every decision Google makes. Personally, I find that unsettling, but it's your call on how you feel about it.

OK, that's a long post, but hopefully it will also help several other members here who can benefit from the info.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

JonM

cbscreative...but, but...your discreption says non-conformist ...

cbscreative

Hehe, but I'm not so bent on being unique that I suffer unnecessarily. My non-conformist side is when society tries to put me into its mold I refuse to conform. They try to tell me I should just be a cog in the wheel. I can make my own decisions, thank you very much.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

Mylocalcontract

agreed,

I have heard bad things about reciprocal links...better to go one way and outsource the link building effort. You can get 100 or so quality do follow links with high page rank (higher the better) for 300-500 USD

coolflatroof

CBS. You r right in a way, yet link exchange is a proven seo strategy and it works. There are also 3-way exchanges if you want to avoid the big G punnishing ur site.

On the topic - post or PM me your sites and we will do the exchange. I have 4 different sites that can be exchanged links with.

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