rogerd - 6:57 pm on Mar 22, 2002 (gmt 0)

Good topic, paynt. IMO, the most important factors to getting traffic are the location of the link on the other site and, of course, how much traffic that site experiences itself.

If you can convince the other site to put your link on their home page or other high traffic page, you'll pull a lot more clicks. Conversely, if you are link #332 in a list of 547 sites on a links page, you might as well forget anyone ever finding you. In general, a well-placed, well-designed banner or graphic link will pull better than a simple text link. (Of course, that keyword-based link text is good stuff, too!)

This is all pretty obvious, I guess - perhaps the one non-obvious part is that you usually have to ASK for special treatment. When I confirm a reciprocal text link, I include a standard pitch to exchange banners. A modest number of sites then put up my banner, too.

I don't usually push for a home-page listing unless I can offer something in return. Sometimes, though, smaller sites will offer, or ask where I'd prefer the link. Then, I'm not bashful... :)