pageoneresults - 2:59 pm on Mar 5, 2008 (gmt 0)

Let's face it, most sites are going to have a "small number" of quality link partners in the true sense of the matter. Years ago I decided to do things differently. No longer do I look at my outbound links as just a link. When we place an outbound on one of our sites, we look at that as a partnership whether or not the recipient reciprocates.

Partnerships are much more valuable than trading links. They do require a little more work but the end result is a win/win situation for all involved, including the search engines. Stop treating your OBLs as a commodity. Start looking at them as integral parts of your website. Key partnerships get major play, usually a full page of advertisement.

You see, we like to keep our visitors on site for as long as possible. If we're going to link offsite, the user is most likely going to click that link and be taken to a partner page. We look at that partner page like a full page ad in an 8.5 x 11.0 magazine, and its in full color too! Do you know how much those cost? Depending on the industry and the number of subscribers, that one page could cost upwards of $5,000 to $10,000 per issue. And, the rule of thumb is that it needs to run for at least 5-6 issues for full effect. Give your partners a page like that and they are sure to be "grateful" for your ingenuity. Who knows, maybe they will do the same in return. ;)

One of the biggest challenges with focusing all of your link development within one area of your site are the footprints. Finding "hoards" of links is no problem for the SEs, they are all over the place. Those link directories stick out like a sore thumb, they always have. So that means you need to do something different. This is a great topic of discussion and one that I look foward to participating more in. Thanks for starting it tokey666!

Inline Links are the key to success.