Free Link Campaign for Reciprocal and Non-Reciprocal Links
With any new website you MUST begin to design a marketing strategy.  A URL, logo, and a few products do not do much to create real traffic to your site....no matter what the late night infomercials and dropship turnkey sites will tell you (often after a large set-up fee).  While your end goal should be to sell enough products for you to find ecommerce success, your first step needs to be to attract as many visitors as you can.  One simple way to generate traffic is through a "Linking Campaign".

There are two types of links for your Link Campaign: reciprocal and non-reciprocal links. A reciprocal link is when two websites link to each other. Both sites generate traffic for each other simultaneously. Some sites will only link to you if there is a reciprocal link offered to their site.  A non-reciprocal link is a link to a website that links one-way. A good linking strategy is to create as many inbound non-reciprocal links as possible, with some strategically chosen reciprocal links as well.

Search engines, or at least the people that create search engines, are incredibly smart. The positioning of your site in the ranking results depends a great deal upon how many people link to or reference your site. Non-reciprocal inbound links communicates to the search engines that your site contains valuable information. After all, who's going to recommend your site without reciprocation unless they believe it will benefit their readers?  Your website's popularity is just like high school.  If two students tell each other that they are popular, it might not mean much when it comes to a class elections or home coming court nominations.  However, if everyone else points at that student down the hall saying they are popular, it is much easier to believe.

However, non-reciprocal links might not be enough to ensure high traffic flow and search ranking.  A website with a bunch of reciprocal links could indicate that the site solicits links. With websites and SEO efforts, you cannot simply buy relevance and ranking when it comes to the major search engines.  The same is true if your site is connected by a large number of reciprocal links.  The point of a search engine is to find sites that give the searcher what they are looking for, not provide the searcher with the sites who are best at getting links or just pay for them.  Search engines try to verify the integrity of the link quality by reviewing key word connections between reciprocal links to determine if the sites are in fact benefiting each other.

Some points for a good Link Campaign:

1)         Choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to

websites that contain related information that your readers will enjoy.

2)         Spend your time cultivating valuable information on your site, and then tell everyone you can. If you end up having more non-reciprocal links than reciprocal links, search engines will rate your site much higher than those that do not.

Content is King:

Content and the value offered on your e-commerce site are very important.  This is why "turnkey" sites do not work and why most turnkey sites have setup fees.  Some sites out their only charge a setup fee.  They then tell you that "Hosting is FREE.  No monthly fees.".  Now, why would a business give a hosting account and sever space for free with no other monthly charges collected after several hundred dollars collected upfront?  After all, what happens if you are planning to run your site for 10 years?  The reason, is they do not expect you to last too long before you close.  So, your "Free for life hosting account! No monthly fees!" is something the turnkey seller offers while only expecting you to last 2 or 3 months on their servers before you close.  Also, many of these sites are marketed as being very simple to use.  The reason is they do not allow you to use much on the site, so even if you have great content your pages are limited and there is little options for adding content to your "turnkey" platform.

So, how do you generate non-reciprocal links?

The first step is to create a site packed with valuable information. Make your site full of interesting details that similar sites' readers cannot live without.  Offer a large product catalog with multiple suppliers.  Your product content becomes a simple way to generate thousands of pages of content for people to reference, but you can add more with product reviews, news articles, and more.  If webmasters see the benefit to linking to your site, your Marketing Campaign becomes a snap.

When you begin your marketing efforts, try emailing other webmasters. Tell them why your site will be important to their readers, and make it easy for them to say yes by including a ready-made link.  Also, you can find forums and support sites.  Some of these allow you to link to your site in the post.  For others, you can have a link to your site in your signature.  Find sites that allow you to post a comment that has something related to the products you sell for your link posting.  For example, if you sell software or games, you might go to "cheat sites" and post information or a tip on games.  If you sell DVD's you can go to move review sites and post reviews on movies you sell or just movies that you have seen.  The content is a perfect match for what your site sells.  If you can post a link back to your site in the content or in your post signature, then when people search for these products or key words, your site will be ranked higher.  The higher ranking for your site is because your site is referenced by these non-reciprocal links.  Search engines are very smart, but they do not have the time or the means to learn if you are the author linking back to your site.

Just like product reviews, you can write a nice review of a few sites on your webpage. Email the sites' webmasters and let them know about your testimonials. It's likely that the sites will want to advertise your nice comments to their readers by posting a link to your review.  Flattery will really get you everywhere.  Also, if someone designed your site or provides you with a service, you can add this testimonial on forums or your site, such as on an information page.

Finally, submit your website to as many relevant web directories as you can. This is one of the fastest, most powerful ways to make your website known. If you search for "web directory" on Yahoo or Google it returns over 1 million results. You can pick and choose the ones you'd like to submit to.  Do not let someone tell you that you have to pay to post your site.  You can submit to most search engines for free.

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..and also...it is important to enjoy yourself while working on your e-commerce site and your link campaign management.  Just keep thinking about all of the traffic and sales that your efforts will generate!