Article by LinksManager.com Staff - © 2007, Reproduction without permission prohibited.

What business are you in? 

Bad question.  It should be, "what businesses are you in."

Because no matter what your primary job or profession is, you are also in the communications business.

Think about it.  Unless are a professional hermit, you have to communicate with people - customers, vendors, employees, students, investors, your boss, or someone else - in order to succeed.  Your website is a major part of your communications effort.  The site may be offering anything and everything from professional services to sink stoppers, but if it doesn't communicate your message clearly and compellingly, it won't be successful.

Building and maintaining a robust and effective link exchange campaign starts with an ability to communicate your message well enough to convince people they want to link to your site - or, at least, that the opportunity to link to your site merits a visit to it to discern its potential as a link partner.

What we're talking about here is the very first - and perhaps the most crucial - step in establishing a link exchange, writing a Link Exchange Request Email.

Building and maintaining a robust and effective link exchange campaign starts with an ability to communicate your message well enough to convince people they want to link to your site..

If you're using LinksManager, you already understand the importance of Link Exchange Request Emails, which are, of course, one of the key elements in editor-based linking and one of the major factors that separate a productive, search-engine-friendly linking strategy from a link-farming or harvesting scam.  In essence, link harvesting is like fishing with a commercial net.  You scoop up hundreds or thousands of fish, some edible, some not.  Mixed in with the fish are a few dolphins.  In a linking analogy, the "dolphins" can be considered inappropriate, irrelevant, the kind of "fish" that may poison your link exchange campaign.

Contrast that with using a fishing tackle.  You bait your hook, toss it out where you have good reason to suspect the fish you're seeking are lurking, and wait for a nibble.  If you get a good fish, you reel it in - if you get one you don't want, you toss it back.  And you never, ever will get a dolphin with a baited hook on a bamboo pole.

So, the "fish" you want are the websites you have already identified - via a directory of sites that link exchange such as <a href="http://www.linkpartners.com">LinkPartners.com</a> or a manual search - as being good potential link partners for you.  Now you want to hook them and land them on your links page.  Naturally, your success rate will be largely determined by your choice of bait.

The bait, in this case, being your Link Exchange Request Email.

Now before we go any further, lets remind you of rule #1. Never send a Link Exchange Request Email when the webmaster is publishing an add link form page such as the add link page we publish for each and every LinksManager user.  Also keep in mind that the webmaster might use a different link management software or script that publishes an add link or suggest link form for webmasters to use.  Always use link request forms when the webmaster makes them available.  Never send Link Exchange Request Emails if the webmaster is publishing a form to receive link requests.

When the webmaster doesn't use link management software or they specifically state "contact me [via email or form mail] to suggest a link exchange", then it's perfectly acceptable to email that webmaster a Link Exchange Request Email.

LinksManager does provide a basic template of a Link Exchange Request Email at http://LinksManager.com/startswapping.html.   That example mailer is just an example to get you started.  If you want to maximize the number of positive responses you receive and minimize the length of time it takes webmasters to ponder your request, you should consider customizing your Link Exchange Request Email.

Objection! You're running a business, you don't have time to compose a personal, unique solicitation letter to every webmaster whose site you'd like to exchange links with.

You're absolutely right, you don't have time to write a personal, unique letter to every prospective link partner.  But guess what?  Each Link Exchange Request Email doesn't have to be totally unique and personal.  You can cut the amount of time it takes to write a very personalized Link Exchange Request Email by about 75 percent without losing any effectiveness at all.

Start by thinking of your Link Exchange Request Email as a multipart document.  There are a few sentences describing your site and a few sentences explaining why your site would be a good linking partner.  Somewhere between the above two sections, is the explanation of why you would like to exchange links with the particular site you are sending the Link Exchange Request Email to.

You can cut the amount of time it takes to write a very personalized Link Exchange Request Email by about 75% without losing any effectiveness...

As you can see, the first part - the description of your site - can be the same in all your Link Exchange Request Emails, what the lawyers call boilerplate.  Your site is what it is.  If the purpose is to buy and sell collectible widgets, describe that in a few short sentences that explain what types of widgets you specialize in, how long you've been online, what kind of information other than product descriptions and order forms you offer … things of that nature.

(Hint: If your site is relatively new, either don't mention how long you've been online or, if you do, put a positive spin on it by saying something like "established in June 2006, widgetworld.com is dedicated to becoming the number one portal for world wide widget collectors.")

The section about why your site is a good partner can likewise be boilerplate.  It should mention everything positive about your site's linking potential -- traffic statistics, number of return visitors, amount of visitor feedback, the fact that you only link to manually acquired relevant sites in good neighborhoods, etc.

At last we come to the one section of the Link Exchange Request Email that requires customization - the part that explains why you want to establish a reciprocal link.  The important thing here is to establish that a.) you have visited the potential link partner's site and b.) that you really liked what you found there.

Consider this sample:

Hi, ….

I am the owner of www.widgetworld.com and am very interested in exchanging links with you.  In its five years of operation, Widgetworld, has become the pre-eminent online destination for buyers and sellers of collectible widgets and widget display systems manufactured since 1823.  In addition to our sales and catalog section, we feature articles and images on widget evolution over the decades and pricing guides.

One reason I'd really like to exchange links with your wadget site is the intense interest of widget collectors in wadgets and vice-versa.  I also really liked the design of your site and the fact that the images of the wadgets are obviously professionally photographed, unlike the poorly lit pictures on most wadget sites.

FYI, www.widgetworld.com, receives 14,000 unique hits a month producing over 50,000 pageviews and our links pages are heavily used.  We only link with relevant, high-quality sites personally selected by myself.  Our sites target the same demographic so I think a link exchange would compliment both of our sites. 

If you would like to exchange links with us, please use our add link form at http://www.widgetworld.com/resources/add_link.html 

There you have it, four short paragraphs - three of which can be sent without change to anyone. Cut and paste an appropriate paragraph two and you have a very personalized, informative, and flattering Link Exchange Request Email that should take only a couple of moments to prepare after your visit to a prospective partner's site.

A flattering Link Exchange Request Email should take only a couple of moments to prepare.

If you get tired of copying and pasting, consider using an Auto Text product which allows you to paste text into new email windows with the click of a button.  For those of you using Microsoft Outlook (or Outlook Express) and are not familiar with Auto Text, visit these demos on Microsoft's website.  If you are not using a Microsoft email client, contact the manufacturer of your email client and ask them about compatible AutoText products.

So getting back to customizing your Link Exchange Request Email .. Is it really important to make this effort?

Here's what Goggle's Matt Cutts has to say about it:

"Most site owners are savvy enough to realize that emails with link-exchange requests are rarely hand-crafted with love. Instead of exchanging links, lots of site owners forward the unsolicited emails to Google ..."

Handcrafting your Link Exchange Request Emails with love - or at least a few personal comments - is an almost foolproof way to improve your positive response ratio.

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