If you know anything about small business, then you know that  a small business owner’s strongest business allies are other small business owners.  When you are a part of the small business world, you realize that by working with other owners like yourself, you can often become more successful.

This is especially true on the web.  If you want to promote your business more on the web, but have no budget to help you do so, consider working with other websites.  To do this, you will have to log in a little time however.  Not every website operator will be willing to help you out with advertising.  Use these tips to help you along the way.

The first thing you want to do when considering a website link exchange with another site is to make your site the best it can be.  Although this may sound irrelevant, it is likely website operators will only be willing to help you if they truly admire your site and find it appropriate.  This should be the standard in all cases at least.  If a website operator is going to commit to allowing your link to be placed on their website and vice -versa, they will want your reputation and website to be top notch.  So, before you even ask for the trade off, make sure your links are working and everything looks great with your own site.

After polishing your site, you will need to make a list of the potential websites you can trade with.  If you are a member of another website, then certainly add it to your list.  Any site that you regularly visit or contribute in some way to is a great place to begin.  Consider sites that you frequently use for message boards or chat rooms as well.  If the site is familiar with you in any way, they will be more likely to partner with you on this task.  Make sure you are realistic in your list as well.  An enormous site will not likely be interested in helping a smaller site promote itself.

When creating your list, also be aware of websites you are in competition with.  Many people who automatically be drawn to websites that offer similar services as their own.  This is a mistake however.  The best thing to do is target sites that offer services or products that are somewhat connected to what you offer, however are not the same.  For instance, if you operate a website that sells flowers, consider targeting another website that sells vases, but not a site that also sells flowers.  If you can find a correlation that works for both you and the other site, you will reap the most benefits.

Once you have a strong list of potential sites to work with on the exchange, develop a little proposal to send to each webmaster or owner.  This should be short and concise explanation of what you want to do, which is exchange links on your sites.  You can outline a few potential benefits for the other site as well as yourself.  Explain why you think your site would mesh well with theirs.  Even if it seems elementary, they may not realize the benefits unless you spell them out in the proposal.  Make sure you include contact information for yourself and ask them to respond by a specific date.  You can reasonably state, “a response within ten days would be greatly appreciated”.  Most webmasters or owners will likely have gotten around to reading the proposal in that amount of time.

Once you have a few sites on board, you can sit back and see the benefits roll in.  With users seeing your link on their website as well, you will get much more traffic than usual.  You will be able to reach an audience that you might not have gotten to otherwise.  Using the method of exchanging links with other websites is an inexpensive way to boost your website’s traffic.  You may need to research and connect in order to make the agreement work with other sites, but the effort is well worth the cost.  Once you have developed these relationships between yourself and other sites, you will be able to work on other issues together as well.  This type of networking is great for your business overall.

So get to link exchanging and watch your website views increase greatly.

Until next time

Have a prosperous day.

Doyle Gamblin