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Link Exchange Policy

I only link to other sites that add true value to my visitors. The links will be from within my articles and not from some special "links only" page called "resources" or "useful links". Yes I know I have a page like that now (Aug 2010). It will soon be gone!

Regarding link exchanges, I hope that you would like to do the same and recommend my site from within your content. It takes a little more effort but is totally worth it. Here's why...

Intelligent Backlinking Experiment for New Websites (including this one)

I recently read a few remarkable articles like Marketing your Site without Search Engines (Did you just click on that link and read the article?) which have really helped me clarify how and why I want to conduct link exchanges.

You see, my site is new and is in a competitive niche. I reckon that to win at the search engines, if I adopt the "average Joe" linking strategy of applying to likely looking sites, exchanging links with them on a links-only page, then I will need about ten trillion link exchanges to gain any form of valuable ranking. Frankly, I just don't have the time or the interest to partake in such an idiotic activity.

There must be a more intelligent way. And yes, if you think about it, of course there is! There is a way to court the search engines, as well as to get visitors without relying on search engines. It's all about keeping it real.

The first questions is: Why do you want to link exchange? The usual answer is "To gain ranking at the search engines". But that isn't the real reason. The real reason of course it "To rank at the search engines in order to get lots and lots of lovely targeted traffic". It's the traffic that we're looking for after all, isn't it?

So.... Let's turn this all around.

A Search Engine Free World

Forget about the search engines, and ask yourself how much traffic you are missing out on from other avenues that are probably easier to pursue (at least easier to pursue for a new site in a competitive niche) than the search engine traffic.

Go and find your audience. It is far more strategic to do this than to wait around hoping some third party organization is going to deliver them to you. Ideally by the time you rank at Google, you shouldn't need to rank at Google for your success.

Building Trust

Just the other day I went to Tim Ferriss's book, the Four Hour Work Week, and carefully made a list of every single website he recommended. I did this, because I trust Tim Ferris. I know he has added trememdous value to my life, and I assume he will keep on delivering. I made login accounts on many of these sites and am actively using them, because they did indeed turn out to be valuable to me.

The same applies to trusted websites. Once we trust that we aren't being manipulated, we actively follow referral links, and these often become some of our more valuable bookmarks. Word of mouth and referrals are Marketing 101, yet they are so enthusiastically ignored by so many people here in our internet Google-Centric world.

Show me the Money!

Here's a case study of what a site in my niche can achieve:

The average CPC for an adwords ad in my niche ranges from $8 to $50. The advertising site (delivering adsense ads) can expect a fair chunk of that money. So let's say the advertising site on average earns about $5 dollars a click. With a typical CTR of 5% (yes I achieve this easily on other sites I run), and say 50 visitors a day, I could initially be making $375 a month. Now this isn't enough to keep a roof over my head admittedly, but if achievable with a brand new site, I'd say this isn't bad going.

And all it needs is about 50 visitors a day. Do you think you can get 50 visitors a day more easily from winning Google in a competitive niche, or by going out and actively standing in front of your audience?

Invitation to Participate

I invite related sites to join my non-Google experiment. Let's all link to each other and then you go off and link to other sites that may not be related directly to me, but will be related to you.

Let's link via the content of our most valuable articles. And then let's all go and contribute actively to forums and participate with valuable comments in blogs. Between us all I would be completely unsurprised if we create a critical mass and end up with a great deal more traffic than we expect.

Simultaneously we can pay everything forward by voting for each other's best (and only the BEST) work on social bookmarking sites. Let's pretend Google does not exist and see what happens.

If you are interested in joining this experiment you can get my contact details on http://www.stopping-foreclosure-process.com. See my contacts page. And yes, I am posting this on my site and also to a number of e-zines, forums and more. "Duplicate content!", you scream.... Really? What's that? Google? What's Google ranking? Who cares.....