Link building for more traffic

Building links between websites has a few different meanings. Here I'm going to start off by looking at how it started and how the search engines would like to see all links - as 'genuine' links built for traffic, not to trick search engines.

With this method of link building, links are exchanged purely on the understanding that by having links on each others' site there's a good chance that your visitors might find the other site's link interesting and visit the site, and vice versa.

It's all about finding sites that share mutual interests, similar visitors etc and putting up small links in the hope that you add interest to each site. By adding your link to the other person's site, their visitors should see the link and think that your site could give them more of what they are interested in. Maybe the other site is a hobby site and you are offering a price comparison for related products. So their visitors might be interested in your site for that reason. Or maybe you are offering more information on certain pages of theirs.

What you need to do is to find sites that share an interest or themes and put a link from your site to their website. Then approach the other site and ask them for a link back. This type of linking can be a bit harder to plan and arrange as you really want the link to be on a proper 'content' page rather than a links directory page - it should be somewhere that visitors will see it. For this reason, you also need to be placing your link to them on a content page. Now, this can be any content page of your site or a dedicated 'you might like to visit' sort of page.

If you are really keen for links, there's always the option of paying for link placement on another site. You would need to approach the owner and ask how much for a link from a certain page would cost.

Another method of gaining links for traffic, and one I have often used successfully, is by getting your site listed on "top sites" pages. This usually entails putting a link to the top site website onto your pages and the number of clicks is counted. But, especially for hobby orientated websites, this can bring tons of traffic as lots of people are searching for more sites to read about.

In summary, in link building for traffic you really want to place a link from a content page on your site to another site whilst they place a text, or banner, link on a content page back to you.