In the recent 4-6 weeks I have spent (wasted) much time trying to improve the link popularity of some of my websites.

The website topics are different, but the result of my approaching hundreds of websites is next to nothing. I killed hours and hours searching for the websites in Google, DMOZ, social bookmarking sites, digging link pages of authority sites – ALL IN VAIN.

What did I do for link exchange?

- I tested various message subject (info about your site.com, will trade or buy a link form your site.com, John P., a question about your website plus 5-10 more variants).

- I experimented with e-mail extensions (some e-mails sent from gmail, yahoo, site.com). The only achievement with this test was the ban of one website for spamming.

- I tried many body text versions where I addressed the website owner by his name, asked to buy/ rent a link from his website, admired his site pointing to some cool features, etc.

- I searched websites to contact from various sources (Google, DMOZ, social book marking websites, digging link pages, etc)

- I approached my direct competitors and those websites that complement my sites perfectly.

- I tested week days, weekends, holidays.

- I tried to approach .com/ .org/ .edu sites

- I contacted old sites (started in 90’s) and quite new sites (started in 2000 and later)

Important notice: the websites I tried to gain links for are at least 8 months old, min PR2, do not look like crap (they look pretty for me), not purely commercial, designed on the same level like this website, with unique content.

I did get some replies – most common:

- we do not trade links;
- you are welcome to buy a link from us for $60.00 month (a PR4 website with extremely low Alexa ratings).

I have got three links so far that I am aware of: one from .ca, .nz and .com sites.

Summary: the only reasons of this as I see it – summertime and most website owners are on vacations; or – link exchange does not work anymore (I think the second option is true).

In this situation it is reasonable to stop time waste to exchange links by contacting other websites. It is cheaper (you save time and Internet bandwidth) and much faster to buy a few links from the websites of your choice on webmaster forums, eBay.com or special marketplaces (www.tex-link-ads.com and similar).

The extra time you get since you drop the inefficient link exchange work – time to develop extra features of your website and focus on generating more content.

[tags]links exchange, affiliate marketing, home based business, work from home, dmoz, google, links, seo, website promotion, e-commerce[/tags]

I have recently written about public domain resources as a way to get free and legal content to your website (but remember of duplicate content issues).

In this post I would like to talk of one more resource that might be helpful with quality content for your website – Wikiquote It is a part of Wikipedia.org but the latter deserves a separate talk as it is a great source of good information and a place where you should try to get a link from (but not by spamming it – anyway it will be removed).

What is Wikiquote? Wikiquote is a selection of quotes from famous people. There are a few language versions of Wikiquote. English version at the moment counts over 7,500 pages.

Four basic Wikiquote principles – accurate and comprehensive collection of notable quotations.

You can edit Wikiquote by adding/ modifying the entries, but at this time we are more interested in using it as a source of content for our own websites. You can browse quotations by categories or by search. Once you found a few quotations that might be a good fit for your website – you just copy/ paste them and your web pages get some extra charm.

Summary: quotations are a good way to attract readers’ attention. You just need to find the ones that are a perfect fit for your website and place them prominently.

You can also use quotations in a few different ways. For example, use a quotation in your forum signature. It is a sort of magnet – people tend to read it and check the website of that person. Wikiquote offers a great selection and covers multiple areas.
[tags]affiliate marketing, work from home, home based business, wikipedia, wikiquote, content, traffic, links, website[/tags]

You may not know much of the forum functioning principles if you run a website with no forum, but it is a fact that websites that support a forum are less dependent on search engine changes and traffic – they help your website to function independently to some extent. Many affiliate marketers see online communities as the sole way to keep your website running smoothly and profitably in the future – with every Google update the artificial manipulations (SEO) with the top search engine get harder and harder, I would put it – next to impossible.

So, the above introductory paragraph sounds convincing and you decide to add a forum to your website. I will not discuss popular forum software (vBulletin and phpBB (free) are most popular) and mods (forum additions and plug-ins) that make your forum more advanced and attractive to the users – it is a topic for a separate talk.

I would like to focus on the basics – what you should do correct to attract and keep the users on your forum. I know one excellent place for forum owners and administrators – The Admin Zone – where they professionally discuss all issues related to forums – starting and running, monetization and traffic, software and staff.

The one thing I have found particularly useful for myself is their community review algorithm. You have two ways to go – you can register with the forum and ask professional forum reviewers to critique your new forum (it is a free service). Or you can do the review on your own, but using their process. It helps you to spot most weak points in your young community. And it is of great value if you are new to forums operation.

OK, here is a list of things you should pay attention to while running your forum. Your target is to make it look professional and attract as many members as possible:

Guest’s Outlook: your community aims become clear within a few moments a new visitor arrived to your forum.

Logos and Banners: use this for branding.

Quantity of Forums: always start small and add new forums as you grow.

Advertisements: blend, try not to annoy your visitors. The best solution is to drop any adv while you actively recruit first few hundreds of members.

Color scheme: need to show your web designer taste.

Themes and Styles: there are a lot of free skins in the Internet – find 10-15 minutes to select the one that matches your general website design.

Rules, FAQ, and Privacy Policy: it is best to design your own (not the ones that come with forum software package.

Forum Staff/Contact Points: who does what here?

Points of Registration: make it as easy as possible. In the future when you will be faced with forum spammers you will introduce a few more extra steps to register.

Page and Image Sizes: keep it under control.

Favicon, Buttons, and Other Graphics: custom favicon and graphics are a plus for any forum.

Sense of Community: it is your target to create the group of regular members who will make the place worthy browsing.

Post count and Quality: many web browsers check this before they register – it is a sign if the community is active. Post actively yourself to increase the numbers.

Participation Overview: one thread posts mean no discussions most forums are created for the purpose to discuss and argue.

Quantity and Activity of Staff: be helpful and online as much as you can – later the forum will get moderators that will take over this task.

Contests, Games, and Diversions: advisable

Overall Impressions

Summary of Recommended Changes

Summary: the above steps will help you to avoid general pitfalls typical of new forum owners. Unfortunately, it does not guarantee success of your community – nowadays it takes much more. You need top website and forum content and discussions, you need to attract and keep great knowledgeable members, you need ideas to innovate all the time, you need keep with the development of your industry, you need… many other things. But the above list is a good starting point.

[tags]forum, community, affiliate marketing, home based business, work from home, google, seo, vbulletin, phpbb, favicon, logo, banners[/tags]