Exchanges are a
way of sharing your own traffic to other websites. Brilliant people who are
experiencing the same problem of directing an inadequate number of visitors to
their sites had devised this strategy not too long ago. The idea is very
simple. All a person has to do is to post advertisements of other websites on
their own sites in exchange for the same thing.
In essence, it
is you-advertise-on-my-website-and-I'll-advertise-on-your-site sort of
agreement. People want to increase the popularity of their sites and that's a
given. Some people are more than willing to exchange or share resources with
others, so to speak.
There are
different things you can propose an exchange with to other websites. You can
exchange links, banners, content, and a whole lot of other promotional stuff.
It is more about sharing what you have to other web masters so that they can
share what they have to you in response.
The most popular
exchanges in are in the form of URL's. Some web directories are actually
requiring websites to put their link on the front page of the website that is
requesting inclusion. More often than not, web directories test their live
links to see if it is really there before they accept the website for submission.
Web directories
are online classified listings of different websites. The links of the websites
they contain actually came from the web masters who had intent to be included
in the list. Some web directories are paid directories. This means that you need
to pay these sites a certain amount before your link shows up on their pages.
However, web
directories understand that not all web masters have the necessary funds to pay
for advertisements. As such, web directories devised another mode of payment.
Instead of web masters paying them money for link inclusion, they pay by
publishing the web directory's link on their front page. This setup benefits
both parties. The web directory is getting the promotion it gets while your
website is getting more backlinks.
But links are
not the only things that are used for exchanges these days. There are also
inline text advertisements and even banners. Banner exchanges work in the same
way as link exchanges. Only in this type, graphical banners are published
instead of mere URL's.
Here, you can
catch more of an audience from another website because you are free to use
eye-catching graphics and sometimes, even multimedia, to get your message
across. Banner exchanges with another website is a good idea if and only if the
other website you are trading advertisement spots with have a better page
ranking and traffic than you do.
Of course, the
other website may be a little choosy in selecting a banner exchange partner.
Either your website had to be related to their own, or yours has to have an
equal amount of traffic and enjoy the same page ranking as theirs.
There are
certain requirements that both parties have to meet. And it is very important
that the two web masters exchanging links with each other have open communication
so that they both maximize their efforts of generating traffic to their
respective sites.
There are
several websites nowadays that are proposing exchanges to fellow web masters.
They serve as a middleman between two websites that are looking for traffic. In
essence, they match two or more websites so that they can pool their resources
together to gain the traffic they need. Their service makes the whole system
easier, as you don't have to personally talk to another web master for an
exchange. Most of them offer their services for free, by the way.
Exchanges can
really do wonders for your site. If you have distributed your links or banners
to a substantial amount of websites over the internet, even if only one unique
person gets to click them everyday, you should be getting the results that you
want. However, you have to be very careful when entering deals like these.
You don't want to over populate your websites
with somebody else's links, advertisements, and banners in such a way that your
own content becomes merely a shadow of the ruckus. Be very wary when
positioning the links and banners from exchanges as well. They should not, in
any way, make your website lose its credibility.
