Analyzing Link Partners

29 November 2007
How to rank potential online partners - before you give them your money

So you have a website. You’re also bright enough to realize that it isn’t going to do you any good if no one is visiting it. So you’ve set yourself a goal to find online partners to exchange links with, or you have a budget set aside to purchase links online.

Prioritize

Very quickly you’ll realize there are a thousand different opportunities out there and more people willing to take your money than you have money to give. You need to separate the great from the good and the good from the bad. Here’s a quick list of questions to get you started:

* How relevant is this site? There will be a few criteria, such as geography, products, approach, all compared to your own site.

* How respectable is this site? Sometimes this is tough to determine, but often amateurish or poorly designed sites stand out.

* What do the search engines think of this site? Visit an online tool such as iwebtool to see the PageRank of the site. Obviously the higher the better.

* How much traffic does the site get (and more specifically the page where your link will appear)? You’ll have to depend on the webmaster’s word, but it’s still a worthwhile question to ask before you spend any serious money.

In short, the money you spend on your online presence can and should be well spent. Not all sites are created equal, so be picky. Look for relevant sites that stand a good chance of bringing solid business leads to your website as well as boost your PageRank.

Follow Up

Finally, before you renew any packages from a site that sells links, check your website statistics and ensure that you have been getting enough traffic to justify the cost. Also of course, ask your new clients how they heard about you, the tricky part about marketing is that it's so hard to tell what expenditures are worthwhile. But it gets even harder to know if you don't ask.