How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

[planet777]

Hi all,

My site deals with health, diet and weightloss and is called www.flabfallsoff.com , hosted through Voda ;)


I have been laboriously getting stuck into SEO, including submitting articles to online article directories. Very time consuming - but I understand the concept of having a link back to your site as being very important. And a number of sites now have an article of mine, so this strategy seems to be working ;)

My question is about how to get a reciprocal link from a ‘heavyweight’ site. One SEO ‘guru’ says that if you are able to persuade one website – preferably in a related field – with a Page Rank of 7 - that a reciprocal link is beneficial to them, you will be listed in Google very quickly, perhaps 24-48 hours.

My question is: how on earth does one do this? If I approach a website that’s hitting, say, no. 3 in Google under the key words “weight loss” – why would they want to link to me? First, I am competition, and if they link to me I will rise and threaten their base. Second, what can I offer them?

Unless of course the site was a free information site, and not really in competition.

But the question remains: what can I offer them? Perhaps some specific 'niche' info not generally available?

I’ve racked my brains about this but only got splinters in my fingers! (lol)

Has anyone got any answers to this? All replies appreciated and tks in advance!

Cheers

Will

[Collectors-info]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

Hi, its an odd subject this rankings & getting yourself up the search engine list. But as an exsample.
I have an acquaintance that has a site about a narrow boat he built. He built the site using word & has never even registered with a search engine. Yet he will be in the top 5 pages & even the front page of Google if you do a search for traditional narrow boats, & similar fraises. I know there won’t be so many sites on this subject & it is particular to the UK (I think) so not a fare example, but there are hundreds of sites on this subject & he is doing ok without trying, & he doesn’t even sell anything or use it for business.
If you look at the source of his pages. Oh this is his site, ww.railwaybraking.com/belle/introtext.htm There is not even a key word tag.

(Sorry! Off subject). Back to your site. I think it will help quite a bit to get a few more pages on your site, which will give you the chance to have more flexibility on getting more key words out there & more notice by the SE’s,
I would have a good look at Beth’s pages for some hints on how to set your sites key words up. Having a nice well laid out site & good SE compatibility is the 1st thing you must do in an area that has thousands of sites.
I don’t think the big boys will even entertain small site like ours until you get up the rankings. (catch 22)

[motoxxx]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

Oh boy.....This can take some doing...

First of all, the only way a site like yours would be able to get a back link from a related site with a PR of 7 is most likely going to be to pay for one. There are tons of websites out there that for a fee will place you into their directory along with about a gazillion other related sites..or not related sites. Depending on how serious you are with your online business, it may be worth paying to be listed in some high end directories. For hobby sites, it may not be worth it. You, just like me, are in a hyper competitive industry wtih millions of websites competing for limited terms.This can get very fristrating and difficult to deal with.

You are doing some things well like doing the articles etc. but the rest of your site needs some attention as far as SEO goes. Quality sites don't ever want to link with sites that are of lower quality than theirs as that can pull down their page rank by linking to many lower quality sites. One of my competitors that I monitor closely just had his page rank of 5 (which is very good!) fall to a PR of 3 because of this.

Your site doesn't really look like a "Pro" quality site and that alone will hinder you in getting any quality backlinks. Another thins is that your site is actually a one page sales letter...not really something other sites want to link with. Especially if they are competing with you!

I have done several web conferences with BV members showing them how to massivley increase their SEO effectivness. I wouldn't claim myself to be an expert at SEO but I would bet that I know more than about 90% of the people that do claim to be experts. Maybe we could do a web conference and I can help you that way

[planet777]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

Hi Chris & Moto (again!)

Tks for your posts... not an easy subject huh? I would think a lot of people just give up when faced with the mountain to climb... but not some of us, lol :)

I think one of the key things is what Moto said: my site is a direct response, essentially one page sales letter. I just dont have lots of pages in it: the purpose is to draw in the prospect and sell him. Even putting links to other sites at the bottom is risky but I have no choice ;)


Yeah, re the professionalism, I have been meaning to jack up some of the aesthetics of the site, will be posting for some help on that soon. A template for the site is one of Joe Vitale's direct response pages: check out www.attractanewcar.com. I want to put 'tramlines' and a bit of color in but not too much: there's also an advantage from the sales perspective in not being too 'slick' ;)

But yeah, point taken in that weightier, better designed sites wouldnt want to link for the various reasons you mentioned...

Well, I for one would be interested in any web conference! When R U holding the next one? ;)

What high end directories would you suggest paying to link to?


I also tried to join a Yahoo health & weightloss group today, but the posts dont seem to allow a hyperlinked URL. If not, one wouldnt have the exposure one is looking for in having that site then 'pointing' back at you?


I put in my hyperlinked URL, tho, into my profile at MySpace: this would be good I guess as MySpace is a heavyweight site? Would it be good to list MySpace as one of my links so there is an automatic reciprocal link, or how does it work?

Thanks again,

Will

[motoxxx]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

Will, any back links you get to your site at this point will help you. Commercial sites willing to pay to be in the Yahoo business directory have to pay $299 per year but that ia a pretty heavy weight backlink and a good place to start. The down side is that it is expensive and I have heard of peoples website not being included into that directory due to low quality site construction even after they paid.

DMOZ is another one that is good if they are taking sites again. Just do a search for Directories and you'll get a million of them

If you want to see a site that I put together (still working on it a bit tonight...) that does several things Check this out Dental Done Right

This site currently comes up #2 on Google for the search query "Dental Insurance Alternative" out of 1.2 million websites.
Until this last weekend when MSN and Yahoo search all changed up their search algorythyms, I had 55 top 5 placings on MSN search for different words with this website. The website is only 6 months old.

I designed this site to effectively do several things:

1. Be found relevant by the search engines
2. Have highly relevent internal linking structure that is all keyword targeted
3. Give people access to the most important things that they are looking for as fast and as easy as possible with no scrolling
4. Have high conversion rates for visitors to take 1 of two actions
a. Enroll in the dental plan
b. Submit their info
c. Send the customer a direct response email instantly with more information.

For what you are selling this exact type of a format may not be the best but what you may want to pay attenion to is the SIZE of the website. This site is almost 200 pages now. Using the text links at the bottom of the page to link to my other keyword targeted pages allows my site to grow to different levels of depth (home page=level 1, state pages= level 2, keyword specific pages =level3 etc) and therefore become more of an "Authority Website". This is now an important factor with most search engines.

If you have a high speed internet connection and can be on the puter and the phone at the same time, we can web conference at any time. I do them one on one. I am on the West Cost...we could even do one tonight if you wish.

[planet777]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

Hi again Moto,

Tks! A lot of good info. I do have a DSL connection and skype, but am 10 hrs ahead of PST ... GMT +2 I think. So we might have to co-ordinate rather well for a web conference... ;)

As I see it, one of the big challenges I've got is that my site will never be more than a 1-page direct response sales letter... I cant put dozens of articles or links or anything on it coz all that may distract from the purpose ... but we can discuss this... ;)

I'll email you thru your sites... I must also get my site more jacked up and will be posting on that in another section...

Speak soon!

Tks,

Will

[motoxxx]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

Will where are you located?

You don't need links to dozens of articles on your main page. You place 1 link at the bttom of the page that says "Resources". On that "Resources" page you have a link to your home page and any other important pages. This is the page that you place al of the links to the articles. Use the main template for your website for each article page...now all you are doing is adding pages that link to your main sales page every time you add a new article....This helps make your website an authority website. The page you currently have would barely work for a PPC campaign as it stands.

[davy]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

I have been doing a lot of research on this in the last month and although I dont really feel that you should pay for links Dirmania web directory (sorry cannot find link) costs around 4 dollars for a link and they give you lots of links back. This has should be picked up by google, msn and yahoo rapidly. Mine was in three days, the other tip is to submit to article directories these have been spread like wildfire by the engines listed above and most within a week going back to my sites pages, good luck in your endeavours.

[AJ113]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

To summarise:
You have a one-page site that is has no real differences to the millions of other one-page sales sites on the web. By the way, it doesn't load properly in IE (well, not for me anyway)

You want a high page-rank site to link you, reciprocal or otherwise.

I hate to be negative, but it probably isn't going to happen, and even if it did, exactly how much difference to your sales do you think it will make?

Take note of what Motoxxx is saying. His site is successful. It has 200 pages, that is no coincidence. When you have site that is full of original content the links come naturally, and so do the visitors.

[karel]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

I don't want to be negative but yes that is your problem, you just have a sales page, done a million times. You need to create a webste that people want to link with, that they will talk about, you need to come up with something different to get natural traffic. You could offer a free e-book that is a taster to the main one. But really this sort of site can only expect traffic from adwords or article writing. Also don't just write in article directorys, the best way I found was to find a large p.r site that was relevant to my subject and ask them if they would like an article doing with my bio at the bottom, a lot said yes and I get plenty of traffic in this way. They then gain by putting adsense around it, an example is here http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoint/david4.shtml

But if I had one piece of advice I would forget about sales pitches and how you can lose the weight to. Start afresh and just give loads of information, something for google to get their teeth into. I have pages and pages of information on my main site and still sell a lot of books, because I don't go for the one page, sales pages, many people say they bought my book for this very reason.

Good luck

Paul

[AJ113]

Re: How to create Reciprocal links to 'heavyweight' sites?

You clearly think that you have a different angle on how to lose weight. OK, so start afresh and build a site that has 300 - 400 articles on the topic. When you have done that your site will be successful.

[tongueincheek]What a splendid fellow I am. You are in direct competition with me and I still offer you top notch advice..............[/tongueincheek]