Link Exchanges And Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Link Exchanges
You might want to consider establishing a resources page where you place links to other websites that are related to yours and offer valuable information to your visitors.
Once you've done that, you can then invite relevant sites to do a link exchange. Many will accept your offer, especially if your site is related to theirs.
Keep in mind, however, that there are two schools of thought with regard to exchanging links....
- One group thinks there is very little value as search engines can easily see that sites have exchanged links and simply negate the value of the exchange.
- Others feel strongly about building a large number of links to their sites by engaging in an aggressive link exchange program.
We suggest you cultivate link exchanges only with valuable, related sites. Don't get carried away exchanging links with every site that requests one... you might find yourself part of a "link farm" and end up getting your entire site penalized by a search engine.
Bottom line... if a site is a useful resource to your target audience of visitors, then it's a good link to include on your site. If it's totally unrelated to their needs, then it won't help your visitors or your search engine rankings.
Some people ask, "Why would I send someone away from my site with a link to another website?"
The answer is, they're going to leave your website at some point anyway. If you can provide them with helpful resources, attractions, or information that relates to their needs, you have added value to their visit to your site.
NOTE: Building link popularity can be time consuming. Some website owners find it's easier and faster to pay for incoming links and ads rather than seek out free link exchanges. This can work well as long as you select your sites carefully using the above guidelines.
Be careful in your link building. And above all else...
Beware of Links Farms
The increasing sophistication of search engines means you can't just go out and get 10,000 inbound links from any old site in order to achieve good rankings. In fact, Google has a policy of banning sites that see sudden massive increases in inbound links from link farms and web rings.
Achieving link popularity takes time. Other sites will link to yours because:
[a] They found your site and think it is a useful resource.
[b] You exchanged links with them.
[c] You paid for an ad on a vacation rental listing site.
Making your site into a useful resource as in [a] above is a great way to generate incoming links. But it can take a long time to develop the useful content that turns your site into a resource center on a particular topic.
Consider it a work in progress that will evolve over time. You will start to notice other sites linking to yours without even being asked to.
Note: Once your site is online, you'll receive what can turn out to be annoying offers from new vacation rental listing sites. Most of these new sites will not have much traffic. However, if part of their free listing offer includes a link, it might be worth taking them up on it.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Want search engine traffic fast? Paying for it can be an amazingly effective way to generate highly-targeted leads to your site, especially if you're in a hurry or your business has lots of competition that always seems to appear before your site in the free listings.
Here's how it works...
PPC means that every time someone clicks on your link, you will pay a set amount for that click. And that's the beauty of pay per click advertising... you only pay for traffic you actually receive AND you can test the effectiveness of the ads.
The first thing you need to do is figure out exactly what search terms will generate the most clicks. Some search terms are very expensive to buy because they're in high demand. In that case, you might want to look for similar terms that are selling for less.
For example, "Orlando vacation rentals" can cost you as much as $3.00 per click. You might be able to lower your price per click by targeting similar but less costly terms such as "Orlando vacation condos" or "Orlando holiday condos for less".
The point is, you need to examine the costs, test how many clicks your search terms are generating, and how many of your inquiries convert into reservations. That's how you tweak and refine your PPC campaign over time.
If you are just starting out with PPC advertising, it makes sense to start slowly by buying just one or two inexpensive terms and in that way learn how the system works.
Click here for a great little calculator that will assist you in determining how much to pay per click.
Top 3 Companies That Offer Paid Listings
Google.com paid advertising shows up on Google, AOL and other top sites.
Overture.com paid listings show up on Yahoo, AltaVista, and other major search engines.
FindWhat.com search terms tend to be less expensive though they don't appear on major search engines.
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