Some poker webmasters think that regular link exchanges don’t work anymore. (Lots of them think that 3 way link exchanges are somehow “better”, but I’ve written about debunking the reciprocal links are bad myth before.) Assuming that you’re one of the enlightened poker webmasters who understand that link exchanges work fine when used correctly, how do you find good link exchange partners?

How to Find Good Poker Link Exchange Partners

One way to find good poker link exchange partners is to search through some of the better web directories. You know that a site listed in this directory has passed at least one editorial discretion test.

The next step is to look through the list of sites in that category to see which ones have “other sites” or “resources” pages. If they do, then you’ve got a potential link partner. (If they don’t have a links page, then it might be tougher to get a link, because they might have a wonky editorial policy about not linking out to other sites.)

Another way to find good poker link exchange partners is to search through the links pages of some of the sites listed in those web directories. Trust, reputation, and link authority cascade down from good web directories like this, so the links on the link pages of the sites listed on that page above are more likely to be valuable. And, since those people have already traded links with someone else, you know that they’re open to that sort of thing, so your conversion rate will be a lot higher.

Link Out First

For some reason, people in the poker webmaster industry seem to request link exchanges without posting links to the other person’s site first. There was a time when this was consider the only approach to take when asking for link exchanges. I get dozens of link exchange requests each week, but none of them have linked to my site yet. Unless the person writing is someone I already know, I delete those poker link exchange requests immediately.

How much more likely are you to link to someone else’s sit if they’ve already linked to you first? I think it’s human nature to be more likely to link back to someone who’s already done his share of the work.

“Excessive: Poker Link Exchanges

How many poker link exchanges can you do before it becomes considered “excessive”? I haven’t triggered a penalty at any of my sites by exchanging links in a reasonable manner. Years ago, when I didn’t know any better, I participated in a link scheme where I traded links with hundreds of sites at the same time. That triggered a penalty.

Looking through the handful of respectable directories who list poker sites for link exchange partners, I don’t think I could find enough potential link exchange partners to trigger a penalty if I even tried.

How to Get More Value from a Poker Link Exchange

How do you get the most value from your link exchanges? I never trade links with a site without thinking about the potential traffic I could get from a relationship with another webmaster. I have one link exchange with a site that sends me 3 visitors a day. If you can arrange enough of those types of poker link exchanges, you won’t have to worry about search engine rankings nearly as much.

What are the keys to getting traffic from links on someone else’s poker site?

1. Only trade links with other sites that get traffic. (If they don’t get traffic, then think about whether or not the site is likely to get traffic in the future.)
2. Be willing to provide deeplinks to content pages on someone else’s site, and ask them to do the same with your content. You don’t have to limit yourself to link exchanges from your links page.
3. If you are limiting your link exchanges to sites with “links” pages, then only trade links with sites that don’t hide their links to those pages. (You know, the sites with the almost-invisible anchor text in the footer of the page to their “partners” page.)
4. Be willing to send traffic to other sites too. No one is going to camp out on your site for the next year. In fact, most people aren’t going to spend more than a few minutes on your site. Why not recommend another place for them to go?  They might find your link on the site you recommended and come back.

Now and Then

If you were using appropriate poker link exchange tactics in 2003, then those tactics still work. In fact, so many other webmasters have drunk the “I need to buy links” kool-aid that those tactics work better now than ever.

If your websites aren’t doing as well traffic-wise as you’d like them to, then focus on the fundamentals. This link exchange email example from 2000 works as well today as it did then. Poker webmasters are just less likely to go to that much trouble anymore.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 2:59 am and is filed under Poker Link Building, Yahoo . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.