Always place a link before asking for a link If you are going to propose a link trade with someone then add their link first before you shoot off an e-mail. It shows you are serious, professional and will give the recipient an incentive to trade back.

Give exact URL When you propose a link trade state the exact page that they can find their link on your site. I get constant link requests from people saying they have added a link back to me and when I go to their directory I am hunting for 10 minutes trying to find it! Very often I can't as they haven't added it yet! When you propose a trade don't simply give the URL of your links directory index page and say "you can find it in the appropriate category". No no no! Give them the exact path so they can get to it in one click. Time is precious.

Don't spam for link requests Don't simply get a mailing list of websites and send a blanket e-mail requesting a link trade. If I don't see my personal e-mail address in the header of a link trade request I know it has been spammed and they haven't even been to my site. I also know they haven't visited my site because I have link proposal contact forms on all of them. If they actually went there they would have filled out my form. Spammed link requests don't go down well because they are usually from webmasters who are trying to cut corners at every possible turn. Send a personal e-mail to a site that you personally visit. (You can still use software like Arelis to help you find the sites and automate everything else).

Keep your proposal short & sweet Long convoluted e-mails explaining "how trading links benefits everyone" really aren't necessary. Keep your e-mail short and to the point. Tell them where their link is, and exactly how they should link to you.

Don't delete without good reason Once you add a link it should remain on a static html page unless there is good reason to delete it. If your partner has deleted his link then by all means send an e-mail and give them an opportunity to repair. If this is fruitless then go ahead and delete. Lastly I want to mention something that I think is extremely important regarding reciprocal linking. I see way too many websites that have high pageranks on their index pages and very often zeros on their links pages. Usually this is because the links page is too many sub folders away. That and poor internal linking is usually the problem. Webmasters only want to link to pageranked sites if they are building a solid strategy, and quite rightly. Many webmasters don't care too much about their own links page, simply assuming that they are sending traffic away from their site. This is not the attitude to take as the higher the pagerank is on your links page the better external link proposal you will get. The answer is to boost your links page in popularity. There are two ways to do this:

1) Link to your partners index page AND reciprocal links page. 2) Link to a site map that displays all your links pages.

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