You've submitted to the search engines. Now what? (part 1)

But there are various other ways to get links, both formal and informal. The formal ways include link exchanges, Web rings and related arrangements, while the informal, old-Web way is simply to email another site owner and ask for a link.

Banner Exchanges

The concept of a link exchange or banner exchange is simple. You place the exchange's banner code on your site, which causes banners for other member sites to be displayed on your page(s). This earns you credit towards displaying your banners on other member sites. Once you join the exchange, all this happens automatically. All you have to do is send the exchange your ad banner, and place the exchange code on your site. Don't have an ad banner yet? Make one, or better yet, two or three. Even if you don't plan to buy any banner ads, there are lots of opportunities to get banner exposure free or by barter, as we shall see.

The best-known of these outfits is the LinkExchange, formerly known as the Internet Link Exchange or ILE. Another good one is the HyperBanner Network. There are lots of others. See: http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/ World_Wide_Web/Announcement_Services/Banner_Exchanges/

For a new site, a banner exchange is a great deal. You get exposure on other sites, and all you give up is a wee bit of server load, and perhaps a wee bit of traffic, of which you don't have any yet anyway. Most banner exchanges allow you to target your banners to a certain extent. That is, to specify a category for your site, so your banner will only show up on other sites in your category. The more precisely you can target, the more effective your banners will be.

The same keys to success in paid banner advertising apply to banner exchanges. Go to the exchange's site often and check your statistics. If you're getting low clickthrough (1% is considered pretty good in the ad industry, and I would say that about 0.5% would be a good showing for a banner exchange), try changing your banner. Better yet, try 3 or 4 different banners, figure out which one gets the best clickthrough, and then stick with that one.

Some consider exchange banners to be a sign of an amateur site. True, you won't see exchange banners on major sites. But that's not because big-time site owners look down on them. It's because they're busy selling their banner space for cash. If you can get paid ads, then that's always more worthwhile than mere traffic-building banners. But if your site is too new or too small to attract paid ads, then display those exchange banners proudly. And by paid ads, I mean real, impression-based ads placed by an ad agency, not the pay-per-click, pay-per-sale or pay-per-wishful-thinking ads that the countless sleazy ad networks foist on smaller sites. I'd rather have a LinkExchange or HyperBanner ad on my site than a pay-per-click ad any day.

Web Rings

Another type of mutual-help program is called a Web ring. A Web ring consists of a group of sites related to a particular topic, such as the Blues Web Ring. You place the Web ring code at the bottom of your page, and it displays links to the "previous" and "next" sites in the ring. When a user clicks on one of these links, they are taken to one of the other sites belonging to the ring.

Web rings can be useful traffic builders, but I prefer banner exchanges, because they're neater and simpler. A standard banner fits neatly into most page layouts, and the banner itself tells you what you'll get if you click. A Web ring usually requires a messy cluster of text on your page, and clicking takes you to a randomly-selected site. How many people really click on these things?