In my last article I discussed some techniques for submiting to Thumbnail Gallery Posts. This article will cover getting the most out of Link Lists.
For reference, I've created a resources page that lists many of the links I have in this article. If you remember my previous articles, I created a Free site under a folder of my domain. The site included a warning page, a full pagead, an index, and two gallery pages, Gallery 1and Gallery 2. I have also linked the site to my HUB page via a link at the bottom of the hub. I have also placed a Full Page ad between the HUB and the Warning page of the site. I tied everything together with exit consoles, and links. Next I created a set of duplicate gallery pages for submitting to TGPs, all linked back to the main site page.
Link Lists (LLs)
Link Lists are similar to TGPs in that they are a traffic trade mechanism. Link lists can provide a lot of targeted traffic to you, and are a great tool to use early on in your site promotion. Some link lists will send you a big chunk of traffic up front, and slowly fade off over time, while others will send you a continual stream of traffic. Link List traffic is typically more targeted than TGP traffic, so it is important to make use of this resource.
You get your site listed on the link list as long as you keep a link to them on your site. Like a TGP you submit your site to them, and they will require a reciprocal link on your site. While TGP's are mainly interested in gallery pages, Link Lists deal in complete sites. Most Link Lists consider a site to be composed of a warning page, index page, and gallery pages. Of course you can have many other pages along with these. Unlike TGP's Link Lists will maintain your link on their site for an indefinite amount of time. Link Lists are like long-term investments, where TGP's are short term. Like TGPs, Link Lists each have their own set of rules you must follow to be listed on their site.
Link Lists fall into two categories: Directory Listings, and Popularity Listings. Directory Listings List their links in categorized listings similar to the yellow pages. They will typically list the links either alphabetically, or by date submitted, under each category. Some Directory LLs will even have search features.
Popularity Listings position links in their listings based on the number of return traffic the links send into the Link List. For example, if your site sends the LL 100 visitors per day, and another site sends 200 visitors, the other site will be listed higher in the listings than your site. Some popularity Listing sites will provide you with a unique recip link to use so they can track your referring traffic to them.
Link Lists can also be niche oriented, so if you are running a niche site, it may be to your benefit to submit to a Link List that matches your niche. Link Lists will usually want a recip on either your warning page or index page, and they will expect you to submit a link to your your warning page to get listed.
The Ins and Outs of Link Lists
It is important to have a good relationship with the link lists you will be using. Link Lists are the old reliables of the traffic business. It is important to have that steady flow of traffic to your site.
The first thing you should do is spend some time researching the different rules of the link lists. Get a feel for what they allow, and see how this fits in with the design of your site. Some of the more common rules are:
· No consoles (or a limited number of pop-ups)
· No Full Page Ads (or a limited number of FPAs)
· No Free Hosts
· No Pay or AVS sites
· No misleading (blind) links
Of course these rules vary for each Link List, the idea is to find the Link Lists that you feel comfortable working with. You should compile a list of the Link Links that you are interested in using, and group them by similar rules. You can find a selection of Link lists at The Traffic Matrix or Traffic Listings on XBiz.
Putting It All Together
Hopefully you will have found a good selection of link lists that you feel comfortable with. However after reading their rules, you are probably wondering how you are going to be able to add recips to all these sites on your warning or index pages with your site turning into a link list! Well, remember how we handled the TGP recips? We are going to use the same technique here! What we need to do is make duplicate copies of the Warning and index pages of the site. These pages will be setup to follow the rules of the Link Lists you submit them to.
To go with a small example:
I wanted to submit my siteRed Amber to Persian Kitty, Amateur Finder, and The Amateur List. They all had similar rules to follow, but those rules did not work for the current version of my site. They wanted no pop-ups, no Full Page Ads, and No blind links. What I did was to create a copy of my warning.html, and main.html pages. I renamed these to xwarning.html and xmain.html. I then removed the exit consoles, and took out the Full page add between the two pages. I added reciprocal links to these Link Lists on my new warning page (xwarning.html), and voila! Anyone coming to my site from the Link Lists will get a nice clean site following the Link List rules.
Anyone coming to my site from the Link Lists will get a nice clean site following the Link List rules. Of course once they get to my gallery pages, they will have a nice big back button that takes them to the original site with its exit consoles, full-page ads and blind links. Since the new index page (xmain.html) no longer exits to the HUB page, I have added a nice big link to that page as well on it. By repeating this process for many Link Lists, I can begin to generate a nice steady stream of targeted traffic to my site.
Hopefully, I've presented the benefits of utilizing Link Lists in your traffic management plan, since Link Lists really should be an integral part of any free site. In my next article I'll talk about How to Play the Top Lists.
