Be Smart, Swap Links Teacher: Dejan Bizinger Once you've made your web site and put it on the Internet, the next thing you need to do is promote it. If you don't, then people won't find your site. Same with newsletters: people are not going to find you unless you tell them you are there. There are many ways to promote your web site or newsletter. You should already know that it is very important to publish your own newsletter to keep in contact with your customers, visitors and as a means of promoting your site. You could try to have a high placement in the search engines, but that's not easy. Especially, if you are trying to get listed with some popular keywords which will bring the most traffic. Then, another option is newsgroups. This technique can be pretty useful, but you have to be careful to make sure you post appropriately to the right groups and joining in the discussions takes up a considerable amount of time. I think that best means of promotion if you don't have too much money for advertising is to exchange links with others. Then you both benefit from it. Also, having many links to your site also improves your ranking on many of the search engines, because of the way their algorithms work, so its a win-win-win situation. How to find swap resources If you want to have many visitors or subscribers, then logically, you should have your link in as many places as possible. Many studies show that most visitors will come to your site from the links on other sites. OK, you think, now I only have to have many links on other sites. Do you think that it is easy? Well, it is not too hard if you know ways to achieve it. First of all you have to decide which are those sites where you want to have your link. You have to choose a target audience. It is not very effective to have your link on a totally unrelated site, but, on the other hand, you don't have to have your link on competitor sites. So you need to find those sites that complement yours. Then it is more likely that people will actually click on your link. Now, how can you easily find good places to advertise? You could try the search engines. You will get many results, but many of them are useless for your marketing campaign. You will get far more results with less approaches if you find people who are also already looking to swap resources from among specialist search engines and directories. When you have found good sites that match your target, you have to contact them, of course. Good site for finding swap resources is http://www.swap-resources.com How to make and contact It is very important to write a good email. You can't simply say: "Hey, I want to have my link on your site". It doesn't work that way. First of all, you need to personalize your swap request. For example it is better to say: "Dear Dejan..." than "Dear Webmaster...". Include their site or ezine name in the email too. After that you have to explain why are you interested in swapping links with them. For example you can say that they offer valuable information and you think that that it will be useful to your visitors to come to their site. You have to tell them why you should put their link on your site: i.e. what's in it for them. By swapping links you can make some great online friends. After that, you will be able to cooperate on many other things. When you swap links don't only use the number of subscribers or visitors for determining whether you will exchange links with someone or not. The value of a certain newsletter or site should also be important to you. Also, another important thing is to know where your link will be and how many other ads will be in the same place where you will advertise. What is better for you; to have your ad placed in amongst many in an ezine with many subscribers, or in newsletter with less subscribers but where your ad will be only one? I think that many of you would choose second option. As you can see, swapping links is not so easy as it may sound.There are many things you have to consider when you choose your swap resource. It's a good thing that swapping links is one of the smartest ways of free promotion of your site and newsletter. About the teacher: Dejan Bizinger is editor of ShowBiz Newsletter, high quality newsletter where you can find useful tips and links about web design, Internet marketing. Also, you will find texts about Unix, C++, Perl, Java...To subscribe send blank email to bizi-subscribe@listbot.com or at http://www.answeraday.com