You may not notice this at first, but a well placed link can be a traffic generator. That is if you know how to leave your links properly in the right places. Here’s some advice on how best to use linking as a strategy to draw more traffic.

Check Quality of Links

It’s fairly easy to leave your link in lost of places across the internet. Not every link that you leave though will help your site. Search engines in particular will index your site faster if they detect quality links. Link quality is determined by a few factors. One of them is the relation of your site to the one where you left your link. It is always best to leave your link on a site that has the same focus as yours. At the same time, a site that holds your link should have fairly good traffic. If for example you have a site on signature handbags, you can leave your link on a free classified ad site with a category for bags. The free ad site should enjoy good traffic from users.

Request to Swap Links

A great way to control which sites link to you is to initiate link exchange yourself. You can scout for sites that are related to yours and that enjoy great traffic. You can then request to swap links with site owners. Send them a brief note through their contact page. It will not hurt if you included a few well-phrased praises for their site. One-way links are always best though.

Leave Links on Many Sites

You will have created a dynamic traffic generator by leaving links in lots of sites. Again, though, you should make sure that these sites are related to yours and have high traffic. Some of the best sites that pass these criteria are site or blog directories with categories that fit your site and free classified ad sites. Both real people and search engines check these sites for links. You will increase your chances of being found if you list yourself under the right category.

Fresh Content to Go with Your Links

Links can only go so far. The rest is up to your content. Right after people find your blog or site, the next thing they will look for is fresh, original and useful content. If you do not have something that will interest them, you will lose whatever traffic you have gained. Make sure you regularly update your site with relevant information so that people and search engines will keep coming back for more.

Think Twice About Link Exchange Sites

There are a number of sites that offer free traffic generation and impressions. You just have to submit your site and link and you get hundreds or thousands of free impressions with more to come after you participate in their site program. This can be a really quick way to get traffic. Do take note though that if you have Google adsense in your site, this could get you banned. This is not true all of the time but Google does frown on traffic exchange sites.   Also note that the people viewing your site may not be your target market at all.

Link building truly is a key traffic generator that you should try. Be careful though. It helps to know the best practices in link building.