When you E-Mail or otherwise contact webmasters to ask to trade
reciprocal links, you usually get one shot to make a good impression.
Here are ten things I have seen in webmaster letters written to
myself asking for reciprocal links. Needless to say, the results
such webmasters receive is not often what they wanted.
10) DO NOT WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS. WHEN SOMEONE WRITES IN CAPITAL
LETTERS IT IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING.
9) Do not forget to mention your own web address in the message.
Yes, I have received great letters about how I should reciprocally
link to a site and the webmaster forgot the address.
8) Likewise, do not forget to mention your website's name. Don't
forget to describe it, either. No, this does not mean that you
should deliver a media kit; just give me a few sentences or a
paragraph summarizing your website. If your website is a personal
page, just say so! Trust me, we'll find this out later when/if
we visit your site.
7) Do not include a 100k attachment with the website's complete
package of buttons, animated banners, JavaScript code, etc. usable
in a reciprocal link campaign. I admit that for a while, I did
not like it when anyone started a conversation with an attachment
of any size, but that has changed. Large attachments, however,
are not the way to start a conversation. Ask the webmaster if
they would like your complete package of reciprocal link codes
and graphics BEFORE you send such information.
6) Do not forget to let the webmaster know how they can add a
link to your website! You can do this without sending them a complete
package of graphics and code as listed above. In your first correspondence,
either give them a snippet of HTML that they can place on their
website, or on your own website (you did give your URL, didn't
you???), provide the code and graphics.
5) Do not, in your first message, briefly mention reciprocal link
trading and then go on to the subject of asking me for money for
some product or service. It may be OK if I respond with a relevant
offer, or if your next message contains such offers after we have
developed a relationship, but don't start off in your first message
talking about prices. Many people find messages like that to be
borderline SPAM.
4) Do not forget to tell the webmaster which page with which
you want to trade links. In fact, mention the URL as well. I receive
requests CONSTANTLY that fail to mention this information. As
I run many sites, I always first have to ask the name of the website
to which they were referring. Usually, the sender has sent the
requests by a blind carbon-copy mail, so they don't remember the
name of the website. Most people would be too embarrassed to reply
that they don't know the name of the website. Opportunity is lost.
3) Do not write a letter with obvious punctuation and grammar
errors throughout the message. I'm not expecting webmasters to
have the eloquence of Mark Twain or Robert Frost, but I also don't
expect to see what could be considered a bad E. E. Cummings clone,
either. If you write a stock message to all webmasters, please
proofread it first or have your word processor proof the message!
2) Do not ask to trade reciprocal links, and if I do not respond
within 24 hours, ask again. Then, please do not keep asking me
until I do respond! Like many other webmasters, I am quite busy
and usually put off trading reciprocal links until I get many
requests. That way, I can handle all of the requests at once.
A follow-up message after one week is fine, but don't harass me.
You need a way to record which sites you have asked for reciprocal
links to avoid this problem. Envision Programming is working on
such a product and plans to have it on ReciprocalLink.Com shortly.
And, of course,
1) Do not use an invalid E-Mail address. For gosh sakes, you
should know your E-Mail address if you wish to correspond with
people. If you mistype your address, that's one thing, but to
leave it out or put in an address without an at-sign or period,
then.... well, you better at least have mentioned your website
URL or I will just send the message to the trash. Even with an
URL, I may trash the message anyway if the e-mail address is invalid.
Most of these items should be common sense, but in case they're
not, hopefully you have learned something from this article. Now,
go out there and trade some reciprocal links - the right way!
