Link exchange websites have been popping up all over the web since 1994.  If you're thinking of doing a website link exchange to extend your online reach and make it easier for people to find your firm in search engine results, you may have heard a lot of conflicting information.  Do link exchange websites always have a positive impact for search engines?  Will using website link exchange get you “punished” in some mysterious way by Google?  How much use of link exchange websites is too much?  This guide will try to answer all of your questions about website link exchange.

What is Link Exchange for Websites?

There's no better place to start than with the basics.  Website link exchange is a practice in which two different website owners, both looking to improve their search engine rankings, each put up a link to the other's website on their own site.  This reciprocal arrangement traditionally benefits both people in approximately equal measure.

However, in recent years, link exchange for websites has begun to encounter some problems.  Google has started to crack down on websites that use website link exchange in a way that constitutes manipulation of search results.  Usually, the websites that Google wants to stop

In general, Google doesn't do anything negative to sites that are clearly using link exchange with other contextually relevant sites.  The general assumption about these websites is that you could build them with organic website link exchange techniques.  If, however, you're seen to be using link exchange websites, Google may decide to intervene so that your linking there doesn't give you an unfair advantage.

How Does Website Link Exchange Make My Site More Popular?

For one thing, if you're doing link exchange with websites that actually have contextual relevance to your site, exchanging links can actually result in a large amount of direct website traffic.  In order to make the most of this traffic, you'll need to make your website conversion ready.  Website link exchange won't give you direct traffic on sites that are about very different things from your site, or sites that bury your link on an irrelevant, difficult to find page that is unlikely to be used by anyone actually exploring the site.

The second way that link exchange for websites works is by enhancing your link juice for web searches.  Link juice is a term for the amount of authority that your website is getting from its links from other websites.  Websites with a very high level of popularity and authority can give your site more link juice from a single link, while a brand new blog with one post and spam content will barely give you any.

By doing website link exchange with several websites owned by people you respect, you can ensure that everyone's doing better in their search results.  While this probably means you shouldn't link exchange with websites that are owned by your direct competitors, other attorneys are a great place to find good link building opportunities.

Can We Build Links With Website Link Exchange Exclusively?

Since link exchange for websites is so mutually beneficial, you may wonder why you'd ever want to get one way links.  A few years ago, you might have had a very good point: at that time, Google and other search engines regarded reciprocal and one way links as being essentially identical for the purposes of search rankings.

However, all that has changed now.  Today, website link exchange needs to be just one of several strategies for building your inbound links.  Google has started using some new algorithms to detect when a website is displaying a pattern of unnatural linking.  If Google believes that you've been manipulating search results via link exchange with websites, you'll stop getting additional link juice from those links and could even find yourself getting negative link juice from additional links of the same type.

Link Exchange Websites: Which Ones Are Best?

In order to do effective website link exchange, you may want to start looking at some link exchange websites.  Be careful to avoid any site that looks like it is too popular, and make sure that you're searching on Google for information about any site before you use it.  Having links taken down is a tedious process that you don't want to go through unless you absolutely have to—you should avoid link exchange with websites that may get you penalized.

The best link exchange websites for attorneys are those that actually emphasize legal services.  If you're doing website link exchange with other lawyers, this is likely to be seen by Google as legitimate networking and link building.  You should also avoid phony link exchange websites that are actually just ways to purchase links.  Typically, doing link exchange should be free of charge or very close to it.

Are There Websites We Should Avoid Link Exchange With?

As a lawyer, your image is very important to your ability to win and keep clients.  To avoid damaging your reputation, you should never use link exchange websites that could put your links onto inappropriate websites.  For example, if you think that your website for link exchange might give you reciprocal links with shady online pharmacies, payday lenders, or pornographic sites, you should definitely stay far, far away.

How Fast Can We Build Links with Link Exchange Websites?

No matter what website for link exchange you decide to use, it's important not to do too much too fast.  Overuse of link exchange on websites that are very young and have little traffic is a huge red flag for Google that you're probably overoptimizing your site.

Try to start by building just a few links every day.  If you're doing more than this before your traffic takes off, you're asking for trouble.  Slowly start to increase the number of links.  Rushing this part is likely to win you a one-way trip down in the search rankings, so be very careful as you continue to use link exchange websites.

When you became an attorney, it's likely that you didn't think that you'd have to know anything about computer programming.  That's for other people, in other jobs, right?  Wrong!  While there's no reason for you to learn how to program, it's a good idea to understand the basics of how some computer programming works.  For example, link exchange with PHP is one of the most common ways for attorneys to build links online in 2012.  But before you can really use PHP link exchange, you should know something about it.  In this guide, we'll answer the most frequently asked questions about link exchange with PHP.

What is PHP?  How Does It Help Link Exchange?

PHP is a programming language that is included on websites that are made with HTML.  PHP is known as a “scripting language,” because it's used to create scripts that execute specific functions on a website.  For example, a PHP script on a news station's website might check where a user's IP address says they're coming from, then display a readout that includes current weather information.

Link exchange PHP is one way that you can use PHP on your website to improve both user experience and your own marketing efforts.  PHP link exchange involves putting a small piece of this scripting language on your website.  When the code is added, a part of your website will allow people to create new link exchange with PHP automatically.

Why is PHP Link Exchange So Important?

Link exchange with PHP is much easier than actually going through the process of building organic links.  While you can't use PHP link exchange for every link on your site (we'll get to why that is in a few minutes), it's fine to use it for some of your link presence, and will be faster than just about any other method for building links.

Inbound link building is extremely important to search engines today when deciding where to display your website among search results.  If you don't do link building through link exchange with PHP or some other method, the odds that your site will be #1 in many people's searches are basically slim to none.

Today, up to 70 percent of your total ranking status depends on your link structure.  Using contextual PHP link exchange is a great way to build links without attracting suspicion from Google and other search engines.

Should We Create Our Own Link Exchange PHP Code?

Here's the good news: not only do you not have to learn how to program to use PHP link exchange, you probably shouldn't even try to make your own code.  After all, link exchange with PHP works only when you can build up a large number of exchangers that are interested in swapping links with each other.

The only time that you would ever need to know how to program your own PHP link exchange script is if you want to create your own exchange.  Instead of making it yourself, you're going to copy and paste the script to start using link exchange with PHP right away.  If you haven't built your website yourself, it's probably a good idea to have your website contractor do this work for you—even a slight error in your code can make your new PHP link exchange tool completely useless.

Using PHP Link Exchange Tools

Once you've done link exchange with PHP, you may want to start using some PHP link exchange tools.  These tools will help you to solve problems in your link exchange and maintain the links that you have created.

For example, one of the types of tools you can use when doing link exchange with PHP is a reciprocal link checker tool.  These tools are used to make sure that the websites you have two-way links with are still linking back to you.  If they're not, you are no longer getting their link juice and should either take your reciprocal link down or ask the webmaster to put your link back up.

Another PHP link exchange tool can detect your number of reciprocal links versus one way links (there's more about why you'd want to do this in the next section).  You may also want to find out information about the PageRank of the link exchange PHP pages you're linking to, and can use another tool to find this.

Problems With Using PHP Link Exchange

While it may sound like there's no downside to link exchange with PHP, that's not quite true.  If Google sees that you are using a very high percentage of links from PHP link exchange websites, you'll be penalized and new links you build through link exchange will no longer contribute any authority to the website you're building.

If that wasn't bad enough, you also need to keep your link exchange with PHP very slow on new websites.  Google identifies as overoptimization any PHP link exchange efforts that are too fast for a website's traffic level.  You can only start creating large numbers of links by slowly ramping up to that amount as you gain traffic.

Alternatives to Link Exchange with PHP

Of course, there are a lot of ways that you can build links without PHP link exchange.  The slowest, but also the most reliable, form of link building is to attract attention to your website organically.  Social networking is a great way to start your content going “viral,” which means that it spreads in an almost uncontrollable way.

In order to do any kind of viral content distribution, you'll need—more than anything—to have content so great that people definitely want to share it with people they know.  If you're not creating great content, people will have no reason to give you a free link.

PHP link exchange should never be used as your sole link building strategy, so it's a good idea to have social networking profiles built and start building your one way links at the same time that you start working on your reciprocal ones.

So you've started using some form of link exchange, but now you're realizing that your links are hard to track.  The majority of marketers in recent polls rank link building as “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult,” and many say that it's the toughest part of their job.  Getting link exchange manager software is a great step to take toward improved link exchange management.  In this guide, you'll learn about some of the types of link exchange management software available to you.  You'll also find out how a link exchange manager can help you avoid Google trouble from your exchanged links.

Is Link Exchange Really So Tough?

If you've only recently gotten started with link exchange, you may think that downloading a link exchange manager is overkill.  Link exchange management really only becomes important once you have a large amount of links.

Let's say that you started by exchanging links with just a dozen websites, all of which are owned by people you or someone else in your firm knows personally.  You have no reason to believe that these links would ever be taken down intentionally, and you can easily check to make sure that your links are still up.  A law firm in this circumstance would probably find link exchange management to be a solution in search of a problem.

However, let's say that you've done things a bit differently.  You've used several different link exchange services so that you can exchange links with a wider range of websites than just those owned by your personal acquaintances.  You now have over five hundred links, and you also know that the people who are maintaining those links would just as soon delete your link and have a one way link from you.  For these law firms, a link exchange manager can make the difference between having a winning linking strategy and gaining no benefit from link exchange whatsoever.

What Law Firms Want Out of Link Exchange Management

Generally, law firms download a link exchange manager so that they can create or monitor their links on other websites.  Link exchange management tools usually include an automatic system that can check out whether the places that are supposedly linking to you actually are.  You may be surprised—some companies will intentionally try to turn your reciprocal link into a one way link, while others may accidentally delete your link during the course of a normal planned site redesign.

With the right link exchange manager, you won't need to think about link exchange as often.  A link exchange management tool can automatically generate your links, so that you don't have to build a new link by hand every time someone wants to exchange links with you.  Your link exchange manager can also create a Links webpage on your website that contains your list of reciprocal links.

Your link exchange management tools will also tell you some information about the websites linking to you.  It's good to know the Alexa ranking and Google PageRank for any sites giving you links, because these numbers matter to your overall search rankings.

Finding Good Link Exchange Management Software

It's important to keep in mind that there's no one right link exchange manager for every law firm.  The biggest question in deciding on a piece of link exchange management software is how familiar you are with computers, inbound link building, website design, and so on.

If you're already very familiar with the principles of link exchange and you want to be able to customize your exchanges heavily, you should get a more robust and sophisticated piece of software.  The more complex link exchange manager programs may require some knowledge of coding to be able to use their most advanced features.

For people who don't know as much about computers, it might be preferable to pick link exchange management software that focuses on having an easy to understand user interface.  This type of link exchange manager is less likely to allow completely custom managing of your links, but will be much faster to start using and to learn.

When Link Exchange Management Goes Wrong

If you've been using your link exchange manager to grow your inbound link base, you should know a few things.  Google doesn't like having links created by link exchange management software, and if it catches you in the act, you might not be able to get link authority from any of your reciprocal links.  This can have a devastating effect on a website, and make future link building efforts much more challenging.

If you're automating your link building too much, it's very likely that one day you'll get an email message from Google that advises you that you've been caught.  This email message will also contain information on how to have your website's rankings re-adjusted upward once you've gotten rid of the links that Google didn't like.  One of the nicest parts of link exchange manager software is that some of these programs also let you automate the process of notifying webmasters that you want your link taken down.

Avoiding Problems With Your Link Exchange Manager

Of course, it's best if you can avoid these kinds of link exchange management problems in the first place.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.  But what's the best way to do that?  Link exchange manager software should not be used round the clock as your main (or especially as your only) link building method.  If you do this, you'll quickly be found out by Google and should expect your rankings to always languish.

You should also run some link exchange management software that shows you your ratio of reciprocal to one way inbound links.  If more than half of your links are reciprocal, you're definitely in the danger zone—stop building reciprocal links right away and start creating one way links before you get into trouble with search engines.

When you have a limited amount of time to work on your website marketing every day, you need to spend your time wisely.  Using marketing techniques that can get people to your website in multiple ways is a very efficient use of your time, and in this guide, we'll be talking about one of those techniques.  Website directory submission puts your website in easier reach of the public in several different ways—some you may not have even thought of.  Keep reading to find out more.

Get Your Website Out There: Why Submissions Matter

Some people think that a free website directory submission is only something that can bring in clients who are already looking through that specific directory.  While that's certainly the most obvious way that someone can utilize your website directory submission, it's certainly not the only way.

Some directories freely take entries from each other, which means that one free website directory submission can sometimes end up on half a dozen websites or more.  There's also a hidden advantage of doing website directory submission: every time you put your company's website URL into one of these directory services, you're building a new inbound link.  Since many online directories have a high Google PageRank, the links you get from free website directory submission can be very high value for your own search engine rankings.

Can Free Website Directory Submission Make a Difference?

If you just submit your website to a single directory, it's likely that your website directory submission will only move the needle on your SERPs a little, tiny bit.  But that's just one directory.  Now, think about what happens when you submit to more than a dozen different directories.  Suddenly, doing free website directory submission becomes a much more meaningful task for your rankings.

Google's search algorithms note what percentage of someone's links are coming from sites with high PageRank values.  You can easily use a high PageRank website directory submission to balance out several lower PageRank links.  This makes it less likely that Google will lower your SERPs for posting to low PageRank sites, and presents no real disadvantages.

Why Website Directory Submission Doesn't Always Work

While it's almost always a great idea to do free website directory submission, there are some precautions to take.  Google notices when too many of your inbound links come from the same type of source.  If you're using website directory submission as your primary means of getting new inbound links without trying to diversify, you might get punitive measures imposed by Google.

The other time that free website directory submission tends to come up short is when law firms simply submit to any directory at all, with little or no regard for its relevance to their practice.  You don't need to get your website listed on every directory on the internet.  In fact, it's a much better idea to be selective about where you do your website directory submission.

Finding the Right Directories for Website Directory Submission

Being selective means looking for directories that are contextual.  That may mean that they have a number of other attorneys in them, or it could also mean that they're contextual to your practice in some other way—like a directory of local businesses, or a directory of websites having to do with a particular topic that relates to some area of your expertise.

Once you've found some directories that are contextually relevant for your site, you should check them out with a PageRank checker.  SEOQuake is a good program for this, because it runs as a browser add-on and shows you information about every website you're looking at.  You should generally try to do free website directory submission at the sites that have the highest PageRanks first.  Lower PageRank website directory submission can still be useful, but not as much, so make these sites a lower priority.

Go Local: Finding Website Directories Near You

One of the biggest things that many legal marketing professionals forget to do is to make sure they're listed in local directories.  Often, free website directory submission to these sites is a little bit trickier, because the websites may be older or less functional.  However, because some demographics still make a lot of use out of, for instance, chamber of commerce websites, you should make sure that you're being listed in local directories even if their PageRank is low.

To assist in being found by local potential clients, you should also do website directory submission to Google+ Local.  Free website directory submission here means that you can possibly show up in the first page of Google search results when someone looks for local keywords combined with keywords relating to your business.

Phone book directories are also a good idea for your website directory submission.  People with low levels of technological literacy often turn to online phone books before other resources, ensuring that you're not just getting an inbound link from your free website directory submission—you're also getting a listing that will help people contact you directly.

Make Your Website Ready to Be Found

You should generally avoid making any website directory submission until you've made sure that your website is ready for prime time.  If your website isn't looking great, no matter how much traffic your new inbound links produce, it won't translate to new business or an improved bottom line for your firm.  Putting your directory listings up before your website is ready means that people are getting a bad, sloppy first impression of your firm—not the image that you want to project.

Take care to make sure that your website looks good not only from the browser and operating system you're using, but also from older browsers and even smartphones.  Smartphones account for more and more web traffic, and are expected to actually be responsible for more loaded web pages than desktop internet access in just a few years' time.  Once you've made sure your page really works for everyone, you can start the process of free website directory submission.

If you've been keeping up with legal marketing news, you've almost definitely heard of article submission websites—they were the most commonly used SEO tool for many law firms for several years in the mid-'00s.  An article submission website works by letting you submit any content you like, then builds links to your websits based on your article and inserts the article's content into several websites all over the internet.  But is this still a good idea in 2012?  Today, we'll take a look at whether the humble article submission website is still a great marketing bet, or whether it has been eclipsed in favor of newer methods.

Inbound Linking and Article Submission Websites

The purpose of an article submission website is simple.  Search engine rankings depend more on inbound links than on any other single factor.  This puts many different websites into competition for who can get the most inbound “link juice,” which helps Google decide how much authority your website has when you talk about particular topics.

Article submission websites can give you anywhere from one to hundreds of inbound links, and depending on which article submission website you choose, you can automate some or all of the process.  In order to have the best chance of your links working well, you'll also want to make sure that the content you produce is worth clicking on.  The more people that link to the page with your inbound link on it, the more authority that link will have.

How Article Submission Websites Work

Typically, to use an article submission website, you'll need to have your content ready to go.  After registering for an account, you'll be able to upload your content, including links with anchor text, to the website.

After you upload to an article submission website, the site begins to spawn copies of your article on other websites owned by the same company or which allow for public access and posting.  Because you've included a link with anchor text in the articles you submit with article submission websites, that article is placed in many places all over the web.

Problems with Article Submission Websites

Problems can arise if you're using an article submission website, because Google doesn't particularly like when people try to game search rankings.  If you wanted to be on Page 1, Google would much prefer for you to do it by paying them for a sponsored link rather than doing it for free or nearly free through article submission websites.

Because of this, Google has started doing things to identify when someone is using an article submission website.  An algorithm update called Panda started devaluing links that were made directly from publicly accessible article submission websites in late 2011.  In 2012, another algorithm update called Penguin started being used.  This update made it so that websites that were getting too many links with the same anchor text were penalized for over optimization.

What this meant for many article submission websites was disaster.  Not all of them survived the changes, and many webmasters who thought they had done a good job with search engine optimization suddenly found themselves the not so proud owners of websites with terrible SERPs.

Article Submission Websites in the Panda/Penguin Era

For any article submission website to make it after Panda and Penguin, they had to be savvy and adapt to the changing times.  Today, article submission websites are more likely to post your content to contextually relevant sites, to vary anchor text, and to insert your links on high PageRank sites instead of low value ones.

Now that Penguin and Panda have been used for some time, the best way to make sure that any article submission website you're using still works is to just ask them for their data.  They should be able to show you that they have had measurable post-Penguin success, and if not, you should probably find other article submission websites with a more data driven approach.

While in the “old days” of 2007 or 2008, you could pick just about any article submission website, today you're going to need to be more picky.  You should also make sure that you're diversifying your link creation strategy: while article submission websites can certainly help, you will also need to have several other strategies in case a new algorithm update renders your links useless.

Should We Still Use Article Submission Websites?

Even with the potential problems of using an article submission website, they can still be a really good strategy for building inbound links.  Just make sure that you're going through quality article submission websites with good results, and the risk/reward ratio is good enough that many marketers think it's worth doing.

No one can make the decision for you about whether to use an article submission website, but perhaps some of your decision should be based on how much you have to lose.  An older, established law firm with a big web presence should probably use more conservative strategies and may not want to use article submission websites.  On the other hand, for a brand new firm, using an article submission website presents a whole lot of opportunities for reward and is very unlikely to damage your reputation overall.

Alternatives to Article Submission Websites

If using an article submission website makes you a bit wary, there are other ways that you can build your links without taking the same risks.  Consider using an advertising agency to help you draft press releases, and make contacts in the journalism industry so that your press releases are more likely to be picked up by local newspapers, radio stations, and television channels.

You can also create inbound links using directory submissions, social media, or blogging.  These methods are now time tested, and you should be incorporating them as part of your inbound link building strategy whether or not you use article submission websites.  Any article submission website you use will be more useful when you're also maintaining a diverse variety of links on other types of sites.

A few years ago, link exchange SEO was the big buzz in the search engine marketing community.  Today, that buzz has died to a whisper.  What happened to SEO link exchanges, and why is SEO link exchange no longer considered a valid strategy for professional websites?  The reasons have to do with what makes a quality search, and by learning why link exchange SEO failed, you can understand how search engines are changing and developing.

How Link Exchange SEO Worked

In the early days of SEO, link exchange seemed like a godsend to marketing professionals who needed to get high rankings for brand new websites.  By using SEO link exchanges, you could get a large number of links without really needing to try very hard at all and without taking up all of your time for content creation.

Most of the time, you could start building link exchange SEO by copying a small snippet of HTML for your website.  When inserted onto a page, the code gave instructions to anyone who wanted to reciprocate links with you.  SEO link exchanges were so easy to use that nearly anybody could—and that created some major headaches for Google, which quickly declared war on SEO link exchange.

SEO Link Exchanges Create a Google Problem

Link exchange SEO was used to create a big profile of inbound links, even for websites that had barely had any traffic.  While this was great for marketing professionals, Google didn't design web searches to be free marketing tools—they designed them to be useful to the people performing the searches.  When more and more links on the front page came from an SEO link exchange instead of a more legitimate source, search results were suffering badly.

That's because the websites likely to use SEO link exchanges the most were the websites with the smallest sense of ethics and fair play.  The same websites that had prospered in the very early search engine era by stuffing their websites with keywords and hiding text now used link exchange SEO in much the same way, gobbling up huge amounts of space on the web without actually providing any relevant results or quality content.

Google's Response to SEO Link Exchanges

Once Google realized that link exchange SEO was becoming so easy to abuse, and that the abuse was making searches worse, they had to do something about it.  Their response was to look through large numbers of websites with natural link structures and those with artificial link structures, and try to figure out what the differences were.  They quickly discovered that only websites that were overusing SEO link exchange had more reciprocal than one way links.

To make sure that people using SEO link exchanges weren't able to collect authority, or link juice, from the links they were making, Google simply stopped new reciprocal links from adding any link juice once you'd reached a high percentage of reciprocal links.  Many websites that had used link exchange SEO as a primary search engine marketing strategy saw their sites go into an immediate, precipitous rankings decline when these search changes were implemented.  The people who had run SEO link exchange services found themselves going out of business overnight.

What Happens if We Use An SEO Link Exchange?

Using SEO link exchanges is likely to have little or no effect on your overall standings in search rankings today if you start using them now.  That's because link exchange SEO is already essentially “capped” by Google.  However, because of these caps, using an SEO link exchange is one of the least effective ways possible to use your inbound link building time.

If Google notices that you have used too much link exchange SEO, you will receive an email that addresses this issue and shows you how to change the situation if you choose.  Once you receive that email, it's best not to push your luck by continuing to use SEO link exchanges: at best, you'll receive no benefit, and at worst their policies could change again and you could find yourself receiving additional penalties.

Checking On Your SEO Link Exchange Links

Maybe you aren't sure whether you've used SEO link exchanges before, or whether your law firm marketing predecessor did something you don't know about.  Better safe than sorry—you should check out your backlinks using a backlink checking program.  These programs tend to be free and hosted online, so a quick Google search should reveal several excellent backlink trackers on just the first page.

The backlink checker can tell you not only how many inbound links you have for your website, but also how many of those links are from SEO link exchanges.  If you find out that your firm is overusing link exchange SEO, you can ask webmasters to remove the offending links as soon as possible.  Remember that small quantities of reciprocal links won't hurt you, so don't panic if you see a few dozen reciprocal links out of your several hundred total backlinks.

Other Ways to Get Links for SEO

There's no reason to use SEO link exchanges as your primary means of search engine marketing today.  Instead of using link exchange SEO, you need to build one way link SEO through a combination of strategies.  Today, variety and diversity are the most prized qualities in links, because natural linking structures tend to show much more variety than artificial linking structures.

If you are using any kind of artificial search engine optimization strategies, you should always keep in mind that Google has shown itself to be ready, willing, and able to penalize websites who get caught cheating.  Your strategy could easily work for several months or even years, but as technology advances it's a good idea to have a very solid foundation of real, organic, quality link building underlying your inbound link numbers.

Historically, one of the biggest ways that law firms have built their web presence is through link exchange.  Web link exchange is an old and time-tested method for building links, but in 2012, web design link exchange doesn't always work.  If you are considering exchanging links with one or more other websites, there are things your firm needs to know so that you don't end up in trouble with Google and other search engines.  In this guide, you'll learn the basics of web design link exchange so that you can work on your own exchanges that won't be detected by Google.

What is Web Link Exchange?

When people want to build links, it's usually so that they can make their search rankings better.  Web link exchange makes it so that building links can be mutually beneficial to both parties.  Ideally, web design link exchange will be contextual—that is, you'll be talking about the same things on your website that your linking partner is talking about on theirs.  This makes web link exchange significantly more beneficial for your search rankings.

Using Web Link Exchange: The Early Years

When people began to use web design link exchange, the internet was still very young and search engines were still quite primitive in comparison to today's sophisticated algorithms.  Before Google, many web searches based their search rankings primarily on keyword densities, but Google started also looking at inbound link numbers.

When webmasters realized that having more inbound links meant a quick rise in their rankings, they hurried to start the practice that we now know as web link exchange.  At first, web design link exchange started on a very casual, ad hoc level: people who knew each other or who had personally enjoyed another website emailed an offer to exchange links, and that was that.  However, web link exchange was about to get monetized—and that would change the face of the internet, and search engines, forever.

What Happened To Using Web Link Exchange?

When web design link exchange was used only among people who knew each other, and was done on very small scales, it wasn't really looked down upon by search engines.  As link exchange began to become a business enterprise, though, search engines sat up and took notice.  Google bans the buying and selling of links, and web design link exchange seemed largely about circumventing those guidelines.

When people began to use free web link exchange, it made it so that just anybody could have a very large inbound link presence, as long as they were willing to devote enough time to their link generation tools and reciprocal linking.  This kind of overuse made it so that search results started getting worse, giving people web design link exchange spam instead of the results they were actually looking for.

To combat the continued practice of automated web link exchange, Google decided to start punishing websites that seemed to be abusing link exchanges for rankings purposes.  Web design link exchange that appeared to be unnatural—judged by the percentage of reciprocal links as opposed to one way links—was lowered in the rankings artificially to compensate for the effect that the link exchanges were having.

Should We Use Web Link Exchange Today?

If you're thinking about using any kind of web design link exchange today, you need to give some very serious thought to why you're using it and what other kinds of links you'll be creating in addition to those reciprocal links.

It's still very much possible to use a web link exchange successfully.  However, you'll need to keep your ratio of reciprocal links relatively small.  In general, commit to creating three one way inbound links for every link that you create through a web design link exchange.

You should avoid using any kind of web link exchange that relies solely or primarily upon automated exchange.  While it's a bit more work to create the links yourself and rely on links from websites you've actually visited, these links will also be more valuable and maintain their value longer.  Automated links from any web design link exchange are very easy to detect, and Google routinely devalues links from known web link exchange services.

How Will Our Website Be Affected by Web Link Exchange?

If you used the kinds of web design link exchange strategies we've outlined above, your website should slowly start to increase in popularity and in search rankings.  You should consistently use some kind of analytics application so that you can keep track of which of the links you're building is bringing in the most direct traffic to your website.

If you don't follow the guidelines above, though, it's very likely that Google will notice that you have chosen to use some form of automated web link exchange.  If this happens, you'll receive notice about the links in question, and information about how to stop penalties from occurring to your website.  Typically you'll need to have the links taken down, or at least prove to Google that you've made a serious effort to do so.  This kind of proof can be difficult to assemble, so it's honestly better to just never make links through automated web link exchange services—ever.

Ways to Do Web Link Exchange in 2012

There are still a few great ways to do web design link exchange in 2012.  For example, it can sometimes be beneficial to websites to accept awards, then reciprocate a link to the awarding site on their website.  As long as you don't overdo it with this kind of reciprocal linking, some web link exchange will be just fine—especially if they're awards or other types of contextual linking that makes sense on your website.

You can also do some types of link exchange by using social media networks, like Facebook and Twitter.  These sites allow easy sharing of links that makes it substantially easier for people to connect to your content and exchange links with each other.

70 percent of your placement in Google searches depends on the links that are coming into your website and going out of it.  If you're thinking of improving your results on Google with link exchange, you can do a lot of good for your website—but you can also do a lot of harm.  Minimizing the risks of using link exchange for Google search rankings will mean taking some precautions ahead of time.  In this guide, you'll find out why Google and link exchange don't always get along, and how you can use link exchange appropriately to make your website's reputation better, not worse.

Why People Use Link Exchange for Google SEO

When people started trying to change search results on Google with link exchange, their reason was simple: link exchange on Google was one of the single fastest ways to build a link presence.  Google was link exchange central for some time, and that happened because Google made link results so important.

When people first connected search results with Google and link exchange, they discovered that the search engine didn't particularly care where their links came from—just that they had a large number of them.  Link exchange made Google much easier to game: all you needed to do was use any one of a number of huge link exchange websites or applications.  Within hours or days you could have hundreds or thousands of links.

Google link exchange became not just a way for people to personally improve their website rankings, it became a business.  That's where link exchange and Google began to clash.

Google and Link Exchange: Conflicting Goals

Link exchange and Google clash with each other because there are two completely different goals at stake.  People who are doing Google link exchange know that their primary goal is to direct users to their website—whether or not that website is actually the best place for a user to find the information they're looking for.  However, unlike a link exchange, Google needs to try to find the very best search result for a user.

The only time that Google wants to give a website special status for spending money is when the website spends money on Google advertising.  However, study after study shows that most people simply never click “sponsored results” on Google or other search engines.  This means that Google link exchange and other inbound link building techniques are among the best ways to improve your overall web traffic and conversions—as long as you know how to do it without getting on Google's bad side.

Affecting Search Results on Google with Link Exchange

Today, any links that you create through link exchange for Google search rankings will contribute their authority, or “link juice.”  You get more link juice for websites that for one reason or another (high traffic, .edu or .gov top level domain names) are considered more authoritative by Google.  Google link exchange will be more successful if you're able to snag an exchange with more than one high authority value website.

If you're creating too many links from link exchange and Google notices that you're doing it, you're likely to see a very different effect on your search rankings.  The clash between Google and link exchange websites culminated in a massive change to the way the search engine ranks sites, and today, known link exchangers are penalized in searches.  If you use link exchange for Google results too frequently or too blatantly, don't be surprised if you see that your website is no longer getting the traffic it used to.  It may have been forced far down into the rankings as punishment for overuse of Google link exchange.

Beating Google: Link Exchange Tactics that Still Work

If you're trying to use link exchange for Google results without facing penalties, you'll need to get creative.  Start thinking like a search engine: how can you bring your website's goals (increased traffic) into harmony with Google's goals (good search results)?  The answer is easy to understand, but hard to implement.

If you make your website extremely high quality, then using Google link exchange is unlikely to have a serious detrimental effect.  Link exchange and Google can work harmoniously to bring publicity to a website that's actually doing a great job.  For instance, if you're offered an award for your law blog, you may want to link back to the organization giving the award—this kind of reciprocal linking isn't usually frowned upon by Google and won't incur penalties.

You can also work on creating link exchange for Google rankings by talking to people you actually know, or people with websites similar to yours, about a possible exchange.  Google link exchange is actually much less likely to incur penalties when you're using contextual linking methods rather than shotgunning your link exchange randomly across the entire web.

If You're Being Penalized by Google For Link Exchange

There's not much worse than waking up to the news that your link exchange for Google was detected as over optimization.  If this happens, you'll receive an email, and you must act fast to make sure that your website doesn't lose all of the traffic you've worked so hard to gain.

It will be a time consuming process, but you will need to use an online inbound link checker program to find out where all your links are coming from.  Whatever Google link exchange links you were using, you're going to want to take them down.  You can worry about rebuilding some of your link exchange for Google rankings later—right now the important thing is undoing the damage.

In some cases, you may find that webmasters are reluctant to let you take down your links.  When this happens, you don't have to give up on your efforts to remove the links.  You can simply advise Google of your efforts, and give them proof that you tried to have the links removed.

Link exchange services may promise to increase your web traffic by 100 percent or more.  However, if you've never used a link exchange service, it can be hard to see how this would work.  Do link exchange services actually do what they're supposed to do?  Are they useful for doing web marketing in 2012?  In this guide, you'll learn what a link exchange service does, and how you can use link exchange services in your own law firm.

Why Do Lawyers Want Link Exchange Services?

Lawyers think of a link exchange service as a means to an end.  That end is increased web traffic—or, even more accurately, increased conversions.  Link exchange services work to improve your web traffic numbers by increasing the number of inbound links that direct web users to your site.  If you are having a very difficult time building your inbound links organically, it may be a good idea to start considering a link exchange service.

Inbound links don't just bring in traffic directly.  They also increase the amount of traffic your website will receive from Google and other search engines, because a higher number of inbound links translates directly into improved Google search rankings.  As your SERPs climb, your traffic will too—making link exchange services a potentially fantastic investment for your law firm.

What Kinds of Link Exchange Services Work Best?

Just because it's possible for a link exchange service to dramatically improve your company's web presence doesn't mean that this is always the result.  You can increase the chances of picking winning link exchange services by following a few guidelines:

Make sure that any link exchange service you decide to use is making new links “by hand,” rather than just automating the process.  Automation through link exchange services leaves trails on the web, and those trails can be found by Google.
Link exchange services that work to build contextually relevant links are generally much more successful than those that post links non-contextually.
You should try to use a link exchange service that builds at least some of your links from websites with high PageRank.
Link exchange services are better when they work to create meaningful links to good content.  If you feel that the link exchange service you're using is mostly just spamming, you may not experience the success you're hoping for when building inbound links.

What Kinds of Link Exchange Services Fail?

When a link exchange service fails, it's usually because Google got wise to the ways in which the service was manipulating search results.  There are several different ways that Google detects when link exchange services are being used to create large numbers of links to a website.  First, Google checks to see if the anchor text for the links being used is identical.  Too much identical anchor text usually reflects link automation, either through automated one way link building services or link exchange services.

Next, Google will see whether a large number of your links come from the same IP address.  This is almost always a sign of some sort of inbound link manipulation scheme.  The same goes for a large number of links coming from a particular type of website, especially if it's something like an unmoderated blog—easy to build a link from, regardless of the quality level of the content you're linking to.

Link exchange services that use these tactics will very quickly fail, because Google will simply not be fooled.  Instead of profiting from using a link exchange service, the law firms that use these services will find their rankings significantly diminished.

Social Media and Link Exchange Services

Today, some link exchange services are changing their tactics to keep up with the changing times.  Instead of posting thousands of reciprocal links all over the web, they're starting to use social networks and social bookmarking sites to generate new links for their clients.

There are a number of advantages to using social media as part of your inbound link building strategy.  Often, a link exchange service today will help you to exchange links on Facebook or Twitter as well as traditional links.

Many attorneys just post links on Twitter and Facebook thinking that their friends and followers will see them.  However, these links are often quite valuable to search engines, and by using link exchange services you can maximize the potential of your social media link building.

If Your Link Exchange Service Automates Too Much

Whether you didn't know that Google penalizes overly ambitious link exchange services, or you just thought you'd take your chances, what if the worst comes to pass?  What if you find out that your website is no longer ranked high in searches because of the link exchange service that you used?

First things first: tell the service working for you to stop building new links while you fix the damage.  In some cases, link exchange services will actually help you clean up your link presence online if you find that you've been penalized by Google.  With less reputable link providers, you may have to do the legwork yourself.  Find out where the links are coming from, and then ask the webmasters in charge of them whether they would be willing to take them down.  If you're told no—or that it will cost money to have a link taken down—you can talk to Google to have your site re-listed with all its link juice intact.

Alternatives to Using Link Exchange Services

Of course, you don't need to use a link exchange service to trade links.  It's very likely that you already know several owners of websites who might be willing to exchange links with you.  When you talk to people you already know, you're more likely to be forming contextual, relevant links that will attract geographically local visitors.  These links create much more conversion ready traffic, and can be much more valuable than a generic reciprocal link developed by a link exchange service.