Every website needs a link exchange program. Every week,set aside time to work on your link exchange program tobuild up the quality and number of your text links out onother websites within your niche market.

Why not exchange banners? Search engines are fueled bytext. Key words and links are what you are creating out onother websites. Website visitors do indeed check link pagesand your text link on quality sites will generate somedegree of traffic for you. You may like the look of yourbanner but when it comes to creating a strong link exchangeprogram - build your website description with good key wordsand strong title with your URL.

What should your link exchange information look like?

A link exchange program starts with your own unique text adunder 200 characters full of your key words, don't needsentences, put most important key words early in the textad, check spelling, no "ALL CAPS"set up in this order:

Title

Description

URL

Your title - A descriptive title for your website, notnecessarily your domain name but the name you are brandingyour site with. There are very strong websites that use atitle that describes the site rather than the domain name,again, using strong key words. Others have opted to use atitle that starts with a number or letter "A" so that onanother website - their text link will appear early in thepage.

Website Description - Use Overture's Keyword SelectorTool to refine your text for your website description. Themore thought and planning you put into your title anddescription, the more powerful your link exchange will haveon search engines.

Categorizing your own text link - To save time and energy,think about what categories your text link would work on(i.e. work at home recourses, parenting, home decor, timemanagement - the theme of your website) because some siteswill want you choose the category that your website will fitin!

Once you have designed your own link description, you areready to set up your own link exchange program for yourwebsite. As you will be asking other website owners to putyour link information on their "links" or "resource" page,you need to set up your own page for you to place their linkexchange information. This is called reciprocal linkexchange.

Reciprocal Link Exchange - In essence, you are "swappinglinks". It is an even trade. Your text link on one oftheir links pages with your URL pointing to your homepageand you place their text link information on your links pagewhile setting up their link to connect with their homepage(index page).

Before you can offer a reciprocal link exchange with anotherwebmaster, you will often need to show them you have alreadyput their link information on your website.

Designate at least one page for your link exchange program.As your link exchanges grow, you will expand your pages intodifferent categories. Make sure your link exchange programis linked to your main page and every page of your website.Alphabetize and categorize your listing of reciprocal links.

Just starting your link exchange program?

Have your page all set up for links from other websites plushave the information others need to exchange links withyou.

Once you have designed your own link information and aresource page to put up the links information from your linkpartners, it is time to start asking other website owners toput Your Link Information on their own links page.

Choosing your link partners for reciprocal link exchange

Think niche. Your website has a theme, a specialty- a marketing niche. Choose link exchanges with websites thathave similar themes. If your website is about handmadecandles then focus on websites that offer handmade,handcrafted products. Explore websites with candleaccessories, home decor, gifts and aromatherapy.

Websites that offer what you believe your visitors wouldenjoy are where you focus your link exchanges. Choose sitesthat are complementary to your own, not competitive. Themore closely related the subject of your link partner'ssite, the more relevant your own link description will be totheir visitors and to search engines.

Page Rank - the higher the page rank of the site that youexchange links with, the more impact on search engines.That does not mean that you should not exchange links withwebsites that only have a page rank of 3 or higher but themajority of your link exchanges should be with websitesranking well with top search engines.

Test your own link popularity - you have already exchangedlinks with some websites and now you want to know if it'shelping you with search engines. I found UpTimeBot usefullyfor getting a handle on what's happening with your linkexchange program.

Its disheartening that Google is slow to catch up with yourlink exchanges but be persistent in your weekly time to setup quality reciprocal link exchanges.

The other major search engines will help you with trafficand link popularity until Google does it's own bit.Persistence with your link exchange program does pay off!

In the end, Google DOES catch all the hard work and you willstart getting the traffic and page rank your websitedeserves!

Tammy Ames works daily online building WAHM Work at HomeConnections and helping other work at home families marketon the internet. Tammy publishes a weekly online newsletterWork at Home Connections Ezine. Subscribe to spend timeeach weekly learning to succeed online.