Reciprocal links, what are they and do they work… or not. In simple terms a reciprocal link is – I have a link on my website that is hyper-links to yours. You have a link on your page hyper-linked to mine. These links complete the path between our sites. There are some pros and cons. Lets look at a few.
In many of our blog post we share the importance of video testimonials. We provide a link on my page highlighting your services with a link to you. To make it work, you having the same video on your website with a tag line with a link back to my site is a favorable practice with Google. A big word of caution. In moderation. Over using this practice is not a good idea and may bring on a ‘black list’ response from Google.
Reciprocal links for legitimate testimonials is good. It is important to make it look natural on your page. For example it would not be in good form to set up a page that had all these reciprocal links on it. Not natural and in my opinion – tacky. Be careful, we do not want to give Google any reason to think you are trying to be a link farm and doing things that are not good practice. For example with DW Video’s Buy Local Michigan Video Blog we have some natural links.
In this example Today’s weapons: They did a basic write up with a reciprocal link back to Buy Local Michigan. Go to our Video Blog and see what we did to link back to them,
“Some tips according to http://www.highervisibility.com/do-reciprocal-links-provide-seo-value/ – this is direct from their site. For more on this topic follow their link.
- When it is natural. The best way to make sure that a link is natural is by embedding it into your content or into an author bio. Simply putting a link in the sidebar of a website does not seem natural to Google, and therefore that link will not reap any SEO benefits.
- When it is relevant. If your company offers financial services and you’re exchanging links with a sports recreation site, Google is going to get suspicious and could penalize you. Make sure that the links are relevant and will help users—Google’s main goal.
- When they are rare. You don’t want to have your entire link-building campaign built around reciprocal links. You can exchange links with some authoritative websites in your industry every once and a while, but don’t make it a habit.
In the past, reciprocal linking was extremely popular because it was easy and everyone was happy. Companies began exchanging links at a rapid rate, and in most situations these links were not adding value for readers. The links were going onto a page that was simply full of links. Naturally, Google decided to put a stop to this and penalize sites that were participating in this act, known as “link farming.” In these types of situations your will fail in terms of SEO every time. These link farms are still alive and well, so be careful.” – content from www.highervisibility.com
Keeping the message relevant and related to your business is important. This is what HMP Carpentry posted on their website. Here is what we did on our video blog.
Contact Duane at DW Video to produce your media and video production. Buy Local!