[sally]

Oh I understand that bit Dave and am sort of happy with the actual member numbers so far and position for some keywords (especially considering my budget) but it's my knowledge of link building that's getting on my nerves. After 9 months of questions, answers and reading I seem to be totally bloody useless at it - that's what I was talking about.

[RedEvo]

Link building, and I mean securing good, meaningful links, is hard. Fundamentally it's about thinking long and hard about the kinds of sites whose readers would be interested in what you have to offer.

In my view it's a quality game, not a numbers game.

Many professional link builders simply buy links because getting good ones free is near to impossible unless you get lucky or think laterally.

Don't beat yourself up, it's tough securing good links, very very tough.

d

[sally]

Well that's ok then, as long as it's not being the class dunce again.

[desybabe]

Originally Posted by KingPin

Desybabe, they are "Guidelines", nothing more.

Sally, there is nothing wrong with reciprocal linking but if you are going to do it, get them from relevant sites.

As RedEvo says, relevance is the key.

Forget pages that might be sports but a PR6 because it will do nothing to your site. The link will hold very little value.

Just go to Google and type in "ADD URL"+"Keyword"

That will bring up a list of sites that allow you to ad your link and which relevant.

KP

KP, I am not disagreeing with what you are saying, but guidelines are there for a reason. Stay within them and you can do very well and not worry about algorithm changes affecting your work. As I am sure you well know.
Many SEO people, you and I included, run 'dodgy' sites to explore black techniques. It is difficult in a few words to pass this over to a less experienced person.

Also, when giving advice to newcomers and anyone wanting to learn, I always point to the guidelines as an official way of helping. We could go on forever discussing our own personal techniques and preferences.

My point about reciprocal was that it is reducing in weight and should not be used as the only form of link building.
If a less experienced operator thinks reciprocal is the way to go as long as it is relevent, they go and find an automated way of reciprocal linking (ARELIS) and before you know it they are chuffed to bits because they have 3,000 recip links all pointing to their 'resources.html'.
In my mind, this will only harm the site. As mentioned in the guidelines.

That was my point.

[janeeb]

Originally Posted by RedEvo

Link building, and I mean securing good, meaningful links, is hard. Fundamentally it's about thinking long and hard about the kinds of sites whose readers would be interested in what you have to offer.

In my view it's a quality game, not a numbers game.

Many professional link builders simply buy links because getting good ones free is near to impossible unless you get lucky or think laterally.

Don't beat yourself up, it's tough securing good links, very very tough.

d

Too true, as a I am also finding! I didn't expect it to be easy but when I'm doing very nicely, thank you, I will remember how hard it was and at least have the decency to reply any to any link requests and if it's a 'no' I'll say why and not just ignore the request as I'm finding sites do. It's so frustrating and very bad manners!!

[RedEvo]

Originally Posted by janeeb

It's so frustrating and very bad manners!!

Not sure I agree with that. Good sites get many link requests and there are only so many hours in a day.

IMHO.

d

[Indizine]

I get a few requests each week for one of my sites and I wouldnt mind although same sector, they're not in the UK and have zero PR on their reciprocal page! I often feel these folk dont consider why I would want to link to them.