As we saw in the previous lesson, one way of turning a reciprocal link exchange program into a power linking exercise is to trade links on actual content pages. In other words, you find a website with a high PR page and you make a specific offer to the webmaster to exchange links with your own equally high (or higher) PR page. The most obvious candidates for such an exchange would be the home pages of the two websites. Or you might create content pages specifically for this purpose.

But this is not really a "Power Linking" strategy as I understand it, because "Power Linking" does not require a reciprocal link. The distinctive thing about a Power Linking Strategy is that it does not involve an "exchange". Rather it involves creating unique web content and using that content strategically to create your own links. One of the best examples of this, and perhaps the one that most of us interested in internet marketing are aware of is publishing articles about your product or service, and then getting them published on other websites.

Everybody agrees with the article writing strategy...but...

Everyone agrees that writing and distributing articles is a "tried and true" strategy for building a web presence. The idea is that you write articles between 500 and 750 words about your area of specialization, and then you distribute them so they get republished in various websites and ezines. According to the theory, webmasters and ezine publishers are desperate for content — since they either are lousy writers, don't have time to write, or want content from somebody other than themselves to fill out their publications or enhance their own writing.

Frankly I find this just a bit misleading, and if you proceed this way you will probably be disappointed by article writing. Looking around the web — especially at internet marketing sites — it looks to me as though just about everyone even marginally successful at marketing knows how to write. If you stand a chance of getting published on a high traffic site, it will only be because you really have something good to say. You will NOT get published on good sites because successful webmasters are desperate for your feeble attempts at writing. You WILL get published because they are impressed with your high quality writing, and the interesting subject matter of your articles. In other words, don't expect to get published in these places if you aren't a good writer.

Second, I find that most high circulation ezines don't actually contain much content. They are essentially just weekly or monthly promotional pieces where the "publisher" — whether it is Ken Evoy, Jim Daniels, Ralph Wilson, Cory Rudl or Rosalind Gardner — are using the excuse of sending you some "content" to promote a product. They certainly don't want articles from third parties to detract from their primary objective — selling their products. Unless, of course, the third party articles are useful for promoting a "Joint Venture" — where they stand to gain a significant commission for helping to promote someone else's product.

This isn't a bad thing. In fact, I suspect this is what most subscribers to these ezines want and expect. But if you're expecting to get your articles published in one of these high circulation publications, you'd better have a "joint venture" in mind, and write your "article" accordingly.

What they say about "Articles" is only partially correct

Virtually all internet marketers (including me) agree that writing articles is one of the best and least expensive ways to build a web presence. They all agree (more or less) that articles enhance your reputation as an "authority" in your field, and increase the long-term credibility of your website. And it is fairly obvious that having your articles published on other websites and in high circulation ezines puts your name and product in front of thousands of prospective customers, some of whom will click through to your site.

But as I have already suggested, you may not be good enough, or lucky enough to have your articles published in high circulation ezines, or on high traffic websites. And if that is the case, you are better off to target your OWN website for your articles. That is where you can build your own web content, polish your writing skills, and get a feeling for how articles should or should not be written.

Meanwhile, even if you NEVER get published in other high circulation ezines and on high traffic websites, you can still reap the "Power Linking" benefits of article writing and distribution. But in order to do so, it is important to forget about writing to impress other webmasters, and focus on writing your articles to cash in on their power linking benefits.

Write to maximize your power linking benefits

What does this mean?

Well, first (to repeat) it means you should forget about trying to impress webmasters and web visitors with your brilliant writing skills. Do what you can to make your articles readable and interesting, but don't get bogged down in creating literary masterpieces. Your primary power linking objective is to:

1. Create keyword-rich articles that focus on the exact keywords you are most interested in promoting.

2. Build in lots of keyword-anchored links that point back to as many of your high impact web pages as possible.

Once you have these keyword-rich, link-rich articles in hand, all you have to do is get them published on 10 or 15 (or more) article archiving websites to give you all the advantages of numerous inbound links. Fortunately for you there is no shortage of websites out there happy to "publish" your articles.

Many of these sites are article directories like Ideamarketers.com and GoArticles.com and my own Click-Partners.com. And there are also many "secondary" article directory sites where the webmaster is looking for content just to bulk up his or her site. They will take (almost) anything because they are just trying to build up their site with spider-able content. Each of these pages will have nav-bars and link columns pointing to various resources within their own sites, and these links help build the overall PR of the pages they are pointing to.

From your perspective the big advantage of these sites is that you can often "self-publish" — submit your articles and have them published immediately. There is no begging to get them published. No sucking up to the publisher. You enter the articles. The articles are online.

Instant inbound links.

These Links are much better than Reciprocal Links

In fact embedded links within your articles are much better than "reciprocal" links. That is why I call this "Power Linking". First, you can embed as many links as you want within your articles. Second, you can target them to whatever pages you want within your site(s) — or other sites, for that matter. And, third, you can distribute your articles to as many sites as you have time to go after.

Think of the potential. Say a given article has three links pointing back to pages within your websites, and you get this article posted on 10 websites. That is 30 inbound links you have created. And since these links are embedded within an article that is highly relevant to the subject matter of your website(s), they will be considered more valuable than links pointing in from reciprocal link pages.

Isn't that a better use of your time than scrounging around for reciprocal links? You bet it is.

For more "Power Linking" strategies, subscribe to the free course "SuperCharge Your Website with Power Linking"