Just a quick one to let you know that I guest posted over at Search Engine People today. I wrote about the reciprocity method to link building which is basically a simple way that you (yes, YOU!) can get backlinks to your website, without having to be a link building expert.
It’s more commonsense than rocket science so please don’t judge me too harshly at the simplicity of the technique. I know there will be some hardcore link builders out there who may scoff at it, but the fact remains that there are site owners out there who aren’t as hardcore as you and they have to start somewhere.
For those of you that will be trying the Reciprocity Method, I plan to post follow up articles here, that will help you find suitable prospects within your industry as well as custom email templates that are tailored to fit almost any situation.
I started out as a small ecommerce site owner myself and I know how hard it can be to generate results. If you have any questions or need some help implementing the technique, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Srsly 
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the reciprocity method Melanie. You’re pretty clever, eh? I’m wringing my hands in anxious anticipation of you posting the custom email templates.
Great article!
We were just discussing the significance of outbound links tonight at the Edmonton E-biz Meetup. Sending links to relevant, and authoritive sites has been found to increase a sites ranking substantially. I’ve definitely noticed an increase in some of my sites recently since initiating reciprical link exchanges between relavant, and authorative blogs. One SEO analyst mentioned that when he even just linked to local major institutions for his local business site the rank went way up with out even getting recipricate links back. What are your thoughts on outbound links to relavant sites or local sites?
I’ve read that posting to other sites with low PR drops your PR, but a higher PR site reciprical exchange can increase it. While I can appreciate that PR isn’t everything it’s definitely a factor of perception. What has your experience with outbound sites to lower PR sites been like? I know for a fact that just by putting out 3 outbound links to new sites caused its alexa rank to go from 16m to 26m in a matter of days with out changing any of the content.
This method is pretty risky because you can never know how the site owner will respond, but it could get you really valuable links if it works. I also would be interested in the email templates, I am very curious.
After reading your blog post a few months after you wrote it and being quite impressed with the idea and the clarity with which you described it, I clicked over to your blog here and was disappointed to see that the follow up articles about “How to Find Reciprocity Link Prospects Using Custom Search Operators & Reciprocity Method Email Templates” hadn’t been written. It is hard to find time to write blog posts when business is busy. If you could find time to dedicate to the public service of helping us all become better link-builders (and improve the web while we’re at it), though, we’d appreciate it very much. Thanks!
Each method of link building has it’s benefits. This method is no exception and very simple to implement.