Seo experts all point to incoming links as a search engines most important factor in determining the worth of a website. If you want to improve your websites search engine rankings it’s a very good idea to exchange links with websites directly related to yours.

Most websites require an incoming link to their site before they will link back. This process is called reciprocal linking and it works under the assumption that each site will add value to the others.

You may find some websites like directories that will add your URL to their directory without a return link. These sites are usually giving less weight from the search engines for the value of the link due to the large number of outgoing links on the page. For this reason it’s often best to only submit your site to high page rank directories.

How do I find relevant link partners?

To find relevant link exchange partners to improve Your link Popularity and improve your search engine rankings you can use the tools below.

http://seopen.com/seopen-tools/link-development-tool.php

with this easy to use link development tool you’ll be able to find relevant link exchange partners based on the keywords you enter. The results from this tool are generated from an advanced Google search and only includes websites looking for link exchange partners.

http://www.arclid.com/linkpartners.php

This is a another tool that allows you to search for relevant link partners to optimize your website for a particular keyword or phrase.

http://www.4th-media.com/tools/link_partner_finder.php

Here’s one more to try.

These tools will allow you to find Google indexed link partners that have a high page rank and will be most beneficial to your website.

Some things to remember when searching for link exchanges is that not all links are the same. Some links will be more or less desirable depending on many factors. One of the most important factors is linking with relevant link partners. These are websites that have a direct relation to your type of site. For example.

Myspace Resource Site <--> Myspace Games Site
Travel Information Site <--> Travel Forum
Book Store                 <--> Book Reviews

This type of link exchange will benefit both parties due to the value the search engines put on relevant incoming links.

Before you do a link exchange with a website you should check its popularity one of the tools I use for this task is Market Leap.

http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/default.htm

You’ll be able to use this tool to find the total number of incoming links or votes a search engine is showing for a website. This link research tool is useful for comparing your website against that of a competitors.