# Let's exchange links!



## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Hey everybody....I don't know why we haven't done this yet, but I decided to start a thread for those who would like to swap links. Since many of us are in the same or relevant fields, it would be useful to all of us to trade links. If anyone is interested in trading links, please let me know. My site now has a link section being put in place, and I will swap links with any members here who would like to. 

Things to include in your request would be, company name, what page you would like linked to, and a short description of your site so that your link can include some text and not be just a plain link. 

If someone links to you, return the favor and this will be beneficial for all of us. Make sure to correspond with each person you decide to swap a link with so that they know to add you to their site as well. I'm sure most of us are listed in the CT.com directory, so adding a link for contractortalk.com to your site would be good as well. (Nate, I'll make sure we get one pointing here soon).....

For anyone who would like to link to me....

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC - Jacksonville, FL

Jacksonville Painters

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC is a professional, experienced, full service painting contractor serving the greater Jacksonville, FL and Duval County areas. Our services include interior/exterior painting, pressure washing, exterior wood care and restoration, as well as concrete staining, and drywall repairs.

If anyone thinks this is a bad idea, just say so.....but I think this is something good for all involved! :thumbsup:


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Sheesh......ok, nevermind.


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## MinConst (Oct 16, 2004)

I have a link page also AA. I'd be happy to swap links with you. I will post my information later.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Hey, thanks Paul! Once I have your info I'll get it added to our site. I'm surprised more people haven't responded allready to this. Most of us are in non-competing areas with each other, and even then, we can still swap amongst trades. A roofer shouldn't have a problem swapping links with a plumber in the same locale, etc.


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## RobertCDF (Aug 18, 2005)

I think its a good idea.... but who going to your site (looking for a painter in Jacksonville, FL) is going to want a deck in Colorado Springs, Colorado? I already have some links to other trades and stuff on my webpage. I would like to have 1 or 2 for just about every other trade in my webpage. Then people could use it like a directory that then drives more and more traffic to my page. Of course I would like the favor returned to me as well.


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## MinConst (Oct 16, 2004)

Minichillo's Construction and Remodeling

URL to link to: Minichillo's Construction

If you have trouble with that just link my company name Minichillo's Construction to http://www.minichillosconstruction.com/aa.html

Basement, Kitchen, Bathroom, Deck, Porch. All these remodeling projects and who do you call in the Syracuse, NY area? Call Paul M. Minichillo of Minichillo's Construction. 315-457-4864. I will never leave you hanging!

If anyone else wants to exchange links please ask for a new listing. I track links with personalized entry pages. DO NOT USE the above link except for AA Painting.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Very smart MinConst. To address your concerns Robert, the idea is just to give all of us more trade related links coming into our own sites. The more relevant inbound links you have, the better your site lists in the search engines. You NEVER have enough incoming links if you ask me...

Since I no longer handle my website stuff, I'm going to wait a few days to see how many people would like a link, then submit them to footbridge media to be added to my site. This will avoid sending them 20 e-mails with new links. 

Keep the links coming! :thumbsup:


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

RobertCDF said:


> I think its a good idea.... but who going to your site (looking for a painter in Jacksonville, FL) is going to want a deck in Colorado Springs, Colorado? I already have some links to other trades and stuff on my webpage. I would like to have 1 or 2 for just about every other trade in my webpage. Then people could use it like a directory that then drives more and more traffic to my page. Of course I would like the favor returned to me as well.


I agree. 
Relevant, useful links are great and a service to your visitors.
Links for the sake of links are not good business. 
We are not looking for visitors only, we are looking for customers.
Useless links is similar to senseless repetition of keywords.
Building a website is like building a store. If the store is full of junk,
customers are not going to buy or even come back.


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## A+Carpenter (Apr 19, 2005)

George Z said:


> I agree.
> Relevant, useful links are great and a service to your visitors.
> Links for the sake of links are not good business.
> We are not looking for visitors only, we are looking for customers.
> ...


YEA I DONT WANT UN-WANTED CALLS FROM CHINA,JAPAN,FLORIDA.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Hmm...interesting response. I don't see how linking to other sites with relevant content is bad though.....I just don't get it. How can links to friends or other businesses we choose to support in the construction industry be a bad thing?

On that same note...I will make the swap with MinConst, but forget it for anyone else consider this thread ended.


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## Mike Finley (Apr 28, 2004)

Hey, this is one of the smartest ideas I have seen here in awhile. This thread should be moved to marketing since that is really what it is about.

I will be building out 2 other websites for myself in the near future and will certainly come back to this thread to invite exchanges of links for anybody interested. Great idea AA!


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

AAPaint said:


> Hmm...interesting response. I don't see how linking to other sites with relevant content is bad though.....I just don't get it. How can links to friends or other businesses we choose to support in the construction industry be a bad thing?
> 
> On that same note...I will make the swap with MinConst, but forget it for anyone else consider this thread ended.


It isn't bad, really. Someone is looking through a plumber's site in Calgary Alberta. 
How useful is a painter in Jacksonville Florida to him? That is what I am talking about. 
Usually when visitors have to go through useless to them content to find the good stuff, they leave.
Too many irrelevant pages, too much irrelevant content and they 
are gone. You only have a few seconds to keep a visitor from leaving.
Give them what they want, quickly.
AA, check your bounce rate in your Stats program (visitors leaving 
after their landing page). I am sure you will find it to be high.
There is no newsletter program or general articles that will make them stay. 
And that with a website that I think is very nice.


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## Mike Finley (Apr 28, 2004)

George the links page isn't there to help your visitors it's there to help your site get better ranking in search engines. The link page doesn't even have to be accessable to your customers, just make it accessable to the search engine spiders. Spiders don't care what the link to a link page is called it could be called "Customers don't click on this link" if you want.  

But if George Z wants better rankings in the search engines for the key words "Green Eggs & Ham" if you have 50 links on 50 other sites using the link words "Green Eggs & Ham" it's going to help you rank higher for Green Eggs & Ham.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Mike Finley said:


> Hey, this is one of the smartest ideas I have seen here in awhile. This thread should be moved to marketing since that is really what it is about.
> 
> I will be building out 2 other websites for myself in the near future and will certainly come back to this thread to invite exchanges of links for anybody interested. Great idea AA!


Thank you for your confirmation that it was not just some hair brained idea....:thumbsup:


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

"The link page doesn't even have to be accessable to your customers, just make it accessable to the search engine spiders."

Try that with Google and you are spamming.
I know couple of contractors sites here that are history 
because of that.
If visitors don't see what search engines see, it is SPAM.
Play by the rules and you are cool with Google. Try to Spam them 
and you are eventually screwed.

You and the search engines should be on the same page.
You are giving searchers information. As simplistic as this sounds
that's what it's all about.

According to Google:
"Off topic links are generally not useful because they tend to upset visitors, and search engines may view them as link spam."

Now if you go to AA's site, there is even a link to Las Vegas land (in a painters website in Jacksonville).
If I was a visitor, that would be cheap.
If I was a search engine, I would do a double take.

You need to play by the rules. Any perception that you are not
and you are playing with fire.

Mike, I may be too conservative and too cautious on this.
I may be wrong, I just like to play it safe.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

George Z said:


> Now if you go to AA's site, there is even a link to Las Vegas land (in a painters website in Jacksonville).
> If I was a visitor, that would be cheap.
> If I was a search engine, I would do a double take.


Err, what? Where do you see that?

NM, I found the page...how did you find it? I couldn't find it all, even after clearing my cache. Double edit...I found the link. Funny, they were supposed to only include sites that are relevant to mine. Wil have to look into that.


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## Mike Finley (Apr 28, 2004)

George I will clarify and be more specific

Change


> The link page doesn't even have to be accessable to your customers


to "The link page doesn't even have to be *easily *accessable to your customers"

I could hyperlink an image on my index page of my site to a link page, I could simply put this "." on the bottom corner of my index page and hyperlink it to my link page. Like I said it could be hyper linked text "Don't click on this link" linking to my link page. Would any of that be spamming the search engines? Even if it is I could careless, I can absolutely guarantee speaking from experience that it won't get you in trouble with google. 

The bottom line is it ain't very hard to out smart googlebot. Even if you are scared to death of pissing off google, I could still devise a dozen ways to get a page of your site indexed without making it an issue to your surfers and AA's idea is still a great one. Like most great ideas it's has two traits - simple & effective.


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

Well, I hope you guys have all added your websites to our directory here. http://www.contractortalk.com/directory/

Its free and although I like a link back its not required.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Nathan said:


> Well, I hope you guys have all added your websites to our directory here. http://www.contractortalk.com/directory/
> 
> Its free and although I like a link back its not required.


Aww shucks!! I forgot to have FootbridgeMedia add a link back here for you....I am listed in the directory, thank you very kindly, sir! :thumbsup:


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

No problem... just making sure people know they can add their link to our directory for free.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

I'll e-mail Aaron in the morning to have that link added.:thumbsup:


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## dayspring (Mar 4, 2006)

I would like to extend an invation to any members here to exchange links. Go to: "http://remodelingncarolina.com/linkmachine/resources/link_up.html" 
and submit your site and I will get it up ASAP, granted your site doesn't have links and or content that isn't appropriate enough for all to see


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Umm...I don't see a link to where you're talking about?


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## dayspring (Mar 4, 2006)

ummm, It didn't show up.

http://remodelingncarolina.com/linkmachine/resources/link_up.html


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## A+Carpenter (Apr 19, 2005)

improvementweb said:


> Thanks, please be sure to submit your site to SPAM
> :thumbup:


 
Umm isnt this spam?


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

Yes, and I had just removed it so I removed the link from your quote.


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## A+Carpenter (Apr 19, 2005)

Nathan said:


> Yes, and I had just removed it so I removed the link from your quote.



Well if you noticed the link was edited already so it didnt promote the site when replied to in quote. I took the D off the end:thumbsup: 

Do people read rules when they sign up?


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## SgtBaldy (Jul 14, 2006)

Nathan,I'm getting a forbidden 404 page error when i click on your directory link.


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## steveo12 (Jun 3, 2006)

Yes i also get the 404,

I have a couple of sites i can add in there.


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

Please use the following for now.

www.contractorlinks.com


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## steveo12 (Jun 3, 2006)

Hi nathan,

pm sent to you.


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

steveo12 said:


> Hi nathan,
> 
> pm sent to you.


I didn't get it


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

Nathan said:


> Please use the following for now.
> 
> www.contractorlinks.com


Sorry, forgot the link www.contractorlinks.com


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## SgtBaldy (Jul 14, 2006)

I read the add a listing rules but there is no add a link link. Help plz.


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

SgtBaldy said:


> I read the add a listing rules but there is no add a link link. Help plz.


Go to www.contractorlinks.com... find the topic that best fits you, then click the submit a link button to add your link.

Did this work for you?


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## steveo12 (Jun 3, 2006)

I submitted a site and it worked ok.

I tried a few weeks ago aswell but no one approved the listing.

Thanks.


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## Mike Finley (Apr 28, 2004)

OKay for all those guys "In the know" about how beneficial this is if you want to exchange links with me I have 2 sites now and 2 more coming that I will put your links on.

Just email me [email protected] with exactly what you want. Let's make this as painless as possible, here is my info, just format what you send me exactly the same.


Title: *Rocky Mountain Bathrooms, Inc.*
Descp: *We are bathroom remodeling specialists, so whatever your desires, we understand how to design and build bathrooms that fit your needs, lifestyle and budget, better than anyone else in the Denver, Colorado area.*
URL to link to : *rockymountainbathrooms.com*
Link Page URL: *http://www.rockymountainbathrooms.com/links.htm*


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## SgtBaldy (Jul 14, 2006)

The only button I see is become an editor. :sad:


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## steveo12 (Jun 3, 2006)

Right below the logo on each page (center of the black navigation bar)

It say "add a listing".

worked for me.

Also mike i added your link to my site and sent you an email


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## SgtBaldy (Jul 14, 2006)

Ok. Now it is working. It didn't yesterday I swear. lol Thx


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## Mike Finley (Apr 28, 2004)

I have the links back to the guys that emailed me. Anybody else who wants to exchange links just take a look at post #37 in this thread.


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## dayspring (Mar 4, 2006)

Mike, I've added a link to your site on my site


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

Hey,

I just happened across this thread...

I read a while back (sorry don't have the article on hand) that too many links to other sites on your own site will cause googlebot to classify you as an "affiliate site." Affiliate sites are frowned upon by most search engines, and will hurt your page rank.

Adam,

Have you run this by Aaron at Footbridge? I would be interested to hear what he had to say about it, as I am sure he knows a lot more than I do about it.


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## dayspring (Mar 4, 2006)

Guilty, I am. I have too many links out on my site, I have directed the search spiders not to crawl certain pages however. I read over 100 out-going links can get your site listed as a link farm, thus lowering your ranking. However, they do claim that linking to and from sites relavent to yours can actually boost rankings.


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## dayspring (Mar 4, 2006)

Here is a pretty good article
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/reference/article.php/3603646


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## Mike Finley (Apr 28, 2004)

dayspring said:


> Mike, I've added a link to your site on my site


Did you email me your return link info? I don't recall ever seeing it.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Yes, you want mostly pages that are either relevant to yours and/or have a high PR.


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## dayspring (Mar 4, 2006)

I don't think so Mike, I'll do it tonight, thanks


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

dayspring said:


> Guilty, I am. I have too many links out on my site, I have directed the search spiders not to crawl certain pages however. I read over 100 out-going links can get your site listed as a link farm, thus lowering your ranking. However, they do claim that linking to and from sites relavent to yours can actually boost rankings.



That's exactly what I wanted to know. Now I'm all for it, good idea Adam.


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## bruno002 (Oct 5, 2006)

what if we group the pages my states, so then you will have local links to tradespeople


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## Quote (Feb 27, 2006)

links are the holy grail of the internet - as long as a relevant site is linking to you using the right keyword phrases in the link anchor text, they are invaluable for your website's success in the search engines.


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## SgtBaldy (Jul 14, 2006)

If any painters *not* in Central FL want to exchange links with me here is my html

<a href="http://www.tpgpainting.com" target="_blank">Tampa Painter</a> - Full service painting contractor serving the Tampa Bay area

You can post yours here or email me thru my site and i will send you reciprical link. :thumbsup:


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