by: Jason Tarasi

Could you use an extra 500,000+ visitors to your site each year?

What if I told you there was a way to do this for free, using the time it takes you to watch your favorite TV show each week, would you be interested?

I'm sure you would tell me to stop hitting the bottle so hard, it isn't possible.

Well you would be wrong on both counts. For starters, I don't drink. Secondly, it is possible to rake in huge amounts of traffic for free.

How do I know this? Simply put, I am living proof it works.

I don't pay a single dime in advertising costs, and it only takes a few hours a month to produce this traffic.

So what is my secret? Reciprocal links!

Reciprocal linking is one of the most powerful and effective advertising concepts on the Web. Yet it is vastly underutilized by most Webmasters.

I have thousands of links pointing to my site:

http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com

These links are responsible for 75% of all my traffic.

I almost feel guilty that I am able to generate this traffic so easily.

Here is the secret to my success: Everything is automated!

I simply don't have time to manually add my partners' new links by hand. Therefore, I have a site engine that allows my partners to enter their site information, then tells them how to add my link to their Website.

Once a week I spend an hour validating 100-200 new links, and in no time flat I'm done.

It is so simple, that I'm astounded more Webmasters don't utilize these techniques.

Here is a quick 3-step guide to automating your linking strategies:

1.) Choose the right software

You must have a way for link partners to add their Website information automatically. There are dozens of software programs on the Web that will accomplish this.

Here are a few of my favorite programs:

Zeus - http://www.cyber-robotics.com/

Links 2.0 - http://gossamer-threads.com/scripts/links/index.htm

Or simply go to Download.com and search on "Link Exchange Software" for more programs.

2.) Find high quality Websites to exchange links with

There are a couple ways to accomplish this:

- Use Alexa to find high traffic link partners for your site

Alexa is a very powerful search engine that allows you to:

• Search the Web and other resources directly from your toolbar.

• Obtain traffic and contact information for each site.

• Surf more efficiently with related links for each page.

The information found on Alexa is very powerful.

http://www.alexa.com/

- Subscribe to these reciprocal links newsletters:

Elite Links -

http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com/elitelinks.html

Zebulon Exchange of Links -

http://www.fraternet.com/zel/links.htm

Each newsletter is packed with Websites looking to exchange links.

3.) Contact potential link partners and request an exchange

Once you have established which sites you would like to exchange links with, it is time to drop them an email.

Your email should include the following info:

• Your site url

• Short description of your Website

• Details on how to exchange links

Then once a week, validate your partner links. It really is that simple.

To keep track of your link popularity, visit:

http://www.linkpopularity.com/

Repeat this process each week, and in a few months your site traffic will skyrocket!