I had just about resigned myself to the fact that my meager web empire would never break through that elusive $100/month earnings barrier and then suddenly my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of selling links directly to other sites. I’ve had a bit of success doing this and here’s a bit of information that might be handy to people who are just getting started in this area.
Where to Look for Buyers
Digital Point has a very busy link sales forum that has served me well in the past. There are all types of links on offer and it’s a great place to start. Most posts are from sellers but buyers will occasionally post what they’re looking for so it’s worth trolling through a few pages worth of posts before submitting your own offers.
Most of my large sales have come from contacting companies directly. If you have a well targeted niche site and can find companies who want to reach you target market then you should do well in this area. It’s interesting to note that none of the people I sold links to even asked me for any information on how many visitors I was getting. I think marketing online is still a new area for smaller businesses and many aren’t sure of what questions to ask and have no idea how much ads should cost. They still have a marketing budget to spend though and you can use their lack of experience to your advantage.
If you are having trouble finding companies to approach, try looking through some magazines that cater to your target market and focus in on the ads. Make a list of each company you think would fit well with your site and send out some emails. These companies will be paying big bucks for ads in most magazines so if you offer them a reasonable price for a link or ad on a well targeted site then there is a good chance they can swing some of that advertising budget your way.
Setting Your Link Price
When I had to set my first price I was totally clueless. I posted a ‘help me, I’m clueless, how much should I charge for links’ messages in the forum but nobody came to my rescue. I was going to pull a price out of my ass but thought it might be a better idea to have a look around the forum to see what sites similar to my own where charging.
Initially I wanted to set up monthly payments but decided that the hassle was too much effort and instead tried for sales in 3, 6 and 12 month slots paid into my Paypal account. The more months purchased, the better the price per month. I’ve since found this site that makes setting up monthly Paypal payments really easy so I don’t mind selling monthly links anymore. I actually prefer it because it’s all automated and I don’t need to chase people for renewals.
Your best bet is to hang around the Digital Point forum for awhile to get a feel for what your site is worth and then submit a post with your prices and hope for the best. Aim high at first but stay flexible. If you don’t get any sales you can always lower your price but. If you set your prices too low and sell out then you’re selling yourself short.
Keeping Track of Link Sales and Renewals
Once you’ve sold a bunch of links, keeping track of expiry dates can be a bit of a headache, especially when you have a lot of sites. You have to keep on top of expiry dates so you can chase people for renewals. I’ve had mixed results with renewals. About half always renew and the other half are one offs but filling empty ad slots isn’t too difficult.
To help me keep track of things I’ve done the truly nerdy thing and whipped up a simple spreadsheet to track the link’s URL, location on my site, price, expiry date and the contact details of whoever bought it. I would be completely lost without it so once you start selling links, have a think about how you want to keep track of them.
The Importance of Google Page Rank
Travoholic.com had somehow stumbled and bumbled its way to a PR5 ranking over the years and I soon learned that links on my site were in demand. Because of this, all of my link spaces were sold out a few hours after I placed my first ad and I was pretty happy with myself.
That site’s PR has since fallen to 4 and suddenly it doesn’t stand out from the crowd quite as much. When my PR dropped, so did my prices and the number of replies to my ads. The crowd over at Digital Point are pretty savvy so if you’re looking to sell links there then PR matters a lot.
My Experiences
I’ve had some success in this area and it’s something I wish I would have explored a lot earlier. The money I earned through link sales in December 2007 was the easiest money ever and I was in shock at all the extra cash that was rolling in. Things have since slowed down but it’s nice to know that if I need to pad the ol’ Paylpal account a bit I can make space for a few more ads and more than likely fill them fairly easily.
On the down side, I feel like a bit of a sell out. The main page of Travoholic.com is covered in ads: Adsense in the middle, Text Link Ads on the right, and a bunch of random links in the footer. Having all these outgoing links not only looks terrible, I also suspect it has a negative impact on my PR. There are also some rumblings that the almighty Google is attempting to crack down on this by devaluing links that have been purchased. How they’ll do this is anyone’s guess but Google knows all and sees all so I don’t doubt they’ll find a way. If this happens then the bottom could drop out of the market pretty quickly.
So while direct link sales can be easy money, there are tradeoffs. The trick I think is to find a few companies that are perfect matches for your site’s readers and then build long term relationships with them that will hopefully benefit you both.
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