There are many ways to get people to link to your pages. Some are worthwhile, many are not. Here's a discussion of what I've learned in my many attempts to get links to my sites.

• People will see the links and visit you.
• Search engines will follow the links and index your page.
• Search engines will see all the links to your page, assume it's important, and put it higher on the list.

• You have something to offer that their visitors are interested in.
• They consider you their friend.
• You have offered something in return.
• You asked them to.

We're assuming that you have something of interest on your page, or you wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of making the page in the first place. So, who is interested in what you have to offer? And where are they looking? The pages they are looking at now are the ones you want linked to you, and the owners of those pages are probably interested in linking to you. If you need to improve your page to make them think it's worth linking to, do it now.

They consider you their friend.

Who do you know that has a website? Your cousin? The people you do business with? Your next-door neighbor? All these people probably think of you as someone they'd do a favor for.

Introduce yourself to people with websites. If you see something on their site that interests you, let them know about it.

You have offered something in return.

What do you have that they want? The most obvious is a link to them. Do you have other things to offer? Be very careful in offering suggested corrections to their site, though... it's easy to give offence without intending to.

You asked them to.

"Please add a link to my page"
The most obvious, and least used method. Think about it: If someone made a courteous request for a link on your site, wouldn't you consider it?

1. Make your site presentable. Don't even think of requesting links to a page "under construction".
2. Make a list of all the people who might be willing to link to you.
3. Make a nice link page with links to all the people you'd like links from. It should be easy to find from your main page. Be sure to test it thoroughly. Broken links make a very bad first impression.
4. Send individual notes to all the people you've linked to. Be sure to include your page name and url to make it easy to link back to you. A sample note:
   
   
   • Hi. I've put a link to your page "Getting Started With Stamp Collecting" on my link page - http://www.myurl.com/links.html - I'd appreciate it if you'd consider linking to my site.
     
     Joe Smith
     "My stamp collection"
     http://www.myurl.com/stamps/
     
     
5. Every time you see a page you'd like a link from, add it to your link page. Then send your letter. Note: If they give instructions on their site about linking to them, follow the instructions
6. Most of the people you link to will link back to you. When they do, they'll probably send you a similar note.
7. If they don't respond, leave the link on your page. It doesn't cost anything, and they may decide to link to you later.
8. You can start by going to my pages (listed below) and seeing if there's anything you'd like to link to. I have several link pages, and I frequently add links to them.
   
   
   • Free new animations
   • Donna's Background Factory
   • Donna's Mutual linking association
   • The Mother of all Links Pages
   • Subtle shaded backgrounds - Like the one on this page
   • Little known Facts
   • Find it here
   • Accept credit cards on your website, with low startup fee - Link to this one and I'll give you a really nice link back.
   • 140 colors for webpages