Most webmasters have two goals for their online businesses: to be financially successful and to be self-sustaining. Ideally, webmasters want to be fully established and top of mind so the business they have supplies all the business they need. Sweet scenario if you can get it but the reality is, you have to work long and hard for that type of self-sustaining business. One way to start the flow is to work on attracting a steady stream of referrals.

For those of us hard at work building links, we’d like nothing more than to have a steady stream of referral links. With them, we’d rank well, enjoy optimum visibility and become a dominate authority in our niche. Again, great concept but is it possible? It is especially if you can capitalize on securing links from authority sites within your industry. Basically, all of your current link marketing can be used to focus on getting an inbound stream of referral links, there’s no need to start a separate or new campaign. You can make referral links a key part of your link building plan by focusing on competitive, client and network initiatives.

Referrals from Competitors and Associates

At first glance it may not seem businesses in the same niche would be a good source of links. Most people automatically assume competitors will never agree to a referral link. For big business this is probably true — you don’t see Toyota linking to Honda or Anheuser-Busch to Miller Beer. Their established brands make the big boys self-sustaining but for the rest of us, this usually isn’t the case. Referral links between

competitors and associates happen frequently and can work well in two situations:

Sharing excess work. Small business owners are challenged with what to do when a sudden burst of business hits them. Instead of turning work away, you can refer the excess business out to trusted colleagues who will in turn do the same for you.

The key word here is trusted. If you’re going to host a link on your site and refer your clients to another firm, they should be an established company (authority site) with a good reputation (ranks well). Keep both of these issues in mind when choosing a trusted partner, whom you link to says a lot about who you are both algorithmically and professionally.

Referring specialties. People with specialty services tend to be successful but often find themselves needing to refer business out that doesn’t fit their expertise. Look for businesses in your industry that specialize in a particular niche other than your own and work to create a mutual referral.

At this point you’re probably reading this and thinking “sounds like a reciprocal link campaign to me and everyone knows they don’t work anymore”.

Well yes and no.

You’re right about the first part, it can be considered a reciprocal link campaign if both sites agree to exchange referral links. But as to the second part “they don’t work anymore” well that’s not always true. Reciprocal links work just fine from both an algorithmic and business standpoint if you work within the confines of your industry.

In some cases, these types of links provide more ranking impact than your directory, run of site, article, social media and paid links do simply because they sit on thematically related sites. In the case of referral links, you’re also swapping links with authority sites because you want to be associated with a well known/highly ranked business. You’re probably already using referral links to some extent, especially if you have a blog.

The power behind reciprocal links has always been the control you have over what the link says (its anchor) and where it points. If you’re negotiating a business referral from a well ranked, high profile industry site, you have what so many webmasters want - an authority link.

It’s not impossible to secure links from competitors and associates if you approach them with a referral partnership that outlines what you can do to enhance their business by referring you. Begging for links is so 2005, but referral partnerships are so “now”.

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