While the big search engines insist the best way to achieving a high rank is quality content, the sort of quality content that gets noticed and linked, many webmasters simply don’t have the time or possibly the skill to write that definitive article, nor do they have the time to develop a large scale community that churns out consistent, quality, themed content.

In truth the best way to achieve high page rank is a combination of a dozen different factors, and it’s only by nailing them all will you achieve your optimum potential.

In saying that, from little acorns big acorns grow, so you have to start somewhere. One way of fast tracking your site to success in the SERPs is through link trading. Link trading, whether it be a reciprocal swap, or a paid for link, involves a lot of time and a lot of effort.

There are many traps, and you need to be aware of unscrupulous webmasters who will attempt to take advantage at every turn. Webmasters are often stung by those that don’t reciprocate a link exchange by intentionally failing to put up your link, or by unintentionally forgetting to do so. Dishonest webmasters may even put up your link for a time, and then remove when they think your no longer looking. Some will employ the NOFOLLOW tag, so while the link exists, a search engine spider will NOT follow through to that page, use that link for calculation of pagerank (Google), or consider the anchor text.

The tag was initiated by Google and is now supported by both Yahoo and MSN in attempt to stop spammers from posting comments with links in the dozens of popular blogs and forums on the net. Unfortunately its often abused.

Link trading on a personal basis can be a very good way of improving your ranks but you need to stay on top of it, and you need to have the ability to spot honest and dishonest traders. If you have good nose for honest people, and the time to approach individual webmasters in a professional and systematic way, then doing your own little bit of link trading could be a very viable option for you.

But say your experience with link trading to this point has been mixed at best, whether it be mixed in results, or mixed in your ability to spot the dishonest, then perhaps you should consider commercial link brokerage sites. Again, you need to be aware of quality over quantity. Many link networks trade links amongst sites that have no relevance to each other, according to some SEO experts this can be penalized by Google.

So when buying links you need to not only evaluate the PR and quality of your partner, you need to evaluate whether the link will be of use to your website visitors. Does it have relevance?

There are of course, sophisticated and high quality brokerage sites that have all those bases covered, and if your serious about link trading for the ultimate gain, then you really need to check out these services In the long term. Check out the tools section for a list of possible brokerage sites.

The final element to consider is what you have to offer. What can you offer potential partner sites? Honest link traders will look for genuine value in ascertaining whether to link to your site so it’s vital you come up with a checklist of benefits for your partner.

Consider the other articles in this section for an even more thorough understanding of link trading.