We are mortgage brokers and are actively looking for reciprocal links with real estate adents. What we have done is setup a directory to real estate agents from across the country.

Alot of what I'm reading suggests that this might not be a good idea. Obviously we are slowly building content and hope that as the site grows we will see more "natural" links but at the same time we see "reciprocal" links as being a great short and long term traffic generator from websites that we feel will send us good quality leads.

We're using Areilis, selecting only sites with rankings of 3+ (tough to find 5+). sending out personal emails and getting incredible results. Now I'm having second thoughs from a search engine perspective only.

Perhaps the leads from the realtors will be worth more to us than the leads we will get from a high ranking in the search engine?

Thought are greatly appreciated.

bruce

We are mortgage brokers and are actively looking for reciprocal links with real estate adents. What we have done is setup a directory to real estate agents from across the country.

Alot of what I'm reading suggests that this might not be a good idea. Obviously we are slowly building content and hope that as the site grows we will see more "natural" links but at the same time we see "reciprocal" links as being a great short and long term traffic generator from websites that we feel will send us good quality leads.

We're using Areilis, selecting only sites with rankings of 3+ (tough to find 5+). sending out personal emails and getting incredible results. Now I'm having second thoughs from a search engine perspective only.

Perhaps the leads from the realtors will be worth more to us than the leads we will get from a high ranking in the search engine?

Thought are greatly appreciated.

bruce

I don't see anything wrong with your strategy... however a suggestion:

Don't focus on PageRank as a gauge of quality, focus on the physical website merits, the appeal to the market, the richness of the dialogue, text copy, and value added resources.

The problem with PageRank as a guage for inclusion, acceptance, or 'requesting for' into your directory is this:

That site with a PR3 mainpage - what will their PR be in an update, in two?

That site with a PR0 mainpage - what will their PR be in an update, in two? Have they always been PR0 or are they simply brand new?

Better yet - what if for those realitor agent's websites you come across that are ignorant to SE requirements & link exchanges - you educated them - and for that education rather than you doing all the work they actually started assisting, or if they don't have time, they paid a fee for you to....

hmmm.... :cool: