What Should Link Where?

Obviously this depends a great deal on what you have to link but here's a quick run down of possible elements and where they should be going.

Main Site Links
Assuming you have a main site or even a main blog that is domain name keyword optimized for your main topic and perhaps two other subtopics, we'll place this at the centre of the circle and its index page should be the page with the most links. By the way it doesn't have to be the index page, it's just traditional for this to be the page with all the links because its the first page people see when they type in your root url.

Satellite Links
The next are your satellite directories: niche topic blogs, forums, affiliate program, membership site, product folder, image folder, utility folders, and then article pages optin forms, and product pages which may be in a folder or part of the main site.

External Links
Externally is your autoresponder and then, external blogs, forums and sites linking to you, search engines links, bookmarked links, directory links, online ezine links, external article links, classified ad links,

Internal Links
Your blogs should follow a relevant policy of linking to everywhere you can, they are built to link. In the blogroll link to other blogs, main site, forum, affiliate program, all the main index pages of your internal directories excepting image and utility folders. Within a blog post try to link to articles on the main site and specific internal pages of these directories, reference a thread in the forum, reference an article that goes deeper into a topic, reference a main site optin page, low and high product pages and any sales pages you make to affiliate products or resale products.

Image Links
Banners may not be popular tools but images that are linked are very seo friendly. If you can use an image and its anchor text, try and include one, you will benefit from it.

Article Links
Likewise where the articles on your site can reference a blogpost, a forum thread or a product - you should take the opportunity to keyword anchor the link between the pages by repeated use of a relevant keyword phrase that people may use to search for information. Externally connect to this same article or thread with any external link you can, that is relevant to its topic.Think about writing articles specifically for external links on this topic that can be submitted for publication to other sites with a signature.

Bookmark Links
Social bookmark in a progressive way each relevant article that you can. By that I mean don't just bookmark every page on your site in an hour. One article a day or one every hour up to five, no more. Often bookmarks are displayed as new links on bookmark sites when they are made. This may last anywhere from 5 seconds to a few hours. Pick different hours of the day to bookmark and think about when people may be online surfing and might see your mark.

Advertising Links
For traffic exchanges, ezine ads, most other ads and some external links, most in fact but especially ones you pay for, link to a page with an easy to optin form or a lower price product. It's hard to convince the majority of people to buy an expensive product in a minute. Getting people to accept a gift in exchange for an email address is hard enough. So don't waste your money on trying to 'sell' an expensive product unless its target market is fully aware of its price and prepared to pay it. You need to build a relationship with customers to do that.

Email Links
That's where your autoresponder comes in. Enter links to your site in all emails, internal links, index links, within the body and at the end. No more than 5 per email or people think its too hard. One link as a main and up to four site links, no more, and never less than one. With your autoresponder you can link anywhere you want to.

Where possible offer an email subscription to a blog category or feed. You can integrate this easily with Aweber and kill two birds with one stone. This won't benefit you if you do no linking within a post.

Affiliate Links
Affiliate link choices are up to affiliates but they should be given an opportunity where possible to cookie your site on low as well as high price products. If you can cookie a forum, an optin form, a low price lead in product, then this gives them the choice to gamble that your autoresponder will convert the sale for them. If an affiliate or jv has a big list and are well respected they may confidently promote a high price product and see conversions. New affiliates may not be so well placed.

Product Links
Lastly your product pages can be strategically linked if you get it right. Never interupt the sales process to ask for a higher price sale, you'll lose both. However, during the optin procedure, especially after a sale while someone already has their mind set on buying, this can work to your benefit with a few impulse buys. Why not?

Place links on your product delivery pages, your error pages, your success pages, every link counts and may lead a customer deeper into your site. It is always important to let people know that there is more to your site than an index page. They may be truly ignorant that menu links lead somewhere, so include a lead off link on a page. Then when people are in the mood to keep reading, there's no hard choices. They just keep on clicking.

Where Shouldn't You Place Links?

If you have a sales page or a page that you want people to keep reading on your site, don't use text advertising such as Adsense on these pages. It will lead them away just as its designed to do. If this is an Adsense site, fine, but it's not a good idea to mix up where your focus is. Either its a sales page or its an Adsense page. Exceptions to this are blogs, in the sidebar, because you only have a limited time to monetize the hit and two options may be better than one. You have to gamble on repeat visits here.

Try not to place links on any page that you want people to take action on. The only link on this page should be the action you are asking them to take. Anything else that might spark their curiosity will short circuit all the hard work you just spent on writing good copy for an action page. The only exceptions to this are home, disclaimer and privacy page links and perhaps the link to your affiliate program description page. These should be small text links at the very bottom of the page.

Look at a picture showing a representation of internal and external linking?
Internal and External Linking.

Read more niche marketing tips about Linking Strategy  Internal Linking
A How to 'Linking Strategy"  for search engine optimization

Would you like to know more about Niche Market Research Methods and SEO?