Buying links can take many forms. For instance, you can purchase links on pages that have nothing else on them but links to sites. This is bad. These pages are more than likely link farms, which was covered in-depth earlier.
Paying for links can be extremely beneficial, if you know what you’re doing. In the most traditional sense, paying for links is akin to paying for a display ad in the local newspaper, a commercial on television or a billboard next along a highway. The purpose of these links is to increase your visibility and increase traffic to your site.
For example, if you’re a member of a local chamber of commerce, chances are good that they have a website. Many offer a basic listing as part of your membership and charge you a small additional fee to add your website address to your listing. This is a paid link. The same could be said about a local business that caters to tourism near Yosemite National Park who buys a link on yosemite.com.
Paid links differ from Pay Per Click advertising which we’ll cover next. In contrast to Pay Per Click, a paid link does not charge you every time someone clicks on your listing’s hyperlink. You pay a flat per month or per year fee for having your link on their site.
When determining which sites make a good paid link partner, keep in mind your target audience. Business customers have different needs than consumers and they use different sites. The same could be said for other key demographics. For instance, twenty-somethings use different sites than Baby Boomers or Generation Xers.
Before committing to a paid link, ask the site’s owner to provide you with some data about traffic to the site, pricing, package options and references from other clients who have purchased clicks. If they are reluctant to provide these bits of information, shy away from advertising with that site. If the site were successful, they’d be more than willing to share this information with you.
Be choosy, too. Even a link on a high traffic site can be useless if your target audience isn’t using that site. Keep your potential customer in mind and do the necessary research to find out what sites they use. Then seek out paid listing opportunities on those sites. Paying a $50 linking fee for a site your customers actually frequent is far better than paying $10 each for five sites they never go to.