It’s debatable whether buying text links will help or hurt your web site. I personally feel that text link buying is a just another form of advertising, like banner advertising or affiliate marketing, so I don’t believe it will hurt web sites.

As with any type of advertising, selecting your target audience is vital. I always say it’s hard, if not impossible, to sell apples to someone looking for oranges, so always advertise on web sites that are in the same theme as yours.

There’s three basic ways of buying text links.

1. Approach the web site yourself
2. Go through a brokerage
3. Get a promotion/search engine optimization company to do it for you

1. Approach the web site yourself

Firstly, make sure the web site you are approaching is in the same theme as your web site. Send them an email detailing your requirements, use the advertising email or contact form if the web site has one. Include

• the name and url of your web site
• what page you want to advertise on
• the anchor text you would like to use
• the length of your advertising campaign

Remember to ask about the cost of advertising and any discounts which may apply, for example, for a longer subscription length.

You can then negotiate until both you and the seller agree on a price for the text link advertising.

2. Go through a brokerage

The advantage of a brokerage is that they offer many different web sites across many different themes, so you’re bound to find a web site suitable to advertise on.

One of the disadvantages of text link brokers is that many don’t let you shop around as easily. They often use web site ID numbers instead of giving you the web site name. This forces you to contact the broker for more details about the web site. Many text link brokers hide the web site’s identity to protect themselves from buyers simply visiting the web site and by-passing the broker, the broker then misses out on their 30% piece of the pie. Brokers will often say that they don’t reveal the web site to protect the buyer / seller from being identified as a text link buyer / seller. As I mentioned above, text link buying is just another form of advertising, so why hide it unless you’re doing something fishy.

Zann Marketing is affiliated with the text link brokerage, PaidTextLinks.com. We like their service because links go live pretty much instantly (within 3 hours) and their prices are very reasonable. They also have Precision links which are even more affordable, I mean, getting a link for as little as $1 per month is almost ridiculous!

3. Get a promotion/search engine optimization company to do it for you

Using search engine optimization (SEO) firms can be greatly beneficial, if you can afford them. They can give you tips on how to improve your web site and they can even take care of much of the promotion for you. This may include text link buying and link exchanges. This can take much of the frustration of site promotion off your hands.

SEO firms would generally have good to excellent knowledge on how to promote your web site. There are many more aspects to web site promotion than just buying links, and using the expertise and experience of a SEO firm may get the results you’re looking for.