7 Traits of your Product being Popular and How to Fight It.

It is rather difficult to rank the popularity of your product in the net via some ranks, or traffic, or the number of subscribers. But there are specific traits that immediately tell that your product is a real success on the Internet market. Plus, some tips on how to handle the success, because success quite often brings envy.

In this article I am mostly relying on my personal experience of creating scripts and tools (my latest link exchange script in particular), that is why the popularity traits that I am going to mention are focused on this type of products. Still, I think these traits go really nice not only with scripts, but other types of products as well.

So, you can be sure that your product is really popular if:

1. You see others swapping something to get your script.

If on any forum you see the message saying "I'll swap (or trade) my product/info/membership/etc. for *this product*" - well, you can start opening your celebration bottle of wine. If others are ready to give away something valuable in return for your product, then you have stepped on the road of success.

Don't fight it. Let people get your product. In any case they will need support and only YOU can give them support. This is where you'll convert them to YOUR clients.

2. You get inside hackers' list of cracks.

There are services that promise they can steal any product and give it to you for a cheaper price. If you got to the lists of items that they are offering - it means others are asking them too often about your product, and they had to put you to top list of their hacks.

Don't be scared by hackers. They can't hack everything. And if you want to kill their business, make a free version of your product - no one will pay hackers if people can legally get your product (with your support) for free. Hackers are not volunteers, they like to get paid. If they see you have a free version, they will not waste the time on it.

3. Someone tries to sell your script on eBay.

Well, this planet is full of crappy-minded people. They will always try to make money circumventing the owner.

The solution is simple. Make free version of your product and make "witty Ebay sellers" look like idiots.

4. You see your product as 'not another...'

This is a good trait. If you see that someone tries to sell the product in your niche, mentioning "It's not another ", it means this person agrees that your product is very popular. Because using the name of your product definitely catches the attention of people, and they know about it.

Don't fight it. Only the quality of your product can prove that yours is better. So, focus on quality, don't bark back.

5. Your competitors prove they are better.

If you see that your competitors are doing all possible to prove their product is better - this is very good. Especially when you see your product in their 'comparison lists'.

The same advice - don't fight it; focus on quality. Make sure that when people get to your site they see that your product in head over shoulders above your competitors.

6. JVers are running after you.

No longer you are jumping out of pants to get a JVer. Now they send you emails, showing the advantage of doing a JV with them. They give exclusive commissions, they offer you customized approach, they suggest sign interview with them.

Well, that's great. But don't be too greedy. Pick only those JVers that can bring targeted traffic for your product. Surely you don't want to harass unmotivated people by getting your product. This can create negative emotions about your product and you.

7. Someone tries to junk your site (DDoS attacks and spam "from" your site).

If you are a real pain for your competitors - stay alert: some of them can decide to use black techniques to junk your site. They can make DDoS attack to make your site unavailable (more about DDos here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDoS). Or they can try to send spam from your site, for your site to get listed into as much blacklists and possible.

Well, choose good hosting company. Don't play with hosting resellers. In case of any problems they will have to contact the support of the mother company. Better pay more for hosting, but this will escape you from much pain in the long run.

Summary.

Well, if you are familiar with all these traits from your personal experience - congratulations! The net loves you. You are popular!

Go on, squeeze the best of this success. And now that you made money, don't forget - being rich does not make better than others. You just have bigger opportunities and freedom. Use them wisely.

Target link exchange with magic Search Operator.

Many people start link exchange without real picture of how tough is their niche about link exchange. They build links, and then it turns out that all efforts are wasted, because they underestimated the niche. This search operator will help you to scale the competition level in any niche.

Before I come to details about search operators that are crucial for link exchange, I must mention one important fact - not only backlinks are needed to grab top position in search engines. You must work with content, use reasonable onpage SEO. Do everything possible for your site to become a regular spot for your visitors.

So, don't think of link exchange as some kind of magic pill that you can take and win overnight. Success is about combination of many factors.

But definitely you will need to scale the competition level.

Otherwise you are fighting with illusions.

Many people who want to get top position for their keyphrase do the following: submit "their keyphrase" to Google or other search engine, check how many sites search engine shows for it and scale the chances to success. It's the same to scaling the chances to win in lottery by tossing a coin.

Only search operators can help you to find how much links with anchor you need to build to get top positions for specific keywords or keyphrases. Definition first - search operators are specific query words that have special meaning to search engines. These words/operators modify the search in some way, or even tell search engine to do a totally different type of search.

This search operator is very important for link exchange.

This operator is allinanchor:"your keyphrase" for Google or inanchor:"your keyphrase" for MSN.

This operator shows how much web pages are linked by other site using exactly "your keyphrase" as the anchor text of links.

For example, typing into Google search allinanchor:"car loans" will show you all web pages that are linked by other sites with the phrase "car loans" used as anchor text in these links.

Why is it important for link building? Because this operator shows you how much REAL competitors you will have in the niche. Very often when analyzing the niche at first it seemed that I had to fight dozens of thousands of sites. But when checking how many sites are really linked with my future anchor, it turned out I had to fight some lousy 400-500 web sites. And it is much easier than 30,000 or 100,000 or more.

Now, before starting link exchange on any keyword or keyphrase, check the competition. I guarantee that many people just pass by golden niches, because they think it's impossible to get top position there. And my clients, friends and me personally enjoy nice positions. Just because we use search operators to see the perspective.

Link Exchange Tools - 3 Factors 2 check BEFORE Buying.

3 necessary factors to check before purchasing any link exchange script, software or join any link exchange program, membership. With these 3 quality factors you can be sure that you will use quality link exchange solution on your web sites.

Link exchange market is very huge these days. And find something worthy on this market is not an easy job. On the other hand, it is evident that many aspects of link building can be automated without any loss to quality and it is not wise to lose a chance of using good solution that can save much time, efforts and money on link building.

OK, how NOT to get junked
when buying any link exchange tool?

To be ready to choose a professional tool, you must understand what factors to take into account and why these factors are so crucial.

FACTOR 1.

Your link exchange tool (script, software) must automatically build professional, SEO-boosted link exchange directory.

Of course, the value of links is not only in SEO, but losing the chance to get higher in search rankings is the same to wasting huge potential. That is why when link exchange solution is automatically adding relevant content to link pages, is automatically naming URLs of categories with your keywords, is automatically using keywords in meta - the chances for success with this type of pages is much bigger. Search engines love when good links are blended into good, relevant content.

FACTOR 2.

Your link exchange tool must use REAL, viable partner-finding algorithm.

Otherwise you will see all possible junk among your partners. Hint: simple search on keyword in search engines will not help; many sites misrepresent, others don't know how to present their sites. All this will result in sports sites in your investment link exchange directory.

Surely, the relevancy of link partners needs to invent special partner-finding algorithm from the inventors of link exchange solutions, but heck if they are inventors - they will do it. If they cannot - they are cloning the tools that are already outdated and left in the previous century.

FACTOR 3.

Link exchange tool must automate everything possible.

Or you are buried with work. You will hate link exchange, and without doing link exchange on regular basis your competitors will eat you.

It makes me laugh when the vendors are saying that you'll have everything automated and when it comes down to using their tools - you do routine copy&paste, copy&paste, etc. Or when you need to create each category of your link directory manually.

Surely, not everything can be automated. But if you scale it, you will see that with good programming a big part of this job can be automated with no loss to quality. If you buy the tool, it should automate. Otherwise it is better just to buy link building services when other people do this job for you.

Summary.

With these factors you are much more prepared to estimate the quality of link exchange scripts and software. But this is not all.

Last hint: before purchasing any tool, try to find out how exactly the link pages that are created by this tool look.

If you just see a typical pile of links, especially when there are no keywords in URLs of categories/subcategories and not keywords in title, and no automated + unique content - think twice. Perhaps you are looking at the tool of 20th century.

If you see that sites that use this tool look nice and have made some achievements in their niches - chances for you to get the same success are also very high.

Don't lose hope; there are good solutions on the market. And now you know what to look at before buying them. So, you are well-armed.

P.S. You can test this free link exchange tool for quality without paying a cent for it.

Digg and its searching function

No one disputes that Digg.com is a perfect service - my personal opinion it is one of the best services in its industry, and I will not only closely work watch its growth, but also will definitely participate in it actively.

But I think Digg has come to the stage when they need to take extra expenses to grow. Otherwise the effect from it will not grow to the limit I see.

My experience is that around 70-80% of times I tried to use the search function on the site I was getting sad message, something like "we are experiencing huge traffic , so try searching a bit later."

Surely this will not stop me to use the service, but I already passed the primitive stage of using Digg to publish my stories and get traffic.

I got addicted to Digg.

And search became very important for me. I think for many users as well.

And I am sure Digg needs this type of addicted visitors as well, because we are loyal visitors.

Thats is why it's crucial for Digg to come to new server capacities - they are destined to think about the future.

My Suggestion:

Post reply to this message OR digg my story OR contact Digg directly and ask for this improvement. I think when they see that the amount of people who starve from not using their service in the full scale is BIG, they will take this step faster.

And all of us we will enjoying to use the new level of service.

Link Exchange Script - Available for FREE Testdrive.

New link exchange algorithm is released for your testing.

The new algorithm bypasses old-fashioned procedure of sending beggy emails to webmasters and facing the problem of 90% of these emails being sent to trash bin.

The new algorithm is blended with advanced link exchange directory script that automatically builds directory and packs the pages with SEO-wise content.

You can test the workability of this new algorithm for free at your convenience.

Get Link Exchange Script (Software)
for Free Testdrive & Usage

Link Exchange Myths: Relevancy, Trust Rank and Page Rank.

Link exchange and its success are bound by the rules that are set by search engines. On the surface everything is simple - they say to exchange links with relevant sites and you will succeed.

But if you dig dipper, you will see that relevancy is a tricky issue. And definitely search engines can't rely on it - otherwise they can be in big trouble. Understanding this search engines tend to introduce more factors to quality the links. And this is the topic of this article.

Relevancy.

Let's handle the relevance of sites first. Ok, you have a forex brokerage site and link to forex trading system site; everything is good and clear for search engines. But life is much beyond simple relevancy of niches. For example, you have a business training site and part of the info you want to share can be yoga site that teaches people to get rid of stress. Is it normal for your business? Surely! Stress is part of the business and knowing how to kill stress is very helpful, and it definitely is very logical to give your site visitors a chance to learn that as well. But business and yoga/health are absolutely different niches. And I am not sure search engines with the help of their automated algorithms will get much into the details of your site. They can think "business and yoga, hmm" - do YOU know what decision they will take? I don't, because cannot talk on behalf of search engines.

My example with business & yoga was just an example. I am sure if you think of it, you will find thousands of other examples when everything is logical, but dangerous in the terms of usual relevancy.

Surely the tech gurus from Google and other search engines also know that. And I am sure they smart, because seems that they don't rely on relevancy only with qualifying link exchange to be good or bad.

This is when we come to new trend rumored by around Google.

Trust Rank.

What is it? Something new? Well, no one can say if it exists in reality, but rumors and proofs speak for it. So, seems like Google has given to the line of reputable, famous sites an extra status of being trusted. These sites have good history and provide quality info. Google is not naming these sites (it will kill the whole concept), but getting a backlink from these sites, even if the site is not relevant, will not cause any problems.

This sounds logical. Think of it, if USAToday.com links to site about shoeshine with news about it - no problems I think. Surely news site and shoeshine site are not the same niche, but USAToday.com is a trusted resource.

Another example: I adore Answers.com - very good service that I use daily. When you search for some words, together with perfect explanations (that's why I love this service!), they also serve Sponsored Links. And these links are very often not relevant. I remember searching 'patronage' and saw a dummy, automatically generated AdSense site with NO content, just Google boxes in the center and automatic phrases with this word in left column. They change these sponsored links all the time, but reloading page for a number of time showed: directory for wedding dresses, buttercup's boutique, etc.

Not a glimpse of relevance. Still, answers.com don't suffer from linking to irrelevant sites. I don't dispute the way this service makes money; the core of the service is super and I don't care for the rest. But if Google would be automatically penalizing for irrelevant linking - that will be a problem for answers.com - and they exist successfully.

Why? Because Google and other search engines understand that answers.com is a great service and this service helps Internet searchers to find good info. So, they trust this service and give bigger freedom in other things - it's normal.

So, we are coming to a new factor - trust rank which is also very important in link building. And I can suggest that getting backlink from irrelevant, but highly trusted site is not a problem.

How to find a trusted site? Can't give you exact answer. But you can use the same logics of search engines. If you see this site has long Internet history, site provides very good info in its niche, has many pages indexed - go ahead to get your backlink on it.

Page Rank.

Many webmasters say that Google Page rank is a waste. I don't think so. Otherwise people will no be paying big money to get a backlink from PR 7 and higher pages. On the other hand, I understand that Page Rank has become a big target for manipulations.

That is why for me Page Rank is not a decisive factor in the questions of exchanging/not exchanging links with a site. If I see a fresh site with PR 0, but I see this site has a good offer and this will do good to my site visitors - I link to it. Who knows, maybe with time I will be thanking the sky for the idea to look to this site when they reach PR 10 ;) Good site means good traffic means - I win. Plus good site is very likely to become trusted, if its owners will not junk their link building.

What to trust?

My experience says - keep the eyes opened. If you work with the content on your site, if you don't speed up on link building, if you don't feel greedy - you have a bigger freedom. Instead of being afraid of relevancy, you have a bigger field to play.

And stay reasonable. If it gives real value to your visitors - you will benefit.

New Way of Getting Link Partners.

Shortcut to your link partners.

Many people lost hope in link exchange because they tried to gather partners by sending them begging link exchange emails. I am convinced that you tried the old way.

Old Way.

Usually it goes this way. You put keyword into search line of Google, get amazed with the number of sites it found for you, then you click all that sites, pick emails and send messages saying your site is good, and they are in the same niche, that is why exchanging links can bring advantages to both of you, yada-yada-yada.

I oversimplified the email. Some of the emails I got were really good and grabbed my attention for a few seconds. But you know, being frank, 90% of these emails go directly to the trash bin. If you manage to get over 10% level with this type of email begging - you are very successful. So many efforts and such lousy conversions! Who knows how much people out of those 10% who opened your link exchange email will exchange links with you. With these results no wonder people lose any hope for link building.

The problem is not link exchange. The problem is crazy high competition on this market and one and the same overspammed procedure that most of the people do to gather link partners. Get into the shoes of site owner who runs 5 reputable sites (5 isn't much, good taxi driver can afford having much more). So, you have 5 web sites, and every day you get 10-50 emails for each site saying, "Hello, my site is in your niche, etc." At first, you review each email, check if the site is relevant, fuss with all that manual work. After a week, you feel like being torn to pieces with your 5 sites. In two weeks you look at the emails with very tired eyes, and sometimes delete even good sites. And don't forget that a big volume of emails you get have irrelevant sites.

So, you see, this is not about you. This is about the whole procedure. Those who have several sites just cannot handle all this traditional routine. And statistically a person with one successful site, makes another; so if you will be heading for link exchange with reputable sites, most probably you are contacting a person who controls a lot more than 5 sites. Imagine how much begging link exchange email this person is getting daily!!

Your chances to get 'yes' and exchange links are falling down like the water from Niagara.

New Way.

I offer you to shift the concept. Don't use these begging emails; they stink. With advanced partner-finding algorithm you can go to the sacred fields where the sites are super motivated for link exchange.

No miracles or magic pills. Just ask yourself a question "How can I know that the site is motivated for link exchange and is very apt to make link exchange almost instantly?" Well, if the site is running good link exchange directory, and if the site is offering people an option to automate this process - you are heading the right way.

You don't even imagine how many web sites in almost all imaginable niches are using automated solutions that welcome relevant sites-partners for link exchange. But only relevant sites, because those who make the junk approach and try to spam sites in all niches will suffer sad consequences of this ill-minded tactics.

However, if you care about relevancy, the results can sound really fantastic. Imagine seeing some of the partners exchanging links with you almost instantly, in a matter of 15-20 minutes! Others take longer time, but again, this is about hours, some will take days. But the conversions are 50-60% from the contacted sites. With some niches I was reaching up to 80% conversions.

Plus the sites are not only relevant; you are exchanging links with web sites that are nicely fitting into the picture of search engines, and most of them have Google PR from 3 to 7; surely it's not only about PR, but would you disagree to have relevant sites-partners with nice PR?

Still, this strategy has two drawbacks. First of all, you need to find the searching algorithm that will pick you sites with automated link building solutions and will put aside the irrelevant sites.

Another problem is that you will need to do much manual work: copy, paste, check if your links are still there, put all RSS feeds and submit them every time new link is added, etc.

This is where I proudly can say that all this, and much more got automated in a very smart tool - Free Auto Link Exchanger. I will not waste your time on promo and features, just want to say that everything that could be automated was automated, and now you know the name of this tool.

Why is this new way link building an alternative?

Because this strategy gives new chance to all those who have just built their sites. I know that if your site has good content and gives real value to the visitors, sooner or later people will hear about your site and will link to it.

But do you know how much time it might take? You will be jumping out of pants with article and press release marketing; you will be spreading buzz on niche forums, submitting to directories. And only then, with time, you will see effect from it. If you are not a famous Internet marketer with big list of users or if you don't have passionate JVers who will spread the rumor about your site round the globe - you can wait for months before others will stand in line to link to your site.

Are you ready to wait? :(

With the strategy I described you just get a shortcut to relevant sites that are waiting to get good link partner. All things about relevancy of partners and good content on your site remain crucial and important. But what is different is that you get directly to the directories without shameful begging. They do not get your email asking for link exchange, they already see your site pending in their line. All they need is approve. And if you pick relevant sites, most of them will approve. I was not kidding when mentioned 80% conversions.

This can be done both manually and automatically - it doesn't matter. The most important is that now you know where exactly to search for the secret gardens. And if you pick keywords wisely, very soon you will see the fruits. I was helping one owner of turnkey sites, and when in a matter of days she saw her standard turnkey site on 2nd page in MSN for 'one celebrity name hot photo', that was a nice surprise.

It works. But don't think of it as of some magic pill. This will ruin everything. You WILL need to build a site with real content; you WILL need to work on your site and give your site visitors quality experience.

Link Exchange Partners BAITING with Index Page.

It is really possible to bait lots of potential link exchange partners with one simple option. When you email your potential link partners or call by phone or post an offer in the niche forum tell one magic phrase - "I will put your link not only inside my link directory but also on the index page of my site."

With this magic phrase you are immediately out of the crowd. Wow, the great index page! Sure they will like to get their link on an index page of the relevant site and WILL exchange links with you.

But there is one big HOW.

How are you going to put all that links on your index page?!

Before you have some decent 20-30 links it is easy. But what about 50 or 100 or more? Putting them all on your index page will look like a barbaric disaster in terms of design and SEO.

The solution to this problem is really simple.

Put the block of “Recently Added Links” on your home page. Actually, it doesn't matter how exactly you name it. It can be “Latest Internet Marketing Links” or “Fresh Diving Resources.” The most important is the idea of displaying the block of latest 5 or 10 or 20 links that have been added to your link exchange directory.

Surely it is not the same to getting a permanent index page links. But hey, there is nothing permanent in this world today, even weather changes. However if you do link building reasonably your link building speed is not very quick (see another thread in this blog about link building speed and possible problems). So with moderate link building speed the link of recently added link partner will stay on your site for 7-10 days. And from my experience search engine bots visit my index pages and cache it regularly, so the backlink of your link partner will get snapped by bots on your index page - exactly what your link partners will love to get.

This means at the very beginning of building links you give your link partner a significant advantage - great startup bonus of free index page in addition to normal link in the category page of your directory.

The most important - don't lie them saying you will give a permanent link on the index page. When they ask, explain the picture.

And make sure to use other important factors like relevant content on the categories with links, RSS feeds, and direct links from index page to categories where your link partners will have their link for long and other vital link building package elements. Show them that You over deliver.

And the latest issue. Adding recently added links manually is not interesting. But this is not a big problem. You can search the Internet and find many link building tools that already have this feature automated, this is normal for link building solutions these days. You can even setup them with the number of how exactly recently added links will be displayed and automate their pasting on index page.

Don't waste your time - give your link partners advantage and use the increased response.

Non Link Exchange Experience: Domain Registrar ALERT!

Your link exchange activity and other web site promotion efforts can go in vain if you miss this info and do not protect yourself from possible problems.

While re-reading the Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Manuscript the weird info popped up. It turns out that a very famous domain name registrar GoDaddy.com according to Mike's words "...do not use Godaddy.com to host your domain name. They are the only service I know that will take ownership of your domain if you get a spam complaint."

This quote provoked a heated discussion and many Internet marketers approve of problematic experience with this registrar.

On the surface if you do not spam anyone you can feel safe.

Can you really feel safe?

The safety is really superficial. If you are selling anything on your site and have affiliates - this can be a problem. You cannot control your affiliates and if someone is crazy enough to use spam as the promotion strategy - your domain is in trouble.

Another problem is that if you do link building the old way and send webmasters emails asking to exchange links with you, this is also kind of a spam. You can step on a webmaster that has a bad day and he/she sends a spam compliant - hence, domain in trouble.

This goes even worse, because under this scheme it is really easy to kill or put into a long knockout any business. Malicious 3rd parties can simply spam people pretending they do it as a promotion of a business. And if this business is registered under the mentioned service - your domain gets to prison. If you are persistent and can prove you are clear - surely they will turn the domain back. But imagine how much time will pass!

What is the way out?

Recommendations. Only real human experience can help. You can go to very famous online communities where big Internet marketers are spending their time and ask for help.

Recommended Communities:

Internet Marketing Forum

Webmasters' Community

Earners Forum

Go there. Registration is free. And they take no money for posting your questions - even more, they answer.

Link Exchange Speed - Google's Attitude.

Not only the relevancy and credibility of sites-partners are taken into account during link exchange. It is proven that speed of link building is one of the factors that can either boost or ruin the ranks of a web site. Especially the speed of link exchange is becoming an important factor with brand new sites.

The value of speed factor became important, because today professional solutions can fully automate the process of finding relevant link partners, real trusted web sites, and get links on these sites quite quickly. This speed can reach hundreds of links on relevant sites EVERY DAY. Certainly, as the level of automation in link building has reached such immense level, only the greediness and reasonability remain as factors that can restrain too passionate site owner from getting thousands of good links quickly.

Link exchange experience shows that Google has introduced the greedy-proof factor.

When brand new web site grows with too much link partners (even relevant link partners) within a short interval of time, this automatically triggers a red flag for Google. And search engine becomes more suspicious about the behaviour of this site which can affect proper ranking of the site, even despite a big number of quality backlinks.

The speed factor was also partially confirmed by Matt Cutts on his personal blog when Matt describing one case said that due to big link migration Google's flag was triggered and this flag had to be manually removed.

The link building experience performed by DesktopMoney Ltd team shows that staying under 100 links per week with professional link exchange automating solutions is more than safe, because this is a normal manual speed of handling the links. Surely, all other factors like relevancy and credibility of potential sites-partners remain critical too. Still the speed of 100 links per week is an approximate number, because Google may change this factor in future. However, lowering the speed of link building would stop all online business from link exchange which is natural and normal of doing online business in the net.

Link Exchange: Make Links Feel Cozy On Your Site.

You have seen this many times before: you get to a site, want to search more, click 'Links' or 'Resources' and get to the page where all links are piled together and you just feel lost about it. As a site visitor you don't feel that the owner of this site or webmaster has done any effort to give you the best. Bad visitor experience = very bad for search engines, and they start fighting the pages with piles of links.

Still, link exchange is a vital element of the Internet and no one can prohibit it, because without a possibility of one site to recommend another site the whole Internet loses its major aim - share information with people.

Those who want to succeed with link building should should exercise the new philosophy to allocating links on the pages of their link directories. Nothing difficult. Just try to remember where you had the best experience of using link resources. Most probably that were the sites where you were explained what exactly kind of info you will get by clicking this or that link. Thus you were pre-qualified to see what you will get by clicking this or that link. And, of course, it was great for you to find extra useful information on this page that has real relevance to the topic you are searching.

Having analyzed this experience it's really easy to create an algorithm of building cozy environments for any links on link directory pages.

These elements can bring the life back to your link exchange directory pages.

(1) Unique content.

It is better when every category of your directory starts with few paragraphs that explain your site visitors what exactly they will find here. Prepare them for the searching experience in this category. Focus attention on the things they should care about (like using search boxes in the directory). You can also explain what criteria you have been using to select the links into this category. This will save time to your site visitors on searching what they are looking for. And also this will show that you CARE for your site visitors, and people love to see respect and care. And for search engines it will be perfect to see another page with your unique, relevant content.

(2) More sources of relevant information.

Make each page of your site soak with relevant information. For example, in your link directory you have category about pot flowers. Put the download link to pdf file with tips around this topic. No matter where you put it on the page - you take the decisions about your site and your online business. People will love to see that you tried the best to give them maximum of relevant info. That can be not only files, you can give people relevant news and/or press releases from reputable resources. But mind for relevancy. If one is searching for pot flowers, the news about democratic party winning in some country would not give much passion to this page.

(3) Visualize your directory.

This isn't brand new, but when you see a screenshot to the site, or see its Google PR or see its Alexa rank - somehow all these elements help your link page visitor to make a more qualified choince. Of course, if your link don't have all these elements, but are relevant, you will survive and have success, because you are still giving your site visitors quality resources. But if there is any chance to save the time for site visitor and help in choosing the resources, don't lose this chance. Your helping efforts will result in this page being added to *favorites* and you will be receiving stable traffic.

(4) Use Sitemaps and RSS feeds.

Using Sitemap and RSS feeds will not help your site visitors in the first hand. But IT WILL help. With Sitemaps and RSS feeds you help search engines to find new materials on your site. Thus, you help your potential site visitors find these new materials.

Link exchange is so DIFFICULT?!

Well, if you want to comply with the new standards, you need to put some effort. If you prefer the old style, then don't get surprised to fight constantly for top positions in search engine results and never see your site there. Either you obey to the search engine rules, or look for traffic from another pot.

And again, nothing difficult. In the 21st century much of the routine jobs that are mentioned can be done by restless robots - computer programs. They will help you to build link directory pages, they will help to allocate the resources to the places you want, they will help to update your page with relevant materials and will let search engines know that these materials are up and running on your site - the field for smart automation is really big. All YOU need caring about is the human part of work: how to grow your business, what to focus on, what information is ok and what is losing interest and driving the people off your pages. Do what humans are destined to do, and the rest can be put on the shoulders of restless robots.