- Don't request stupid trades. If you request a Big Tits link from a site in the Mainstream Category, you run a good chance of being blocked permanently by that user. The same goes for PR value, don't request a link on a pr4, 10 yr old site, and only have your new, not even cached rss fed blog as a option for recip.
- Categorize your domains PROPERLY. You will get many more quality requests if you have all your domains set into proper categories.
- Have sites available for trades. You are certainly missing out on Linkspuns value if you have all of your sites set to hidden. You want to be able to offer out links to get some. Sending out 50 requests and only having one domain/site to trade with is going to get you most likely about 40-45 denials.
- Try to cover as many categories as you can with your domains/sites. Find pages on your site(s) that are Schoolgirl, teen, handjobs, pornstars, foot fetish, etc etc and ADD them to the proper categories. The goal is to be listed in as many categories as possible, which increases the webmasters browsing your profiles, and domains. You can easily go from 4-5 requests a day to 15-20 a day with a good strategy and enough eyeballs seeing your sites every day.
- Log in everyday, even if you don't have time to trade, hit the site to refresh your last login and keep you on top of search and category results. This also will increase your requests and drive you more links.
- HIDE your main sites you DON'T want requests to. The sites that you don't offer links on, or don't want to add links on, save yourself and us some time and set them to HIDDEN. These pages still get tracked, and get spidered, they just aren't viewable by other users to request from. Advanced users will understand this and now how to best utilize the Hidden feature on certain pages.
- Add links promptly when a trade is in Set Up Trades list, if you were the last to approve, you're next move should be to add links not just hit accept and wait for them. If it's good on both sides, add the link. If we all as a whole did this links would go up must faster instead of a 'stalemate' of waiting for the other party to add.
- Learn the site features and how to use them. Learn to use the sortable tables in trades search to sort your lists by the most important thing you are after. You can sort by Outbound Links, then HOLD SHIFT, click PageRank, and it will list out the domains sorted 1st by Outbounds, then sort them, by Page Rank as well. Do a couple 'stacked trades' and see how that works, and how you can save some time when looking for lots of links.
- Be flexible yet firm in your trade strategy. Come up with a plan to generate X trades a day/week/month and follow up with it. Have you main sites and feeder sites out there for people to see. Go after the amount of links you want and set yourself up to get the maximum # of incoming requests (more links, less work for you)
- Link Bait baby, add/build quality feeders SPECIFICALLY for trading links. Use handwrote blogs, properly laid out/designed tgp's, or even free sites. You can build a page/site/blog for every category here in a few days to a week. Even if you let them 'stew' for awhile until they are decently spidered and have some PR/age, its money in the bank.
- Audit your Active Trades list every month/couple months. Go through and look for obvious 'unequal' trades and send a message/comment to that user explaining what's wrong (ie his has 800 outbounds and you have 15, or your PR 4 regularly updating, busy site is linking in trade for a rss fed pr GREY garbage) and drop the links. It's not always cool to just dump trades, but if they are unequal and not fair, do it right and send a message explaining and drop the trade. Most REAL webmasters will understand. Offer them to request a replacement trade that is equal.
- Don't add 600 pages from same website to the same Category. This is bad for you for one main reason. Everytime someone loads that category they have to go past 600 of your URL's to see what else is listed. This ends one way, they Block you, and can then see the results properly. Getting blocked by users is going to cut into your links bottom line.
- Use the comment system. If you want to propose a specific trade, or want a specific type of trade, take advantage of the ability to speak with the other user BEFORE they accept/deny the trade. Any comments are displayed high enough on the page that they have to see them before accepting or denying. Increase your request return by letting them know of any special things you want or offer.
- Build a reputation and favorites list. Add trades quickly, respond to comments promptly, post on these boards and become part of the community. You want to trade with successful webmasters and you want them linking to you. Become 'that user' that always acts quickly and effectively and the other users will recognize it and remember it. After awhile your incoming requests will be very high.
- Try not to be an asshole. Don't really need to go to far into this one
I'll be adding some stuff to this list over the next few days, I figured it was good enough to go up in 'rough draft' on the forums here. If anyone has anything to add on their own please feel free.
Educating some of the lesser knowledgeable or inexperienced traders will benefit us all as a whole and bring up the quality to all our sites. I've often said "this sure isn't rocket science", and really, it isn't.
