I have a website that has been around for awhile, but just recently I restructured the whole site, added a bunch more content, and cleaned it up a lot. Because it was crappy for so long, the PR is zero. Now, I'd like to start working on getting a page rank, and know the best way to do that is by having other sites link to me. The problem, for me, how do I ask an established site to exchange links with me? Why would a site with a higer PR ever want to provide a link back to my low PR site? What am I missing? I have a link exchange program on my site but all of the high PR sites I added manually, just because the are related to my site, and I wanted to provide the content to my visitors. How do I get some sites with higher PR to join my exchange program?
Don't be afraid to ask. Email higher PR sites. Figure out how you can offer something to them which is beneficial not only to you but them also. If you cannot come up with anything, you probably have nothing. Kiss arse in emails, tell webmasters how great their sites are and how much love you have for them. Say you have found their site as a valuable resource and feel it would benefit your users. When I get emails full of compliments, I look on them considerably more favourably than simple "wanna swap links" emails. ALso be personal, if you know someones name, use it, use their url and examples of what areas of their site you like and why. If you add sites manually to your directory, click them a few times so the other site will (hopefully) pick up that you are sending them traffic from their stats. Some webmasters like to share the love. If someone helps me with a link, I personally would like to return the favour. This is how alot of my partnerships have started.
Thanks for the suggestions. I've been sending a few personalized emails here and there, and I've got some links back. Some people are ****'s but that's to be expected I suppose.