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Be very clear with your request for reciprocal linking. After you have thoroughly researched a potential site to ensure they are appropriate and actually do have links to other sites, consider the following:

• Start with a very brief description of your site's content and how it relates to their site.
• Provide the exact URL of their page you think the link would be most beneficial. Show them that you've actually visited the site and given some thought to the link.
• Finally, give the HTML code for the link so the Webmaster can cut and paste it directly into his page code. That gives you some control over the link placement and lets you include your keywords into the link text. (Terry Plank with the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Marketing Consultants)

Take care in crafting your reciprocal links letter. Make sure it's the best it can be before sending it out. Remember, you're asking for a favor (a mutually beneficial favor, but a favor nonetheless), so be polite and respectful in your letter. Otherwise, you'll get nowhere fast. (Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros) Create a “Link Exchange Letter,” requesting a link exchange with your site, to each of the sites you have noted in your list. Make sure you’ve come up with at least 50 good quality content, non-competitive sites with a decent PageRank score of their own to e-mail. (Chris Genge with 1st on the List Promotion Inc.) Example of a Link Exchange Letter from Eric Ward: Hi <name>, my name is Eric Ward. Regarding your AdoptionSolutions.com site at http://www.adoptionsolutions.com/ This month I'm helping the Hallmark Channel (cable TV) announce their new Web site about adoption. The site is the companion site for their real-life TV series "Adoption Stories," which premiers this month (June). Details about the site are below. Please feel free to feature or link to this new content in any way you feel appropriate. By chance is your adoption news section at http://www.adoptionsolutions.com/general/adopt_topics.htm a good fit for it? Also, if you have any questions or need anything feel free to contact me at eric@ericward.com or (865) 637-2438. I'm a real person, not a link request bot :) :) Best wishes, Eric Ward on behalf of The Hallmark Channel Hallmark Channel Site Announcement ---------------------------------- Hallmark Channel Adoption Stories http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/adoption/ Launched in conjunction with this month's premier of the original series about adoption on The Hallmark cable TV Channel. The Web version of Hallmark Channel's series about adoption seeks user input to help end the myths surrounding the adoption process. Share your experiences of an adoption and help others understand the process, the pitfalls and the rewards. Every week, follow the stories of real people as they seek to enrich their lives and fulfill their dreams through adoption. Go online and you can help end the myths surrounding the adoption process. (End of sample letter) The above example is for a non-reciprocal link request, and it resulted in a link being obtained for my client. It could be changed easily to make it a reciprocal link request by adding one sentence that says where you gave them a link. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

Eric Ward founded the Web's first service for announcing, linking, and building buzz for Web sites, back in 1994. His client list is a who's who of online brands. Ward is best known as the person behind the linking campaigns for Amazon.com Books, Weather.com, The Link Exchange, Rodney Dangerfield (Rodney.com), the AMA, and PBS.org. His services won the 1995 Award For Internet Marketing Excellence, and he was selected as one of the Web's 100 most influential people by Websight magazine in 1997. Eric is a 4-star speaker at Jupiter's Search Engine Strategies conferences, and publishes The Ward Report: Link Building and Content Publicity Tactics.