If you own a website, you know the importance of a good quality link exchange with another website. If you own a website and don’t know the importance of a good quality link, you should probably do some reading up on it. Reciprocal links can be managed manually where you open a text editor, add the link to your links page and upload the modified file to your server. Reciprocal links can be added to a page dynamically using a content management system. Most of us, though, use some kind of scripting that automates our reciprocal link management. A few of the great features of reciprocal link management programs are url validation, automated email capabilities, unlimited categories and sub-categories, the list goes on.

At CAD Website Design, we have a link exchange management program that requires a reciprocal link back from the requesting website. We have examined what would be a good quality link and have set our criteria for a successful link exchange as follows;

1. Links directory must be accessible from the index/front page of your website or no more than 1 click deep.
2. Website must be a quality website offering good content.
3. Your site theme should be website design, development, hosting, programming, etc.
4. The reciprocal URL must not employ no-follow attributes.
5. No link farms.
6. No third party off site link management programs (linksmanager.com, etc…)
7. Links pages must be part of original requesting URL (http://www.yourdomain.com/resources (or /links, etc…)
Do not submit site “abc” then request us to link to site “def”.
8. We do not exchange links with porn, mortgage, pharmacy, casino, lottery or other type websites.
9. The link back to our site must be as shown below.

Website Design - CAD Website Design offers professional unique website design, database programming, search engine optimization and site hosting at great prices.

Now, the above requirements for a reciprocal link don’t seem out of line to me. We want the links to be relevant, reciprocal, and accessible to a spider. No JavaScript tricks, and don’t try to hoard PR by using no-follow attributes. We don’t want to exchange links with potential spammers or bad neighborhoods either. I would venture a guess that many of you have a link exchange criteria like this one.

Even though we have spelled out the requirements for a good quality link exchange, we get a bunch of spammy, deceitful reciprocal link requests. So you’re probably asking what’s spammy about a reciprocal link request? I have a form on my website for people to submit a link request, so how can it be spammy? Here’s how.

1.The Gilligan’s Island Link Request. This is where your reciprocal link requester has set up a page on their server with a link back to your website expecting you to link back to them. Typically, these are plain white pages without any kind of template with a bunch of links thrown on them. If you strip the url of the link page to the base url, you wont find a link to that page anywhere on the site. You won’t find it under resources, partners, links, or even in their site map. That page with the link back to your site is an island and no one is going to find those links there, not even the search engine spiders. An example of one of these Gilligan’s Island pages can be found at dartdebt.com/dir/category/comp1.3.htm. The link request submitter is hoping that your reciprocal link checking is automated and that as long as your program sees that there is a page with a link back to your site, it will be approved.

2. Invasion Of The Link Snatchers. This one is pretty clever, but it still violates #7 of our requirements above. These link requesters are finding websites that link to our site that we have exchanged links with, or links from sites that may be 1 way links into our site. They will submit their url for a link back while offering up the link that they found that already links back to us. They are Link Snatching. Once again, I believe this is a ploy used in the hopes that your reciprocal linking is automated, or that you aren’t paying attention, and will approve the link based on the fact you can verify the reciprocal url they submitted to you. The funniest one of these was when the link spammer submitted a link back from one of the websites that we created

3. 1 Site Fits All. I often get reciprocal link requests from the same group of off shore developers. Apparently, these guys own more websites than they know what to do with. 1 thing that they have done is set up 1 giant links directory database using url aliasing to point to their 1 links directory. This one is used in conjunction with the Gilligan’s Island Link Request up above. Here are a few of my favorites;
deepakbansal.com/direc/comp1.htm
clearpathtechnology.com/direc/comp1.htm
bestloanson.com/res/dir/comp1.htm

You may have seen some of these slight of hand link exchange requests. You may have even named them yourself. My point is this. Do yourself a favor and take a look at the link requester and where they say they have put your link. Make sure they are actually reciprocating. Reciprocal link exchanges are great for networking, building community, increasing traffic, and the obvious seo benefit. Also, if you would be interested in a reciprocal link exchange with us, all we ask is that you follow the rules above.

Website Pricing
Every day, we receive about 5 web development quotation requests. Every day, we work to put together a quotation based on value of service using a cost per hour model without giving our potential client sticker shock. We take a great deal of items into consideration when preparing a quotation including the laundry list of features and amenities requested for a website.

Template Design
First and foremost is the quoted cost for the custom template design. The actual look and feel of your website is key to insuring your customer/visitor has the best possible browsing experience. The core of your site will be designed and laid out using best practices with emphasis on SEO to present your business to the visitor in a manner that reflects your professional image and brand. Equally important is usability. The easier it is for the visitor to use your website, the greater the chance of converting them into a customer and increasing the chances of repeat business. The process for designing a custom web template includes;

• Research into a particular field.
• Phone consultation.
• Current trends and color analysis.
• Graphical compositions produced in Photoshop or Fireworks.
• Possible Flash development.
• Providing 2 concepts for customer review and possible revisions.
• Template splicing of approved template for load time optimization and usability.
• CSS/XHTML production in standards-compliant fashion.
• Additional bell-and-whistle functionality to meet client requirements.
• Unique CSS/XHTML adaptation/integration to web based platform of choice.

The entire template design process can take anywhere from 40 to 60 hours not including consultation time or potential revisions.

We also take into account the current market cost per hour for professional graphic design. Based on our research, we have set our own pricing at $120.00 per hour.

We have also done extensive research online and have consulted with other designers to arrive at our pricing model for professional graphic design as it applies to web development. One such source is a blog entry posted at http://www.pearsonified.com/2006/06/how_much_should_a_design_cost.php and designing custom templates for blogs is currently somewhere between $1800.00 to $5000.00.

Another article from Ezine.com located at http://ezinearticles.com/?Standard-Rates-For-Graphic-Design&id=429015 states that custom graphic design can get up as high as $160.00 per hour with 3-D design costing upwards of $250.00 per hour.

Based on the time needed to design the template, our standard cost per hour, and a survey of other pricing models, we have priced our custom template design at $2,900.00.

Database Development
Web development consists of more than just graphic design. There is often a need to produce dynamically generated content or a need to interact with site visitors using blogs, forums, polls surveys, etc. Often, our clients need the ability to populate and manage a secure online shopping cart while selling their goods or services. While we have modular applications to handle most of our clients needs, we often find the need to develop custom programming to achieve the desired functionality for our clients. Once again, we employ an hourly pricing model and have arrived at a rate of $120.00 per hour for all PHP and MySQL programming.

Rough Web Design Pricing
Often, we are asked to “shoot” someone a rough price for design/development of their site based on x criteria. The information below is to be used only as a guideline before making an inquiry for quotation and should not be used for actual quotation purposes. The pricing below does not reflect custom features, real estate management, etc.

Custom Template Design
Starts at $2,900.00

Business Informational Site with Custom Template Design and PHP/MySQL based CMS
$3,500.00 to $10,000.00+

Business E-Commerce Site with Custom Template Design and PHP/MySQL based Shopping Cart
$5,500.00 to $10,000.00+

Business E-Commerce Site with Custom Template Design and PHP/MySQL CMS with Secure Shopping Cart
$6,500.00 to $10,000.00+

If you are still reading this article and would like us to quote a solid, professional website backed with exemplerary customer service, then please contact us or submit a quotation request. We would be happy to submit a quotation to you within 24 hours.