Why do we have Links pages on web sites?
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought they were there to provide visitors with useful sites that they might wish to visit for further information.
You might wonder why I am even talking about links pages, but you see I realised some time ago that the links and banners pages on my web site are possibly the least visited pages that I have.
Of course SEO specialists will tell you that you need to get lots of links into your site to get its rankings up with the search engines, which is probably why no one visits them these days, because as you will probably know, the 'link system' is reciprocal. A 'You show me yours and I'll show you mine' type of thing. So some web site owners and SEO's go all out for getting lots of links from totally irrelevant sites and these days our wiley surfers know this, so they don't bother to visit the 'Links' page that someone, in this case, me has constructed.
Naurally my links page is based on the same idea, but with one BIG exception, my links and banners are relevant to the rest of my site.
In case you didn't know already, my site is there to publicise the fact that I have a gay-owned and run guesthouse for independent , (those that have wisely organised there own holiday without using an agent), gay and lesbian, travellers to Crete, Greece. So you see the links on my pages are to gay resources, inside and outside of Greece, and other useful information, and many of them are one ended links.
That is, there are no reciprocal links.
Sounds altruistic doesn't it? Well maybe it is, but on the other hand it puts information that my visitors might find useful, in front of them with the click of a mouse, in a new window so that they can book a flight with EasyJet or Monarch, or indeed that doyen of flight information sites for Budget and Low Cost airlines across Europe, Attitude Travel.
Interestingly, 90% of links into my site actually link to my 'Home' page (we will not discuss why I have an Index page and a Home page, it's historical), which is also my preferred landing page, and yet less than 1% of reciprocal links or banners are on that page.
Regular and casual visitors to my site will notice that there are some banners and links spread across other pages, these are the more important ones and are placed there because they are sites that give me more visitors so they deserve a more visible position, rather than being consigned to a page that no one looks at!
In a way I wish that more people would look at my 'Links' pages, because they would find a lot of useful stuff there! Virtually all of them are gay or lesbian orientated, some are our favourite dating and social networking sites, some are bars that we like, and some are accommodation for gay and lesbian folk. But all are useful, and where there is a 'Gay Travel' site we have weeded out the ones that only link to 5 star, all inclusive, hotels designed for straight people, and charging €300 a night!
Of course the other place to look for useful information on the Villa Ralfa web site is the 'Recently Added' page. From here you can share our content on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and see our latest blog post!
So next time you visit our web site, take a look at the links and banners pages, you will even find links to local dive centres and stables!
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