Forrester Research found that a majority of internet users – specifically buyers looking for certain products or services – still rely on search engines to find the websites they need. That’s not at all surprising. In fact, it’s this consumer behavior that powers the search engine optimization business. Website owners spend thousands of dollars monthly just to make it to the top 20 or 30 spots, and SEO specialists work day and night to keep up with the changing algorithm patterns of Google and Yahoo. High search engine ranking is (and always will be) the key to tapping the vast internet consumer base, and it doesn’t look like this is going to change.

The meat of the matter

What’s really interesting about the study is the fact that a growing number of internet buyers – some 59% – also find websites that offer the products or services they are looking for using links from other websites. It’s astounding how more than half of online consumers actually click on referral links. Thousands of transactions and millions of dollars are generated by a good linking strategy.

Could it be that the value inbound links has been grossly underestimated? Most SEOs still consider the linking process as nothing more than a time-consuming (albeit crucial) step to improving PageRank. Some even give up on the whole link exchange extravaganza, thinking that it is pointless and inefficient. Luckily, there are now a lot of easy linking services that really work. So if you have ever been frustrated by the painful process of writing webmasters to beg for a link-back, your life is about to get better.

Links, easy and free

When we launched Free Relevant Links a few months ago, we knew it would be big – and we were not wrong. Ours is a completely free, completely white-hat, and completely controllable free link exchange network. Guaranteed no link farms. You get to block links you don’t want. Sign up here.