Using LinkAssistant

Partner Management

Creating a New Project
Searching for Link Partners
Updating Partner Info
Manually Adding Link Partners
Editing Link Partners
Removing Link Partners

Creating a New Link Building Project

When you first run LinkAssistant, it will automatically pop up a start-up Wizard that will help you create a new link building project. You can also initiate this Wizard by clicking the New button on the main toolbar, choosing File -> New Project or pressing Ctrl-N.

Step 1: Specify Your Site

In this step you need to specify the URL of the website or web page you want to promote in the project. The software will gather ranking factors for this URL (Google PR, link popularity in search engines, Alexa rank etc.). This URL will also be suggested by default for your partners to link to (you can change the default setting by assigning link URLs and anchor texts). It will also appear in reports.

Step 2: Gathering Project Info

LinkAssistant is gathering data on your web page for the project such as the title and description, Google PR, Alexa, Google and Yahoo! Popularity and other rank factors. No action on your part is needed.

Step 3: Project Info

Specify the anchor text and description that you want your partners to use when linking to your website. You'll be able to edit it and add more anchors to your project afterwards.

Step 4: Enter Contact Info

In this step you'll be asked to enter your contact name and email that will be used to send out link request and handle all correspondence with your link partners. Type in your contact details and press Finish.

Searching for Link Partners

Once you've created a project you can go over to searching for link partners. Simply click the Search button and LinkAssistant will help you get started.

Step 1: Select Partner Search Method

In the first step you need to choose which partner search method to use. There are 6 powerful partner search methods to pick from. You can explore them all and find out which ones work best for you. Select a search method and click Next.

Note: Check the Enable Expert Options box if you want to configure advanced search settings such as the list of preferred search engines to use, link quality filters, the number of partners to gather per search, etc.

Below are help guidelines for each partner search method. Some wizard steps are specific for each method; others are common to all of them. Click [expand] next to a search method to view the unique steps. You'll find the shared steps right below the list of partner search methods.

Find sites with link submission forms (recommended) [expand][click to hide]

Find sites by keyword search [expand][click to hide]

Find sites that link to your competitors [expand][click to hide]

Find sites that already link to you [expand][click to hide]

Harvest all URLs on the webpage you specify [expand][click to hide]

Perform a deep scan on the website you specify [expand][click to hide]

Steps Common to Some or All of the Partner Search Methods

Step 3: Search Conditions Overview

In this step LinkAssistant shows you the exact search parameters it will use. For example, the tool will tell you that it will search for 30 partner sites with Google PR higher than 3 using Google and Yahoo! search engines.

Note 1: You can set these parameters manually if you've selected to enable the expert option in Step 1.

Note 2: Step number can vary for different search methods

Expert Options Steps

Note: These steps are common to some or all of the partner search methods.

Step 4: Select Search Engines

Select the search engines that LinkAssistant will use for partner research. To add or remove search engines from the list click the Add More SEs button.

Note: You can change your list of preferred search engines in Preferences -> Search Engine Settings -> Preferred Search Engines

Step 5: Configure Scan Depth Limits

In this step you configure how many partners you want to find during this search. Although you can search for as many partners as you wish it is recommended that you obtain links by small portions (about 30 at a time) to make your link building look natural to the search engines.

Step 6: 'Interested Partners' Filter

Here you can configure the so called 'Interested Partners' filter.

The idea behind this feature is that, if a website already has a link directory, most likely they will be interested in link exchange — thus you have more chances to get a link from them. Normally a link section of a website is entitled resources, links, recommended etc.

If you enable this filter LinkAssistant will only look for websites that have sections like resources, links, recommended, etc. (or any other that you specify)

Note: You can add your own words and phrases that may be used to indicate link pages on other websites. Enter them into the filter one per line.

Step 7: Get Additional Partner Information

In this step you choose what info about potential link partners you want LinkAssistant to dig during the partner search.

Note: You need to enable the Acquire Google PageRank value and other search engine ranking factors if you want to set up link quality filters in the next step.

Step 8: Set Ranking Factors and Filters*

In this step you configure what ranking factors you want LinkAssistant to acquire for each website that is found during the partner search. To add or remove ranking factors click the Add More Ranking Factors button.

To set up a ranking filter hover your mouse over the Filter column of a particular ranking factor and click the small three-dotted icon. For instance you can only search for link partners with Google PR 2 and above, Alexa rank of no more than 500,000, etc.

*Available only if you've selected the “Acquire Google PageRank value and other search engine ranking factors” option in the previous step

Step 9: Searching For Link Partners

Please, wait while LinkAssistant is searching for link partners. This may take a while depending on the speed of your Internet connection, the selected partner search method and settings.

Note: You can interrupt the search any time by pressing the Stop button or abort any individual task by clicking the 'x' button next to it.

Step 10: Select URLs to Use

In this step LinkAssistant shows you the list of websites found during partner search. You need to select the ones that you want to add to your project. You can add or remove info columns by pressing the Edit Workspace button.

Tip: Use the Select All & Select None buttons in the top left-hand corner to quickly select or deselect all entries.

Step 11: Common Link Partner Settings

In this step LinkAssistant lets you configure some common settings for the partner websites you've selected in the previous step before adding them to the project.

Category

Here you choose in what section of your link directory you want to put links to your newly found link partners. You may pick one of the existing categories or create a new one (you'll be able to edit this later). Use the button on the right to manage the tree of categories.

Status

Partner Status is a special reminder column that helps you identify the kind of relationship you're in with a link partner and tells you what your next step is. Click the button next to the status window to manage statuses.

Mark partners to be added to your link directory

If you check this box all partner websites found during the partner search will be added to your resource pages when generating a link directory

Once you've configured the Common Link Partner Settings click Finish and you'll get back to the Partners Section.

Updating Partner Info

LinkAssistant stores a lot of data on your link partners such as their contact info, the backlink page URLs, the assigned anchor texts and descriptions they should be using when linking back to you, ranking factors info, and so on. Of course this data is not static and may change over time. To keep your link building project up to date you may want to update the partner info from time to time. To do this you need to select the partner(s) from the list, click the Update button and choose what part of the partner profile you want to change.

Category

Here you can change the section of your link directory where the link to your partner will appear. The actual change on your website will only take place next time you generate and upload your link directory.

Status

Whenever you've performed some action with a partner or are planning to do so you can change its status to remind you of it.

Get Page Info

This button allows you to retrieve the title and description of partner website that will be used as anchor texts and descriptions of your links to them. You can change this anytime by editing the partner profile.

Get Contact Email

LinkAssistant will crawl partner websites you've selected searching for contact name and email of the webmaster. Of course the tool is only able to find if it is mentioned somewhere on the website (in most cases it is).

Update Ranking Factors

Click this button to update the preferred ranking factors on the partner websites such as Alexa Rank, Google and Yahoo! Popularity, Google PageRank of the domain and backlink page etc.

Anchor Text

Here you can manage the anchor texts (visible parts of hyperlinks) and descriptions (a short text comment to a link) that you want your partners to use in the links to your website, as well as the URL of the webpage on your website you want your partners to link to. The anchor parameters you choose here will be assigned to all selected link partners and will be used in the link exchange request templates. The list of your preferred anchor settings is stored in Preferences -> Partner Management -> Anchor Settings and you can edit it any time.

Include/Exclude from Link Directory

This option allows you to add and remove partners from your link directory. Only the partners marked for inclusion will appear on the links pages when you generate your directory.

Manually Adding Link Partners

Besides searching for link partners on the web you can manually add any website to your project. Simply click the Add button and LinkAssistant will offer you to enter the details on the link partner.

Step 1: Partner Website Details

In this step you need to enter the partner website URL, and configure the link from your website to the partner that you will put into your link directory. You choose whether it will be a text link or a banner link and set up the anchor text and description (for text link), image URL, alt text and description (for image link).

Tip: Click the 'i' button to use the actual Title and Description of the website as the anchor text and description of your link.

Step 2: Backlink Details

Enter the URL of the partner's page where the link to your website will be placed. If you don't know it yet, leave the field empty and click Next, you'll be able to specify it later editing the partner's info in the backlink to you tab.

Step 3: Select Anchor Info

In this step you specify what anchor text and description you want your partner to use when linking to you. You can select one from the list or create a new anchor setting.

Step 4: Collect Link Info

LinkAssistant is now gathering the data on your link partner needed for the project such as the website's title, description and your preferred ranking factors. No action is needed on your part.

Step 5: Set Contact Info

Add the contact name and address of your link partner that will be used when sending emails. If LinkAssistant finds the contact details on the website it will automatically suggest them to you.

Step 6: Common Link Partner Settings

In this step LinkAssistant allows you to set up some common settings for the partner website you're adding.

Category

Here you choose the section of your link directory where your link to the partner will appear. You may pick one of the existing categories or create a new one (you'll be able to edit this later).

Status

Specify the Partner Status that will be used as sort of a reminder of what your next step in the link exchange process is.

Mark partners to be added to your link directory

Check this box if you want to add the link to the partner to your resource pages. The links you mark here will appear on your website next time your generate and upload your link directory.

Once you've configured the Common Link Partner Settings click Finish and the website you specified will be added to the project.

Note: If you want to add multiple partners see Importing Data for guidelines.

Editing Link Partners

Whenever you want to edit the profile of a link partner, for example, to change the backlink page URL or write down some notes, you can do it by selecting the link partner with your mouse and clicking the Edit button, or double clicking the partner entry.

LinkAssistant opens the Edit Link Partner window where you can edit any data on the link partner. The window is made up of 4 tabs:

Link To Partner Tab

Here you can find information on the link you've put or are going to put from your website to your partner website. The tab has the following entries:

Website

This is the anchor URL of your link to partner, or in other words the web page the link leads to. Usually this will be the home page of your partner websites, unless the partner asks you to link to a specific page.

Link Type

Here you choose whether you want to set up a textual or banner link to your partner. Depending on the link type you choose here you'll be offered to specify the Anchor Text & Description (for a text link) or Image URL, Alt Text and Image Description (for an image link).

Anchor Text

Anchor Text is the clickable part of a link, which is very important for rankings. Basically, search engines rank a website higher for the keywords and keyphrases that are used in the anchor texts of links pointing to it. The text you type in here will be used as the anchor text of the link you put to your partner in your link directory.

Description

Description is the text that will be put in your link directory after the clickable part of the link. It is used to help your visitors and search engines better understand the topic of the website they'll be taken to after following the link.

Note: You can use the 'i' button to automatically acquire anchor text and description based on the meta keywords and meta description of the partner website.

Image URL

Here you feed the URL of the image that will be used as banner graphics for the image link to your partner.

Alt Text

Since search engines cannot read images the Alt Text is used to tell them what the image is about. Basically it works similarly to the anchor text of a text link, although search engines have devalued the importance of alt texts. This is also the text that will be shown to your visitors who have disabled the display of images in their browser, or when the image graphics cannot be shown for some reason.

Image Description

This text will be put next to the banner graphics to describe the website the link leads to (works just like the description of a text link).

Partner Contact Info

The contact info (partner name and email) will be used to get in touch with your partner: when sending out personalized link requests, asking for corrections to a link, etc.

Note: You can click the button on the right to automatically acquire the contact name and email address of the partner.

Category

Here you can specify in what category of your resource section you want to put the link to this partner. Categories are used to group your links by relevance making your link directory easily navigable and search engine friendly.

Status

Set up partner status to remind you of what you're supposed to do with that particular link partner, e.g. send out link request, correct the backlink, remove the partner from your directory, or send a birthday card.

Link Directory Info

Here you specify whether to include the partner into your link directory. Below you can see the exact URL of the webpage the link is put on.

Note: The link to your partner will only be placed on your website if you set 'Include this partner into your link directory' to enable. The link will be set up when you generate and upload link directory.

Backlink To You Tab

This tab shows details on the link from your partner website to you.

Backlink Page

This is the exact URL of the webpage where your link partner placed a link to your website.

Note: If you click the lock icon on the right LinkAssistant will assume that you want your backlink to be exactly on that web page. When you run link verification the tool will only scan the page specified as your backlink page for that partner regardless of the general link verification settings. If a link to you is located on any other page of the same site, it will not get found. We recommend choosing the lock option only if it is really important to you that a link is placed on the exact page you specified.

Title

This is the title of the webpage where the link to your website is located.

Description

Here you can see the description of the webpage (if any) where the link to you is found.

Note: Click the 'i' button to automatically acquire/update title and description info.

Found Backlink Info

This is the data on the backlink that LinkAssistant managed to find during the last link verification check. Here you can see the Verification Passed status or in other words whether the partner links back to you with the right anchor text and description, the date when you last checked the partner and the exact Anchor Text and Anchor URL of the link found on the partner's website.

Note: Click the Verify button to run a quick check on this link partner alone.

Note 2: If the actual anchor text or description (found on the partner website) doesn't match the assigned ones (the ones you asked the partner to use) but you think they are still O.K. you can click the 'Add a new anchor text' button to assign the actual anchors to the partner.

Assigned Backlink Info

Here you can see what anchor text and description you want the partner to use. They will be used in email templates for link exchange requests. Whenever you run a link verification check LinkAssistant will compare the actual anchor text and description to the ones you assigned and you'll know whether the partner links back with the right anchors.

Note: Click the 'Change anchor text' button to change the assigned anchor text and description.

Ranking Factors

In this tab you can see the data on the ranking factors for your partner's website(s), particularly:

The web page you link to (Partner's Page Info)
The web page your partner links to you from (Backlink Page Info)
The domain you link to
The domain you partner links to you from

Note: Often you'll be linking to the same domain you get a link back from. In such cases the Domain Rankings Factors for the Partner's Page and Backlink Page coincide and are displayed in one section:

You can configure what ranking factors to display in Preferences -> Search Engine Settings -> Preferred Ranking Factors.

Tip: Click the button next to a particular ranking factor to update it or click the 'Check all ranking factors' button to update all ranking factors on the partner.

Notes

This is a custom field where you can make notes about the partner.

Removing Link Partners

To remove link partner(s) from the project select the needed entries with your mouse and press Delete or click the Remove Partners button.

LinkAssistant pops up the Delete Confirmation dialogue. If you check the Move to the 'Excluded Partners' list box LinkAssistant will remember the partner websites you're deleting and will never include them into the partner search results.