Do all your links… link?

Do all your links, you know, link? Over on my traffic exchange sites, Cinnamon Hollow and WAHM Surf, I often run across websites and banner ads with broken URL’s. And most of the time, the website owner doesn’t even know.

Broken links not only cause your site to not work properly, they also deter your visitors. You only have a few seconds to really grab them and when a potential customer has a difficult time finding what they are looking for, they will leave. And. Never. Return.

Not only do broken links deter visitors, it also upsets search engine robots crawling your sites. You need these robots to crawl your website and place you in the search engines. The more valid links you have, the more entry points you have into your site for visitors and search engines. So make sure they work properly!

I often email my members to remind them to double check not only the link they have submitted at the traffic exchange, but all links within their site. When a website runs smoothly, people are more likely to return again and again, resulting in pageviews and customers!

So while you’re doing your Spring Cleaning, do a little on your site too. Ensure all your links within your site work and those outgoing links still direct to their intended sites.

Oh, and while you’re at it, why not create a custom 404 error page so visitors can still navigate your site if/when they happen upon a link that is no longer there.

Here re some free resources for you. These are the sites I use most often.

Broken Link Checker – Check html links as well as image (img src) links.

Backlink Checker – See who’s linking to you.

Find these tools and MORE including CSS Validation tools, HTML Table Generator, URL Shortener’s, Browser Speed Test, Social Network Sites etc. on our COMPLETELY SAFE toolbar! With our toolbar, you will have links to the tools and services you, as a webmaster, use on a regular basis. I’ve included links to many useful tools and services right inside the Cinnamon Hollow Toolbar so you don’t have to search the internet whenever you need something. It is right there at your fingertips! Install it on your browser, it is completely safe.We use the very popular Conduit platform to create and host our toolbar.