Tuesday 28th February

Visitor count to my home page: 16617


No link exchange accepted :(

Started late today - Ebay had a 10c listing day so I've spent about 6 hours posting items there. It's the only time I try (unsucessfully) to list everything I have for sale.

No email from any link partners or potential link partners either.

Todays invites:
Jewelry:
MLCreations - Mary makes some really nice colourful bead jewelry.
Nomination Charms Guide - A directory of charm bracelets resources.
Laszlo's Opals & Jewelry - He has some dark green opals on his home page. Nice!
Opals Down Under - A veritable rainbow of natural opals.

Alternative Health:
Natural Therapy Works - Magnetic products. Pretty nice! Higher price range.
Sing Ong Tai Chi - A great Tai Chi site. My thinking goes that people who do Tai Chi are healthier when they get older than people who go to the gym. But I still go to the gym. No accounting for people is there.
Central Connecticut Tai Chi Ch'uan - more Tai Chi. They teach reiki too.
Cloud Water - Online classes of Tai Chi and Qigong
Martial Info - A huge martial arts site connected to a lot of sites about everything to do with martial arts. I felt my site belonged there. Martial arts schools sure sell a lot of my magnetic bracelets.
Yoga Class - Online yoga lessons.

Monday 27th Feb

Visitor count to my home page: 16,504


three link exchange accepted! Two from yesterday and one from today: Eyton's Earth at http://www.eytonsearth.org/
I must have good karma on the whole issue of using clay for 'medication' on itchy skin.
So, move up to the top section of my directory page and get a 'link partner dragon' next to your name - http://dragonstonemagnetics.com/links/healingclays.htm

Opal Treasures - Rainbow Dreams - go check out those black opals! http://opaltreasures-rainbowdreams.com/
So, move up to the top section of my directory page and get a 'link partner dragon' next to your name - http://dragonstonemagnetics.com/links/jewelrynando.htm

LiaFail.Stone of Destiny at http://www.liafail.org/ So check out those medieval and fantasy jewels! And a 'link partner dragon' for you too! - http://dragonstonemagnetics.com/links/jewelryklandm.htm
And I got a bonus from this one. American Gemstone Consultants ready to help you value jewelry at www.a-g-c-c.com/default.html

Carol from Discover Health and Wealth (My yesterday's link partner) had this comment:
"Link exchanges *can* make a difference, but the relative importance of any of these
strategies does seem to change from time to time.
Several years ago it was "meta tags". Then people abused those, the search engines stopped
placing the same degree of importance on them (with certain exceptions) and the SE started
favoring other things... like incoming QUALITY links. Of course, link farms erupted etc.
So it's always changing.
I think there will always be some relevancy with a quality link exchange program, but not necessarily the pat formula."

Actually, I think it would be a fools quest to try to woo the search engines. How could one base a business plans on their whims? I've seen plenty of high ranking sites that don't appear to have a link exchange program, so I'm not so sure that it's so relevant. But I am sure that if I find a site I like, when I'm finished looking at it I will likely follow one of their links.

One of yesterdays invites says no :( (most don't say anything!)
"Hi Dragonstone Magnetics:
Very interesting site. We have a natural clay that on its own is magnetic
and we do not add anything magnetic to it. We prefer to stay with links
that are with herbs, spices, clays, or internal products that we endorse.
We DO NOT WISH TO LINK with this site. Thanks though for your interest.
LL's Magnetic Clay, Inc."


Todays invites:
Jewelry:
Jennifer Lynn's Timeless Jewelry - She has some great vintage animal jewelry.
Kiss Wedding Jewelry - A jewelry directory, weddings and other.
LiaFail.Stone of Destiny. medieval jewelryand a whole lot more in the fantasy genre.
LynAnne's Vintage Costume Jewelry - great collection of animal jewelry

Alternative Health:
Just Magnotherapy - In spite of the name they do some wholefoods as well.
Mumms Sprouting Seeds - I buy these myself. China rose radish is my favourite. My thinking goes that really fresh raw food helps to keep one in good health - and one can't get fresher than live sprouts!
Living Foods - here's a quote from their site: Raw and Living Foods are foods that contain enzymes. In general, the act of heating food over 116 degrees F destroys enzymes in food. (Enzymes start to degrade in as little as 106 degrees F)
Sprouthouse - more sprouting seeds!

Wholesale:
Jules Jewellery - silver name necklaces etc.

Sunday 26th February

Visitor count to my home page: 16,415

One link exchange accepted! Discover Health and Wealth at http://www.discoverhealthandwealth.com/index.html
I invited them because they both sell a lot of natural products and also because they have a link page just for magnetic therapy (http://www.discoverhealthandwealth.com/links/magnetics.html )

I think that a page just for magnetic therapy should send me more visitors than any other sort of page.

So, move up to the top section of my directory page and get a 'link partner dragon' next to your name - http://dragonstonemagnetics.com/links/healthnutrition.htm

Todays invites:
Jewelry:
Gold 2 Gems - classical jewelry from pearls to engagement rings.
Internet Opals - these guys mine the opal in Australia and then make the jewelry and sell it online. I'd love to see raw opal!
Irish Claddagh Rings - A jewelry directory specializing in celtic type jewelry.
Opal Treasures & Rainbow Dreams Jewelry Shop - beautiful opals. Black ones and blue ones too. Real and artificial.

Alternative Health:
Health Review Info - just a directory, but they do have a page for magnetic therapy.
Eytons' Earth: Healing Clays - One of the advantages of looking for alternative health partners is that my own knowledge of that area is increasing by the day. I looked at that site and other sites about clays used for healing a few days ago. I went to my local health food store and bought a very small amount of bentonite clay ($59.99 a pound! not 'dirt' cheap!)I've suffered with itches and rashes on my skin all my life. Spent time with a dermotologist who did a biopsy and told me some long name which I've since forgotten for my condition and prescribed anti-itch ointment at $50 a very small tube. That didn't work that well! But spread a bit of clay on the itch and it's gone, and the rash too after a few days.
Well, my health food store isn't going to get my money for clay any more. I'm going to buy it on Ebay for $25 for 5 pounds!
Herbs for Health - They had an article on healing clays, which is how I found them. A herbal online magazine.
Magnetic Clays - still in the healing clay seach!

Wholesale:
Jewelry Temptation - A Los Angeles based jewelry manufacturer. Jewelry fit for the hollywood stars!
Green Valley Aromatherapy - They sell clays so that's how I found them.

So that's my 10 reciprocal link requests for today. It took me about 4 hours to do, but I did read a lot of articles and drool over opals!

Preamble

This must be something that thousands of website owners do.
We read the articles that tell us that each time we get a link on someone else's website we are likely to get 3(?) visitors a day from it to our own website. Visitors who were interested in something about the site that we linked to that is similar to something that we ourselves offer on our sites.
Well, I started reciprocal linking a few months ago and now I have over 150 reciprocal links.
They certainly aren't giving me an average of 3 visitors a day each! But they are giving me some visitors. I'm guessing an average of 2 or 3 a week a link.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Not choosing the best sites to link to. But I rather think that I'm choosing my link partners well on the whole and that 2 or 3 new visitors a week from each site is nothing to sneeze at. That in a couple of years time if I can just average one new reciprocal link exchange a day that I'll find my website on the E-High St.
So this is a diary on how I'm doing.
My plans are to try to average 10 requests a day to suitable reciprocal link partners in the hopes that an average of one a day will agree to the exchange.
I'm selling wholesale and retail magnetic jewelry so I'm trying to keep my links tightly themed to appeal to visitors that come to my site.
They are likely coming to my site because they have an interest in alternative health especially as regards pain relief, or in jewelry or in purchasing things wholesale, so that is the main focus of my link campaign. But also I sell wholesale magnetic jewelry to a lot of pharmacies, so I have a page for them and I also have my site in several link exchange sites so a page for those too.

This is my link directory:
http://www.dragonstonemagnetics.com/links/ResourceDirectory.htm