After demo-ing many disappointing reciprocal link software packages, we were very excited to come across one which finally "gets" link promotion. If you are looking to increase the number of links to your web site, we cannot recommend this product strongly enough! Click here to read detailed review. Highlights:
Installation process: Ease of installation (1..10): 10
When you first install Arelis, it asks
you some basic information about your web site, such as your
URL and different keyword phrases to describe your site. It also
asks you for several URLs of your competitors. You are then given
the option to view a useful 5-minute tour which gives you a basic
overview of what the software can do. Arelis then goes out to the Internet and compiles a list of potential link partners and displays them in order of relevance. This process went very quickly - locating 100 potential link partners took the program just under 2 minutes on a DSL connection, 10 minutes on a dialup. In general the quality of the web sites located by the default search was very good, about what you would expect by entering in targeted keywords in a good search engine. In the basic tour, Arelis explains that the more targeted your keywords are, the more relevant web sites are found. Arelis also contains a number of more advanced keyword options that you can use to have greater control when searching for link partners. One useful feature is the ability to 'weight' keyword phrases, that is, give greater importance to certain phrases than others. You can also exclude certain phrases - that is define phrases which cannot appear on possible partner web site. For example, if you are searching for sites having to do with 'college students' you could exclude sites which contain adult content. This is also useful if you are searching for terms that can have multiple uses. For example, if you are searching for 'dolphin' (animal) related sites, you can exclude sites which contain 'Miami Dolphins' or 'Football'. Reviewing and Choosing Link Partners Once your link partner prospect list has been generated, Arelis displays a preview screen that lists all of your link prospects in relevance order (screenshot). Included in this summary display are the URL and Title of each web site as well as category and sub-category fields which you can customize and assign for each web site. In the bottom half of the screen is a preview window (or 'mini-browser') which allows you to quickly visit each web site listed. After visiting each web site, you can decide whether it is relevant and categorize the site via the use of several pull-down menus. This preview screen is very customizable. You have the ability to change the size of the preview browser as well as launch a selected web site in a full screen window. Other useful features are the ability to sort your link partner list by any field as well as filter the list by many criteria (e.g. you can list all sites which you are waiting to hear back from) Contacting Prospective Link Partners and Requesting Links When you have selected a list of sites that you would like to approach, you can quickly send a personalized link request message to the webmaster of each web site. Arelis includes built in outgoing e-mail capabilities so there is no need to launch your e-mail program to send messages. Clicking on 'Send Email Message' brings up an outgoing message window (screenshot) and allows you to compose a personalized message for a given site. If any e-mail address is listed on the web site page, Arelis will detect it and pre-fill it into the 'To:' field of your message. If more than one e-mail address is listed, you can use a pull-down menu to select the one you want. If no e-mail addresses are listed, the program notifies you that the email is 'unverified' and gives you a choice of commonly used addresses (e.g. webmaster@domain.com, info@domain.com) You can create a message from scratch, or use a template as the basis for your message. Arelis comes with 14 sample templates which can be easily customized. It is also possible to create additional templates from scratch. The template interface is very easy to use. There is even a special 'tab' which will let you quickly preview each template to see which is most appropriate. Templates can contain special fields (similar to mail merge codes in a word processor) which can either be filled in automatically (e.g. URL of site being contacted) or manually entered (e.g. specific things you liked about a site you are approaching). Since you can completely customize the template, link request messages can have the same personal feel as if you were doing them all by hand. Another advantage of using Arelis's internal e-mail feature is that the program is able to track each message sent by updating each site's status code. For example, sending a link request message to 'Site ABC' automatically sets their status to 'Waiting for answer to link request mail'. Organizing and Tracking Your Link Promotion Campaign Arelis contains a number of useful tracking features which handle the normally tedious process of running a link campaign. Campaigns can be broken up into individual profiles. For example, a sporting goods site might create one profile for tennis related sites and another for soccer related sites. Each campaign can have its own list of associated keyword phrases (for locating link prospect sites) and its own list of relevant sites. Within each profile, large lists of sites can be easily organized by grouping them in appropriate categories and subcategories. Arelis gives you complete control to customize these categories to fit your needs. Using the example above, a sporting goods site can create a 'Tennis' profile. Within this profile, sites can be assigned into the following categories.... Tennis fan sites, Tennis clubs, Tennis clothing manufacturers, etc. Easy to use filters allow you to only display sites in a certain category. For example, with one click, you can see a list of all web sites you have contacted who have not yet answered your message. Arelis also includes 'Import' and 'Export' capabilities. If you already have a links page, you can have Arelis automatically import it in and add it to its internal list of relevant sites. You can also export data to HTML, Text or Excel format for use with other programs. Creating a Link Directory Depending on your situation, you may want to offer to link to another site in order to encourage them to link back to you. Arelis includes the ability to easily create a dynamic Link Directory (also commonly referred to as a 'Links Page'). This can be very useful if you are engaged in a reciprocal link campaign. When reviewing each site in the 'Preview' window, you can check off a box to have a given site included in your directory. Arelis can then compile these sites into a custom directory. You can then upload this directory to your web server and have a 'ready to go' links page. Like other parts of the program, you can choose your layout from a number of different templates. These templates can be customized to reflect the look and feel of your web site (e.g. color scheme, logo, etc.).(screenshot) Arelis also includes a number of powerful features to help you maintain your link directory. You can automatically check links from your web site to your partner sites to make sure that you do not have any dead links. You can also check links from your partner sites back to your web site to make sure that partners have not stopped linking to you. Pricing Axandra offers a free
demo download of their software via their web
site. The standard version of Arelis sells for $99, and allows unlimited link partners for two domains. Axandra also sells a 'Business' versions which is geared towards those who manage multiple sites for clients or have more than two web sites. Arelis Professional sells for $299 and allows unlimited link partners. Summary: Arelis Reciprocal Links Solution does an excellent job of simplifying and automating the most time consuming parts of a link promotion campaign while still retaining the ability to manually review and personalize link requests. Unlike other programs which send 'cookie-cutter' messages to poorly targeted web sites, the makers of Arelis seem to understand the art of link promotion and have developed an excellent, extremely useful tool. After demo-ing many disappointing reciprocal link software packages, We were very excited to come across this product. If you are looking to increase the number of links to your web site, we cannot recommend this product enough! LinkPopularity.com
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