Partnership Development with Complementary Web Sites

Partnership development includes:

Reciprocal link programs: Sites agree to swap links with one another, so an individual at either site can reach the other. For example, a publisher might wish to have reciprocal links with an online bookseller or a car manufacturer with an online auto retailer. A site can link to your Web page at any time, and serendipitously you can link to that site as well. A reciprocal link program is a planned link-up with specific objectives that benefit each site.

Shared service offerings: When offerings on two or more Web sites are complementary rather then competitive, shared service offerings can be an important part of marketing. For example, a travel agency that uses air charters might wish to combine its travel packages into an airline site and vice versa. Each site features the offerings of the other site.

Liaison online: To achieve partnership development, you need an online liaison to contact likely parties and explore possible relationships without jeopardizing your company or communications objectives. The liaison should not reveal who you are until you are ready but collect the data you need to propose partnership development.

Hypertext link bartering: Linking with another site need not cost money. It might well be advantageous to each party to share links. Particularly with sites that are not well known, bartering can build a relationship that benefits both parties. Your liaison should be aware of this when investigating a partnership program

Researching related sites: The difficult task of partnership development is finding a suitable partner. This takes time and research.   The liaison finds sites that might make sense, investigates them and reports to you the facts that help you make a decision whether to build a partnership.

Contacting Webmasters to set up links: Implementation of partnership development requires working with Webmasters to set up the technical implementation of a partnered site. This may be as little as setting up the hypertext link to revising your site so you can feature the partner and vice versa or it can require extensive content development and revision.

When do I use it?

There is no absolute need to form partnerships online. The benefit of partnership development is commercial and perceptual. You gain greater awareness and potential purchasing power for your messages than you get on your site alone, particularly if the service you offer is a natural fit to services or products on another site.