1. Login to LinkMgr using the login name and password provided (learn more)
   
2. Verify your account settings are correct by clicking the “Edit Profile” link (learn more)
   
3. Select the site to work with by using the Site dropdown box. If your site has not been added click on the “new Site” link and follow the instructions on that page.
   
4. After creating or selecting the site to work with, verify the site profile by clicking the “Edit Site Profile” link (learn more)
   
5. Create one or more link categories, each category will generate a distinct page on the site (learn more)
   
6. Add links to existing categories. Each link represents an outbound link to an external website and contains a URL, title, name, description, image, and reciprocal link information. (learn more)

URL submit guidelines

All links submitted by external webmasters should be examined. The submit request email sent to you includes a link to the reciprocal URL. You should click on the link and verify the existence and content of your link on the page. The relevance of the inbound link should also be considered. The more relevant the link is, the better the SEO value. Often, an external webmaster will make a request offering a reciprocal link at a third-party site. ALL these requests must be viewed with the utmost suspicion and are typically declined.

Instructions

Logging in:

1. Go to the LinkMgr home page and click the “Login” button
2. Enter your login name and password (case sensitive)
3. Enter the security code shown and click the “Login” button
4. If you have forgotten your password, click on the “Reset Password” link

Account Settings
This is the basic information for your LinkMgr account. It is NOT site specific, as a single account can manage many sites. The following information must be entered:

• Full Name – The name you want to use to identify your account, this is typically a business name
• Email – The email address that will be used for all communications including link approval and webmaster contact
• Contact Phone – This number is only used by the LinkMgr administrators and is never visible on the web
• Contact Details – The full name of the contact and any additional contact information (optional).

Creating and Editing Site Profile
The site profile consists of the following four distinct tabs:

0. System Profile – This is the basic information for the site and consists of the following:

• URL – The URL of the site including “http://www”.
• Link Base URL – The desired name for the page that manages the entire LinkMgr process within the site. This page must be installed in the domain, typically in the root directory. This page is generated and downloaded using the Site Links Installation tab (see below).
• Name – A brief descriptive name for the site that will only be used for managing the site within LinkMgr. Tip: Keep it short!
• Description – A long description for the site that is typically copied from the sites page description. It is only used when managing the site within LinkMgr. Tip: View the source for your home page and copy and paste the value found in the description title tag!

1. Template Setup

The text box on this page contains the template used to create ALL pages generated by LinkMgr. Carefully follow the instructions on this page when editing or creating the template. Tip: Use you favorite html editor to create this page and then copy the entire html to the text box!

2. Content Style Sheet Setup

This template controls the font color and size of all the elements controlled by LinkMgr. This information should only be changed by someone who is familiar with cascading style sheets. Additional information appears on the page.

3. Site Links Installation

This step is critical when setting up your site to use LinkMgr. You must download the front-end PHP file to your site. It should typically be loaded to the root directory. It is the ONLY LinkMgr page that needs to be installed on your site. Your site should be PHP 5 compatible. Some versions of PHP 4 are also supported.

Creating or Editing Categories
Though most sites will have only one or two categories (typically links and resources), the LinkMgr system can be used to create and maintain a link category structure that consists of many categories and sub-categories.

The category structure starts with a root category. This category is created directly after submitting the system profile for the site. If it is missing, go to the system profile and click the submit button. The page generated for the root category will include links in the category and links to ALL sub categories. A category has the following editable information:

Name – A brief name for the category. This will appear as the heading for the category on the links page. Tip: Keep it short!

Title – The SEO title for the page. This typically consists of up to three SEO phrases separated by “-“. This value will appears as the html “<Title>” tag. Tip: Copy this value from the source of your home page.

Description – The SEO page description. This typically consists of a human readable sentence that includes all the words found in the title. Tip: Copy this value from the source of your home page.

Page Body HTML Text – This block of information is displayed just above the links. It can contain text, links, images, and html tags. The entire black can be edited as html by clicking on the “HTML” button.

SEO Keyword Phrases – The SEO keywords for the page. This typically consists of up to three SEO phrases separated by commas. This value will appear as the meta keywords tag. Tip: Copy this value from the source of your home page.

Entry Point – This value determines how the category is treated with respect to the parent category. When a category is designated as an entry point, it appears below all the links of the parent category grouped under the separate heading “Other Resources”. When a user clicks on the category and the category is displayed, the parent category does not appear in the path. When a category is NOT designated as an entry point, it appears below all the links of the parent category grouped under the separate heading “Categories”. When a user clicks on the category and the category is displayed, the parent category appears in the path. Tip: The entry point is used to distinguish categories that are NOT a true sub category of the parent category.

Submit URL's Enabled – This value controls whether an external webmaster can request a URL submit for the category.

Active – This value controls whether the category will be displayed. Tip: Use this when building new categories that are not yet ready to be displayed on the site.

Submit URL Settings – These settings control what information is provided to external webmaster who wants to submit URL's. You can choose to inherit this information from the parent category or customize this information for the current category. Tip: Be careful when using the feature that copies information from the category, the name of the submit URL must be changed to match the title. The following information is provided to external webmasters.

URL – The URL that the webmaster must link to. This is typically the home page, but can be any other page in the site. Tip: This is useful when building a categorized link structure where each category supports a specific page or set of pages on the site.

Name – The visible name of the link. Tip: This typically matches the title.

Title – Also known as alternate link text, this value appears when a web visitor passes the mouseover the link. Tip: Copy this value from the category title.

Description – This is the visible text description for the link (also know as the connected text). This typically consists of a human readable sentence that includes all the words found in the title. Tip: Copy this value from category description.

Logo Image URL (optional) – This is the URL of the logo image (if any) for the website. It should be an image that resides on the site and should include “http://www”. Tip: Keep the size of this image small, typically no wider than 144 pixels.

Text Link Replace HTML (optional) – LinkMgr generates a text block from the submit URL information that the external webmaster would use to setup the reciprocal link. In special cases, this text can be overridden by entering the HTML here.

Image Link Replace HTML (optional) – When a logo URL is specified, LinkMgr generates a text block from the submit URL information that the external webmaster would use to setup the reciprocal link. In special cases, this text can be overridden by entering the HTML here.

Creating and Editing Links
To create a new link, select the site (if you have multiple sites), click on the desired category, and click the “New Link” link. The following information can be entered for each link:

URL – The URL for the link. This is typically the home page, but can be any other page in the site.

Name – The visible name of the link. Tip: This typically matches the title.

Title – Also known as alternate link text, this value appears when a web visitor passes the mouseover the link. Tip: Copy this value from the title tag that should be found in the source of the page being linked to.

Description – This is the visible text description for the link (also know as the connected text). This typically consists of a human readable sentence that includes all the words found in the title. Tip: Copy this value from description tag that should be found in the source of the page being linked to.

Logo Image URL (optional) – This is the URL of the logo image (if any) for the website. It should be an image that resides on the site and should include “http://www”. Tip: Most sites will not have a logo and entering logo information has no effect on SEO.

Text Link Replace HTML (optional) – LinkMgr generates the text link from the information provided above. In special cases, this text can be overridden by entering the HTML here.

Image Link Replace HTML (optional) – When a logo URL is specified, LinkMgr generates the image link from the information provided above. In special cases, the image link can be overridden by entering the HTML here.

Reciprocal URL – The page URL where the reciprocal link back to your site resides. If there is no reciprocal URL, you can enter “None”. You would use “None” when creating a link to an external website for the purpose of extending an invitation for that webmaster to link to your site.

Active – This value controls whether the link will be displayed. Links that are waiting to be approved will not be active.

Import Function

LinkMgr has an import function that will load multiple links from a comma separated file. To use this function, select the desired category and click on the “Import Links” link. You will see the layout for the import function. Browse, select your file, and click the “Submit” button. You can also download a sample file layout by clicking on the “sample.csv” link. Tip: Be sure to load the active flag and all the required fields.