You need at least one incoming link before you show up in Google at all!

Exchanging links with other websites is a tedious, time-consuming, and ongoing
process. However, without other sites that link to your site, you will likely not rank
well on Google for your keywords.

Incoming links from other sites also increase your site traffic as follows:

• You get higher rankings with Google, which means more people will find your
website due to you being near the top of the search results for a given
keyword phrase.

• You get greater exposure by being listed on different websites. The power of
this shouldn’t be underestimated. Not only should links from more sites over
time steadily increase your traffic, but it also offers you some diversification
from relying solely on Google for all your traffic. Traffic to your site will
increase over the long-term as long as you actively manage your reciprocal
link campaign.