“After reading this article, I couldn’t think of a better way to explain SEO”

-Editor

The fact is every search engine has a different formula to accord ranking for a Web page. Keyword-rich copy that the search engines favor may not ideally form the text -especially not on the front page! Using flash animation and of graphics may make the site appealing, but as the search engines can not index these well, one has to inevitably use gateway pages.

Some business owners may argue that their sites need to be one up on the others and would want liberal use of flash animation and lots of graphics, They may be somewhat disinclined to change this attitude just to satisfy the search engines.

There are many web developers who burn the midnight oil examining search engine results and trying to figure out each search engine’s methodology or algorithm for high rankings. As a matter of fact, there have been scores of software programs written over the years to unravel the algorithms to generate high-ranking pages for each engine. The problem is like a musical chair – by the time you arrive at a formula for an algorithm, the algorithm will change and the new algorithm must be cracked again. It is best this type of time-consuming method is avoided.

Notwithstanding the fact that search engines have slightly different algorithms which they keep changing, all search engines accord priority to the same set of things that real visitors look for in a Web site.

You do not need any technical expertise to know what parameters are needed for SEO. Sheer commonsense should suffice. What all search engines will uniformly expect in web pages are – an easy neatly coded design, an imaginative straightforward navigation, crisp yet well drafted copy, titles / meta tags that facilitate easy identification of relevant keyword and phrases and links that exactly describe what can be found at the site.

Writing Keyword-rich content does not necessarily mean one has to compromise on providing correct and appropriate information to the visitor. Good content can be written in a way that will fully drive home the benefits to the user while suitably utilizing keyword phrases. It may be seemingly difficult but possible by a competent content writer. The advice is to engage a professional content writer and not somebody obsessed with SEO.

It is once again an act born of common sense. Web with skillfully written keyword rich content have the potential to achieve high rankings for many years regardless of search engines changing algorithms. Still more importantly, they will also be a runaway success with the site visitors.

Most web developers are excessively fond of flash animation and graphics and willing to even forego appropriate content. Clients who want high rankings and lots of traffic also refuse to forfeit the avoidable graphics and flash animation. Now, it is to an extent true that some search engines have started reading the content of flash files.

A flash presentation on a site may appear exciting the first couple of times one views it, but thereafter it will be irksome when the visitor is not able to get the precise information he or she wants. And Why not have your cake and eat it too? – By using permissible amounts of flash in select places along with justifiable content. At the end of the day, most people are looking for exact information on the types of products or services in concise language, preferably on the main page of the site. Let us not forget that is exactly what the search engines also want to provide higher rankings.

The heartening fact is, as the Web matures, more and more business site owners are realizing that their fanciful sites do not fetch much traffic as the competitor’s site that provides strictly business information bereft of all ostentation. Thus there is the new trend of creating a couple of additional sites purely for SEO purposes.

It is said, and rightly too, that the single most important part of optimizing a site and getting it rank well in the search engines is content. Write a new page of content for your site at regular intervals and your website will climb the ranks. With irrelevant or inadequate content, the website will soon become a disaster whatever its other merits.

Of course, content need not be mistaken for pages of mere text. It may include a shopping cart filled with products and product descriptions as also downloadable gadgets and gimmicks. There are some imaginative developers who add jokes, anecdotes, and stories of success associated with their products. As long the written material is relevant to one’s business, website can legitimately aspire for better rankings.

Guided by commonsense, let us take following steps for higher rankings by search engines:

Provide simple straightforward and easily comprehensible information.

* Avoid too many technical jargons as it is not the place to display one’s expertise but to remain user-friendly.

* Try not to employ some clever tricks. Search engines are any day smarter than you. The whole effort will prove counter-productive as the search engines may even penalize you for these antics.

Make the URL for the site clear and relevant and acceptable to crawlers

Put yourself into the shoes of a random visitor and ask the question – is this page well-structured and offers me right and adequate information about what I am seeking?

* Reliability of information is of paramount importance. You will have an easier time ranking highly if your site offers established and trustworthy information ant the content is devoid of too many hollow superlatives.

There is no denying that it takes time to achieve SEO. Much of SEO is based on other sites that link back to your page, but then you have no direct control over that aspect. All you can do is to focus on what you have control over, which is making your page as compelling as possible.

About the Author: Search Engine Genie is a Leading SEO Company and SEO Consulting Services to its US, Canada, and UK clients.Search Engine Genie is a Great resource with 75 plus Free webmaster tools, forums, SEO Articles, SEO Blog and more. Contact us at support@searchenginegenie.com (or) Call us at 1-714-516-8845.

Nowadays such a journal of thoughts, observations and muses is considered as a way to boost your business when posted on the internet.

Blogs, previously know as web logs, have now established themselves as the ‘must have’ means to promoted yourself and project your business to friends and customers online. A blog is essentially a journal, daily entries or ‘posts’ as they are called, updated on a regular basis. These may consist of news, personal views and opinions, ideas and promotional material.

Blogs also have links to other sites or blogs, sources of information and marketing promotions. These online journals are not meant to be on-way sites, that is, readers are invited, or indeed expected to submit their comment on the material posted within the blog.

This can apply to everything from home keeping to travel, but it can also serve as a source of income to your online business. Yet, not everyone can make headway with blogs.

I invite you to see how the following 4 basic business objectives can be reached.

1. find a new or little-known product or idea For Ryan Brown, having a blog makes a lot of sense for several reasons. Brown runs a business that provides alternative energy systems.

Since most of his prospective clients know little about alternative energy systems and what is available, he says that he finds a natural way to provide this information through his blog. “I began blogging as a means of cheap advertising and to keep in touch with existing and prospective clients,” says Brown “It does have a positive impact for my enterprise.

People are always craving for more information on companies, products and availability.” Eventually this leads to a better informed customer who is usually more ready to part with his cash and make a well-informed purchase. Thus product information is available to whoever needs it. No useless sales pitching to uninterested customers, but the same sales pitch is available to whoever seeks it. If a reader contacts you via the blog, bingo – you get results.

If not, no time has been wasted. You have lost no time explaining something to someone who eventually doesn’t buy.

2. Search Engine rankings are improved. Blogging also reaches out to other prospective clients in other ways. As any online business knows, site visitors coming via Google, or any other search engine provide a multitude of leads.

Search Engines love blogs because a blog sites has continuously changing content and comments posted by readers create further interest to spider bots. When set up properly, blogs have an enormous benefit as regards search engines, according to to search engine marketing firms.

Blogs that allow comments, every new post or comment converts into an additional web page in itself, full of additional keywords that are greedily picked up by the search engine spider bots.

3. Identify yourself as an expert in the field.

Apart from generating leads, a positive message about your credentials is dispersed throughout the online marketplace, giving your enterprise a personality and brand of its own.

4. Leave your mark on public opinion.

Traditional journalistic venues are bypassed through blogging, enabling the user to become his own publisher when airing his views and opinions.

Public relations firms have stated that blogs are now becoming the most powerful influence on public opinion Blogs have become a legal alternative source of news and information on nearly all subjects and topics. Anyone can use blogs, especially those with a passion and flair for some particular aspect or trade.

Several blogs serve to sway public opinion as much as established profession public relations firms. Talk openly with your customers in a forum Blogs that invite comments from their readers provide a sense of immediacy and personal contact with your customers.

In a way, this provides much needed feedback on what the customer likes or dislikes and what needs to be improved A business related blog provides a means for customers to submit their views after purchasing. The result?

Such blog-assisted online businesses benefit by getting glowing testimonials from over 15% of their customers as opposed to the less than 1% of customers that submit unsolicited testimonials in the normal market.

Guest Author: Mario R. Schembri is a freelance writing on Internet Marketing Strategies and related tools.

Visit my blog at www.homebusinessaire.com/blog
and leave your comments.

The word “hits” is commonly used these days and can cause confusion for many website owners, because in reality your traffic should not just be seen as hits, it should be split in to two groups, hits and visitors.

A visitor: This can be described as a unique person entering your website that then goes on to other pages and browses your site. No matter how many pages they look at, they will still only count as one visitor in your server logs. For example, if a person entered a website which sells golf supplies and they look at a certain brand of golf ball; they would then be counted as one visitor despite how many differing brands they may choose to then browse.

A hit: This however is different in the way that it counts every time a person moves to a different page on your website. Meaning every time a visitor moves to a different page on your website, it will create a hit in your server logs. For example, a hit in the same golf supplies website would be for every different brand of golf ball that the same person chooses to look at.

So now that you know the difference between a visitor and a hit, which one should you be keeping your eye on when analyzing your website stats? Well, it is just as important to be watching your visitors as it is your hits. Your site visitors are important because this allows you to clearly see how many unique people are being directed to your website. It is always good to see how many different customers your website is attracting.

Your website hits are also important in the way that they show the number of pages that are currently being viewed on your site. You can use this information to see how well your website is doing its job. Is your website landing page enough to entice your visitors to dig deeper and spend more time on your website, reading more and more of its content and what it has to offer. Or are people simply hitting on to the first page and then quickly moving on?

So, here you have it, the difference between a hit and a visitor and if used correctly when analyzing your websites traffic, you can use them together to see how well your website is performing. Never underestimate the power of your website stats; it is analyzing these that will give you some insight in to the future of your website.

About the Author

Online business is growing rapidly but there is still such a large number of businesses missing out on this opportunity. Kaplang is a unique design firm that provides quality services for web design, web development, search engine optimization and all other web solutions. Make sure your business stands out from the crowd when adding an online presence to your new or existing business. http://www.kaplang.com/searchengine.html

Of course, it just wasn’t true. You still needed to optimize the pages. After all, if your page was about ultralight backpacking, how would the search engines know that if you didn’t use the phrase a few times on the page? And if you preferred to call it “fastpacking,” there was never a way for all those searchers of “ultralight backpacking” to find your page – even if it was exactly the content they wanted.

So optimization still matters. But when the search engine algorithms changed again they began to place less emphasis on “on site” optimization. You still need those keywords on the page, but this is no longer enough. You also need to have other sites linking to yours, to show that you are important. Links have become very important if you want more website traffic from search engines.

The type of link matters though. Reciprocal links – where you trade with another site – are no longer of much value. Search engine algorithms have been adjusted for the fact that sites started trading irrelevant links just to boost rankings. Only one-way unpaid links are considered a true “vote of confidence” by the search engines, and so these are what you need.

Now, some experts still claim that you get links by having great content. People read your page, like it and so link to it. That would be nice, but it isn’t common at all. In fact, there are several things wrong with this theory.

First, how do the readers find your page to begin with, so they can then decide they like it enough to link to it? If you have no incoming links, the search engines ignore you, so how does anyone find the page? Secondly, if some visitors do make their way to your pages, will they have websites to link to you from? Most internet users either don’t have a website or they barely know how to create a link.

Finally, serious webmasters are hesitant to link to other sites too often now. Why? They don’t want to link to possible competition for starters. But the bigger reason is that a given page can only has just so much “voting power” according to search engine algorithms, so owners of sites like to divide it up in beneficial ways – like by linking to their own pages and sites.

So getting incoming links is the way to get more website traffic, but they are hard to get. What can you do? You can pay for traffic, but with many sites this is impractical. If your site makes ten cents per visitor and you pay fifty cents to get one, you are just throwing your money away.

Now, before I answer the question of how to get more traffic, let me add an encouraging note. Contrary to what some are saying, good content is not irrelevant now. Don’t listen to the skeptics. I recently read an opinion piece by a webmaster who said the old idea of “building a great website with great content” in order to get traffic was “foolish nonsense.” It isn’t.

What do we want when we search for things online? We want great websites with great content, right? That is exactly what the search engines are trying to point us too. The fact that they don’t do it perfectly doesn’t mean they aren’t getting better at it. So as they get continue to improve, you want to have the kind of site that they are looking for. If you’re thinking long term, have good content.

Finally, one of the best ways I have found to generate more website traffic is with simple articles like this one. Submit it to a few article directories, and you’ll get some readers. If they like it, some will even take it and use it on their websites, creating valuable one-way links. That helps with your search engine rankings. Meanwhile, some readers will like it enough to want more, and they’ll click that link in your resource or “about the author” box at the end of the article.

Guest Author

Copyright Steve Gillman. For your Free Online Writing Course, and to see how you can get the ebook “50 Ways To Get Traffic,” visit : http://www.999articles.com

If you are one of those hundreds of thousands of companies that are suffering daily to make a simple sale on something that you know has value, is priced right and is something that a customer/consumer can and will use then you need to ask yourself why you haven’t yet taken into consideration the power of social media marketing.

This post is inspired by a TV advert. I am a web addict and love web design, development, search engine optimization and social media marketing so it is very rare that you will catch me in front of the TV. Yet here I was, eyes glued to the TV set, jaw dropped to the ground and in AB-SO-LUTE awe! I will not mention any brand names but what I saw was a cellphone being marketed as a Social Media Networking tool. Yes. Thats right. Yahoo!, Fliker, YouTube, Facebook were all mentioned. One can come to the conclusion that if cell phone companies are marketing like so, then there is a demand for it. More people will purchase cell phones for neworking which will result in more people using PC’s to access social networks. This only means that now all businesses small and large can benefit from creating more branding, marketing and awareness about their products.

Consider that before you go saying that your company does not or will not need Social Media to market your business. Once the initial costs are over and your company has built a grounding for social media networking you can be sure that more people will recommend you as a trustworhy source for a specific service or product.

Here’s the bottom line, your competitors already have the edge against you. How much longer will it be before you realise the importance that this plays in the ever increasing world wide web and the impact that it has on people all over the world, people that are ultimately YOUR customers.

Do not let your competitiors get the edge our you – use Social Media Marketing NOW!

I know for a fact what has happened and why it is so much harder to succeed on Google now days, and I can almost guarantee some of the things that were said at Google. I bet several executives and employees of Google said “How can we make sure that all the web sites appearing in our results are valuable resources?”. Which makes complete sense because without valuable results in their search engines; they lose their stance as the best search engine on the internet. I also bet someone came up with a simple, yet, extremely bright idea and said something like this “Why don’t we just change the algorithm so that it takes true hard work; or true popularity for people to get to the top of our search engine?”, or something of that nature.

In essence Google saw blasted all over every Search Engine Optimization Blog world a new fad called link building; and that people were exchanging links left and right, which in all reality was creating illegitimate links (because there was no genuine interest in the web site thru this link to begin with). So I can only (once more) assume they talked to one another and said, “We should give very little value to links where web sites exchanged links in both directions”.

Then another issue that had to arise during this algorithm change was Google needed to make sure they could not be thwarted by all SEO gurus, and they did something else to help perpetuate that. In order for your hundreds of links you obtain to be most effective, your links must have unique hypertext or surrounding text to have high quality value. For example, if someone had the exact same link to their web site posted on 1,000 web sites saying “click here for quality dog food”; This would easily alert Google that this site does not have actual quality inbound links, and that someone either manually or automatically posted the same link to every related site they could find. Common sense of most every webmaster would tell them to post the a link over and over to as many place related web sites, but many didn’t consider the need for unique hypertext and descriptions to the web site. Therefore; once again, I can assume that Google decided the more unique the hypertext wording; the higher the chance that the link is authentic.

Another issue that arises is that many webmasters will create a web site that does not have any content change at all. You can have tons of great links, but I am positive that Google admires sites with fresh content. You need to update your site every few months (at least) and tweak some things regularly; you should also always add new fresh content.

Others have also realized that Google does value web sites that have been on the internet for extended periods of time. So if you are starting a new web site you need to be able to trench down for a long fight, however the rewards are great to the person that doesn’t falter and is persistent until the end.

Google isn’t prejudice, if you had as many unique links to your web site as yahoo.com Google would value you as an equal resource. Know that you are just another search optimizer against hundreds of thousands of others. How will you set yourself apart?

So to recap, Google decided that they needed to make sure that your web site is legitimately linked to. Unfortunately there are only a few ways to do that, and guarantee it withstands the tests of time. Here are some of my own personal ideas:

It comes down to the simple fact that now days in order to make sure you secure a long lasting high search engine ranking, you have to actually create content that markets itself. Also you must create enough interest in your web site that people are willing to take enough time to link to you without expecting a link back. All that said, here are my ideas that will help you to gain long lasting valuable links to your web site which will help make sure your long term search optimization goals are worth while.

Let’s start by getting our web site listed in to directories related to your topic; however don’t use the same title and description for each posting – constantly switch it up. Something I do personally in my spare time to help my site is go on other peoples blog’s talking about a subject that your web site is similar to and write genuine posts with your link attached. Don’t just flood their web site with links, you won’t get far and your posts will not be accepted. Publishing of articles online is great; be creative – that is what will set you apart. You can also host or sponsor events that will be talked about online. Offer incentives for people in your field to link to you, freebies, services, etc.

I tell you the absolute truth, whoever has a good work ethic and more creative bone in their body will succeed. This is because you will always have to find ways to create a constant flow of links to your web site without trying to manipulate a search engines perspective. Hard work is the easiest way to beat everyone else. Here is a quote I love from an unknown author: Some People Dream Of Success While Others Wake Up And Work Hard At It.

Guest Author

Joel McLaughlin http://www.dataflurry.com
I am a 23 year old search optimization specialist from Phoenix Arizona. I also enjoy web design and some programming on the side.

Google Analytics

There’s no need to hire a programmer–some of my favorite reports are quick and easy to create using Google Analytics.

Create a Market Segment

If you’re a company that caters to local or regional clients, you may want to create an Advanced Segment first. This will allow you to view any reports–including custom designed ones–as they really apply to your target market.

Under Advanced Segments, create a new custom segment. For this example, we’re going to create a segment for the territory of Harrisburg, Lancaster, and York, Pennsylvania.

Select Visitors, then slide the “City” dimension over to the report form. For “Condition” select “Matches Exactly”, then type “Harrisburg”. Continue this process for Lancaster and York, ensuring that you Add “or” Statement between each.

Then, because some of these cities exist in other states, I will Add “and” Statement and slide over the Region dimension and “Match Exactly” to “Pennsylvania”.

The last step is to name your segment. In this case, I’m calling it “York-Harrisburg-Lancaster-PA”. Then click on “Test Segment” to view the results. You now have the capability of viewing that market segment in any report–custom or canned. Now let’s monitor your traffic building progress.

Monthly Organic Progress Report

Organic search results are unpaid traffic that is sent to your website from the search results. To easily view your monthly organic search results, click on “Custom Reporting”, then “Create New Custom Report”. You’ll notice the same format you used when you created your market segment.

Start with the metrics–slide over the metrics for Visits, Time on Site, Pages per Visit, Bounces and Bounce Rate. Most of these metrics are self-explanatory except for the Bounce Rate. The Bounce Rate is important–it’s the percentage of visits that immediately click off your site. It’s a great indication that either the wrong traffic is being sent to your site, wrong keyword usage, or the site needs some work.

Now, under the Dimensions section, select “Medium” and slide it over to your report. Medium is the breakdown of organic, referrals, or direct visits to your website. As a Sub-Dimension, slide over “Month”, then “Keyword” below that.

Be sure to edit the name to something you’ll better recognize. In this case I’m calling my report “Medium Progress by Month”. Your report layout should now look something like this:

To finish, select “Create Report”.

Save Your Report to the Dashboard

Select your report, then drill down to Organics, then Month. Apply your market segment filter by selecting the “Advanced Segments” in the upper right corner. Checkmark the “York-Harrisburg-Lancaster-PA” segment to apply to your custom report. You can deselect “All Visits” to view only your new market segment. Now that you have it the way you want to view it, select “Add to Dashboard” and you’ll have an instant view of the organic results every time you log onto your Analytics account. Or, better yet, click on “Email” and schedule this report to arrive in your inbox on a daily, weekly or monthly interval. Quick and easy–nothing to it!

Let me know how you make out and please share your own favorite reports.

About the Author

Marita Hines has over 9 years offering website solutions. Her firm Artspell Web Solutions designs affordable websites that are search engine optimized from day one.

In this article, we will discuss about the advantages of following web standards.

World Wide Web Consortium

Web standards: Web standard is a general term for the formal standard and other technical specification, established by the W3C and other standard bodies.

W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international industry consortium dedicated to “leading the Web to its full potential”. It’s headed d by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web.

Advantages of web standards:

1. Consistent Look and Feel: All styles are defined separately in a central CSS file. Separation of style from the content enables to give a consistent look and feel to the website.

2. Improved search engine ranking: CSS driven website helps in improving content to code ration by removing junk code. This improves the structural organization of the code, thereby improving its readability. Using optimized content rich code makes it easy for the search engine to index it more accurately and achieve better ranking.

3. Easy to maintain: Having all the styles defined in single CSS file makes the maintenance easy. It eliminates the tedious job of making same changes on each and every page. It is easy to understand the semantic and structured code even though created by some one else.

4. Cross browser compatible: Writing clean code that conforms to the W3C standards will give consistent results across all browser platforms. Major browsers include – IE6, IE7, Safari, Firefox (Windows and Mac), Opera.

5. Accessible to different devices: Semantic HTML, where structure is separated from presentation, makes it easy to interpret the content on different devices like cell phones, PDA, screen reader.

6. Minimal bandwidth requirement: Clean, structured code with all presentation elements in single file, helps in decreasing the file size and results in quicker downloads.

Conclusion

Using Standard compliant code, one can make sure that the code is properly structured and semantically coded. It is easy to manage and make changes in well formatted website.

In nutshell, standard based websites are more accessible across all browsers, operating systems and different devices. They use low bandwidth and perform well in search engines.

About the Author

SEO-Semantic-XHTML.com transforms your design files from various familiar image formats (PSD, JPG, GIF, etc) into high quality cross-browser compatible, 100% hand coded, W3C validated (X)HTML. Visit SEO Semantic XHTML for our PSD to XHTML Conversion & slicing services

Advertise Online | Your Options

Internet Yellow Pages. Yes, it’s the online version of the tried and true yellow page directory. Simple enough to understand right? For example, check out YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, and Yellowbook.com. Each of these offers a free listing for your business and you can also pay for a more prominent listing… again, just like the regular yellow pages.

Online Directories. These sites make it easy for Internet users to search for a local business like yours. Yahoo! Local, Local.com, and InsiderPages are local directories you should consider. There may also be directories that just focus on your type of business. For example, if you own a restaurant then you probably want to be listed in UrbanSpoon. Many directories offer free business listings… and if you’re willing to pay, your business can show up higher in search results!

City Guides. These websites are more about “what’s great” and “what to do” in your local area… and user reviews and popularity are important factors in determining which businesses get the most attention. Citysearch and Yelp are good examples. And like the Internet yellow pages and online directories, you can get a business listing and promote your business in search results.

Paid Search. Of course you can always pay Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft to show up in their local search results. For example, if you’re a dentist located in Chicago, it may make sense to buy a paid search ad for the keywords “dentists, Chicago” to drive local prospects to your website. Keep in mind that setting up, testing, and managing your paid search programs can be time consuming and complicated… so you may want to turn to firms like Yodle or ReachLocal to help out.

Online Newspapers. Don’t forget your local newspaper! It attracts lots of online readers from your neighborhood. And just like the print version, you can buy ads in different sections like the news, sports, and entertainment pages of their site. But this may be a better option if you have your own website and a bit more of a marketing budget.

Local Websites. There are many other websites that cater specifically to your local market. For example, your city magazine probably has an online version. Plus there are local blogs that focus on community news, real estate, parenting, sports, and even nightlife. And some may be looking for advertisers just like you. The key is to find local websites that do a great job of reaching your target audience.

All good and helpful information right? But where do you start? Well… that depends.

What if you have no website or budget? At least get your free business listings with the Internet Yellow Pages, Online Directories, and City Guides. A business listing is like a one-page website showing your company name, address, phone number… and maybe more. That way the millions of people searching these sites can now find your business! And if you have some budget to spend then consider upgrading to a paid and more prominent listing (about $50 per month). You should also start testing some of the advertising programs these sites offer ($100 to $400 per month) to see what works best… to get the phones ringing!

What if you have a great website and $500 or more per month to spend marketing your business? Then, in addition to advertising in the Internet Yellow Pages, Online Directories, and City Guides, you should also be running local paid search ads. And if you’re looking to spend over $1,500 monthly on advertising your local website (lucky you!)… definitely consider adding your online newspaper and local websites to the mix.

Btw… right now someone in your neighborhood is searching the Internet for a business like yours. Hurry up and get started… to make it easy for them to find you!

Come visit us at www.leadtail.com

Guest Author

Carter Hostelley is a founding member of the Leadtail Community. What is Leadtail? A company founded with the mission of making online advertising easier for marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Come visit us at www.leadtail.com.

If you have money to spare, you can submit your website/blog/article to directory submission services. Perhaps one of the oldest methods to get backlinks, these services charge a fee in exchange for backlinks. They’ll select which relevant directories to submit your site or article to (these can number in the thousands), do the submissions for you, and guarantee to give you X amount of backlinks. You can also opt to do the submissions yourself to sites such as Yahoo Directory. These will get you authority backlinks, but you have to pay the price.

For those who would rather utilize free methods to get backlinks, there are many ways to go about building web traffic.

1. Write articles with quality content and submit these to article directories. Ezine Articles and Go Articles, Article Alley, Article Base, and Buzzle are some good sites. There are many others. By submitting articles, you get backlinks from high page rank directories plus when other people publish your articles in their sites, you get additional backlinks to your site. The content of your article is important. When you have useful and informative content, your readers are encouraged to link to your article. Give your articles compelling titles in order to elicit attention from readers.

2. Join forums relevant to your site and post comments and blogs which link back to your site/article. Again, make your posts informative or at least relevant and encouraging.

3. Comment on blogs related to your niche. Contribute useful and relevant information when commenting on blogs. Link your comment to your article or to relevant content on your website. Do this often. It’s a marvelous way to interact with other bloggers and gain credibility for yourself as you increase backlinks to your site.

4. Bookmark your web pages, using popular bookmarking sites such as delicious.com, reddit.com, Technorati.com, Stumbleupon.com, etc. You may want to use socialmarker.com to do this. It’s a free tool that helps you cut the time you spend in submitting to social bookmarking sites.

5. Use the services of Free Traffic System. This is a free tool that publishes the articles you submit to hundreds of relevant blogs that link back to your article or website. This will result in increased traffic and higher page ranking.

6. Submit your site to popular web directories like Yahoo Directory and DMOZ. You can submit for free although it may take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months before the search engines list your site. It’s worth the wait though.

Remember though that not all backlinks are created equal – at least not in the sight of search engines. So you must ensure that you get high quality backlinks. Search engines are known to devalue links from directories with low page ranking. They also get very suspicious if you all of a sudden have thousands of new backlinks. They’ll think you’re spamming and lower your ranking. So if you’re going to submit to directories, don’t submit all at once. Spread out your submissions over a period of time so that the search engines view you as building backlinks naturally. I’ve given you 6 good strategies for creating backlinks to your website/blog/article and increasing your search engine ranking. Use them and watch your Google and other search engine ranking shoot up.

For honest reviews on some of the most reliable internet marketing programs, visit http://avielv.thebestbizreview.com/.

About the Author

Elvira Avila has been writing articles for more than 30 years. For more material on experiences, resources, tools, etc. related to making money online, visit her blog at http://onlinebusiness-elvira.blogspot.com/ .