Once you have taken the step of creating your website you then need to focus on how to get people to come and look at it. Bringing traffic to your website generally means that you need to incorporate a Search Engine Optimization plan. This is the plan you follow that will optimize your content with keywords, whilst maintaining your overall appeal to customers. It will also involve developing those crucial links that will bring the web crawlers to your site, and thereby give your pages an index and page ranking on the major search engine sites. There are two paths you can follow to establish links to your site, via directories that will have links to related sites or by finding the links yourself.



Firstly, lets take a look at web directories. Web directories are sites such as the Open Directory Project, LookSmart, and Yahoo, which contain lists or directories of other sites, sorted by category. When you go into this site you will be able to find sites that are potentially able to link to yours.

The second option is to simply go to the search engine that you want to be listed on and start searching. You can locate online directories as well as find out here where your competitors are listed. You may even find that you can be linked to the same pages as them. Put in the keywords for your particular page search and then find other pages that relate to yours. There are different possibilities that will arise from each of these options, and it may be worth trying both for a while.

Once you have started to establish sites that you can link with, the next step is to create a links or resources page on your website. Here you can post links to the sites you would like to be connected with. When you have done this then you will look to have them establish links to your site. The easiest way to do this is to simply contact them and indicate that you have added a link to their site, and would they do the same for you. There is mutual benefit in establishing links, and website administrators will know this. The more quality links you can establish the more hits your site will get and of course your site will climb higher on the page rankings of the search engines.

Another great tip to building links can be to link your site via articles placed in article directories. This is a simple process, whereby you create an article that is relevant to your product or expertise. You then place this article with a link to your site in one of the many article directories on the net. For example, if you are selling car parts then an article posted about car maintenance with a link to your site can be another effective way of establishing links to your web pages. Again, you should look at the fact that the more links you establish, the more likely the search engines are to find you and the higher you will start to climb in the page rankings.

A good tip if you want to guarantee the quality of links into your site is to work with a pay per click site. These sites will place ads or banners that link your site on other relevant sites. This helps ensure that you receive the kind of traffic that is specifically interested in what you are selling. It can also see you get the benefit of having your link placed in a prominent page, with a guaranteed flow thru rate. The benefits of this option must be weighed against the cost, and how much you are initially wanting to outlay to establish your website.

Lastly, you could look at establishing links using a web linking tool, and this can be done also in conjunction with the other tips suggested. One final note, if you are trying to establish web links, remember that quality can be as important as quantity; whatever you do dont be tempted to use link farms. These are viewed poorly by the search engines and are considered to be the same as spamming. Take the time to do the research and establish quality links to your site. You will be well rewarded for your effort!