Backlinks Are The Key to Traffic
Generating a great website is only part of having an Internet presence. If no-one can find your site when searching then you might as well not spend any time building your site.
The most important thing that you can do to have an effective web presence is have other web sites link to it. Typically, there are 2 types of links, one-way and reciprocal. Both are easy and effective strategies to building traffic but one is much more effective than the other – one-way links.
Reciprocal links are when you link to a site and that web site also links back to you. This was the most popular type of linking a few years ago and is still widely used. Some site owners get great traffic by using in a link exchange service or system created specifically for reciprocal links. A link exchange is a group of site owners that exchange links with one another.
The other type of linking is called one-way linking. This is when one site links to your web site; however you do not place a link back. Sometimes you may agree to exchange backlinks to different sites which is called an n-way link exchange. Google really prefers this type of linking compared to reciprocal linking. But, it can be very difficult to get a one-way link. There are three chief strategies for getting one-way links: submit your web site to directories, give away something significant that includes your link, pay for a link on someone else’s high ranking web site.
1. Creating backlinks by submitting your web site to directories is generally free unless you choose to upgrade. Directories are special web sites that list other web sites that visitors may be interested in and are usually hand edited so they have additional authoritative weight in the search engine algorithms. There are software applications that can help with the tedious procedure of filling out directory web forms. One of the least expensive is Directory Site Submitter.
Directory Site Submitter will let you create and manage multiple projects with multiple sites per project and then help you submit to over 400 free directories. The links from these websites will be helpful for SEO reasons more than actual traffic.
2. A great solution is to give away something of value that contains your link. Articles are very common since so many people need site content. They are cheap to write and can be effective at drawing one-way links to your site.
3. Steer clear of purchasing links on sites for SEO purposes. It can cost up to $100 a month or more to put your link on a high pagerank site and it still might not be counted in the search engine formula. Google has frequently said that purchasing direct links will not be of benefit for SEO. However, you might still use this technique to drive traffic from a high traffic site to your site.
The real truth is that if you are working to build long term income, it is going to take a while before your web site becomes profitable. A long term strategy for a site may take six months or even a year for it to start generating income. It is also important to start building back links at once. Choose your links carefully. Make sure that you are not choosing links from low level web sites, scraper web sites or backlinks from bad neighborhoods.
Keep in mind, in today’s competitive Internet environment, if you would like a successful website then you will have to do at least as much or more SEO than the sites on the first page of search engine results.
