There are two key ways to drive traffic to your website. One way to increase traffic to your website is to increase you page ranking in the major search engine sites. The other way to get traffic to you site is to increase the number of links to other sites on the web.

There are numerous things that can be done to optimize your sites page ranking, but if you are just starting to build your online presence there are also a few initial things that you simply must do.

o Use keywords. These are specific words that people would most often use if looking for the types of products or services you are promoting

o Incorporate the keywords into your titles. This increases your keyword quota on the page and improves the likelihood it will be found by a search engine

o Use keywords as link. If you are linking pages in your site, attach the links to keywords, rather than linking to the phrase click here.

o Keep content direct on each page. If you have a clear key idea on each page then you will be able to enrich your keyword concentration and improve its appeal to a search engine

Once you have done this you are increasing the likelihood that the search engine will find your site and identify it correctly. This then means you will gain a higher page ranking when someone does a search, and in turn increase the traffic to your site.

The second way to drive traffic to your site quickly and effectively is by linking to other web pages that hold related content. In fact linking to other sites is one of the measures that the large search engines use to rank your website. If you are new to online marketing however the dilemma is how to start initiating these links.

There are basically two options to get links to your site, the first option is to pay for links. This is just what it sounds like, you pay someone a fee and they link your site to other pages. This can be done in a number of ways. One option is to use a pay per click, where you pay a fee for each time that someone clicks on a keyword that you have selected to be linked with your site. This is quite effective and can bring about 50 percent of your traffic if applied correctly.

Another option for getting your website linked into other sites is to simply advertise. You could choose to place a text advertisement or even a banner on other websites that have related content on their pages. By placing just such an ad on related sites you are targeting an audience that is already looking at sites with similar search criteria and keywords to those you are trying to promote.

The next option is to email potential clients. This form of marketing has been around a long time and can be effective. The major things that you should be aware of are whether the company has been involved in spam mails or if there database of emails is legitimate. There are a number of companies available to do this kind of promotion on you behalf and they can even write the email to be sent for you as well.

Finally you can look at having your site linked through a directory. This is where the paid and natural traffic options overlap. There are both paid and unpaid directories where you can post your sites URL and from there the links that will hopefully draw you to a higher page ranking and more site traffic will start to come your way.

If you are looking to have an unpaid source of links this can be a little more difficult. The options in this case are to link to as many sites as possible through unpaid means. This can include common internet open forums, blogs, article posts and even simply exchanges of links with other organisations that have connections to your area of expertise. Linking through these kinds of methods is known as natural or organic linking.

Natural linking can also be done via social networking and other forums where there is a high number of like minded people that are likely to look for links using the keywords that are found in your page.

Ultimately, to achieve your goal of driving more traffic to your site it is going to be important that you understand how the process works. Once you have your keyword enhanced content and you have understood the principles here on paid and unpaid traffic it is time to start sorting out the options that are right for you. There is the old saying dont be backwards about coming forwards; when it comes to establishing your web site and linking it to other sites to drive traffic to your pages then it is worth keeping this saying in mind. Links take time and effort to establish and you need to be putting yourself out there. Once you do however, the benefits of increase traffic flow will be well worth the effort!

Getting your site to rank highly in search engines is considered a necessary part of creating your online presence these days. Whilst it is possible to pay consultants to do this work for you, it is estimated around 75 percent of organisations simply do their own SEO work. The advantage being that it is a whole lot cheaper and more convenient, especially if you are running a small business. So how do you make your site achieve its optimum ranking in search engines?

There is no one set formula that will get your site to a high rank in search engines, but there are definitely common factors that you need to consider.

Firstly and perhaps most simply, include keywords. Think of what product you are selling and what likely searches a potential buyer might do to find your site. Next look at the site and see if you have used any of these phrases. If you have quality content on your page it should be a snap to see where you can include the keywords that describe your product.

This takes us to the next point, page content optimization. As with the previous point, you want your keywords to appear regularly in your website, but you want this to be in a natural way. Be careful when you incorporate key words, so called key word stuffing may draw search engines to look at your site but you also want your buyer to be drawn in by the site as well! Write your content and include the key words were they most naturally fit.

Next look at title optimization, do the titles and names of the pages include key words in a natural way. This also applies to domain names, and if it is possible to incorporate key words here, then it can be valuable to do so. Also consider if the keywords are used to navigate the site and on the navigation tool on your website. It also pays to include a site map, which if you have successfully worked keywords into page titles, should be the one page on your site that is stuffed full of key words!

Once you have looked at optimizing your content and titles it pays to look at the links within your website. When search engine tools crawl websites rating and evaluating pages, these internal links are integral to the way in which your site is evaluated. Incorporating links via key words to other parts of your website can be as important as getting links from external sites into your website. Whilst click here links can be good for sales, it is also worthwhile including links via words in the text to different parts of your website, as these links guide the search engine tool through your pages.

Finally source high quality links from other sites, if you can get traffic in from another higher ranked site this can help you to optimize your search engine results more quickly. The more quality links there are to your site, the faster the search engine is likely to find it and the faster you will be able to optimize your search engine results.

Ultimately, successful search engine optimization is not an exact science for the web site creator. Whilst the development of search engines tools is based on the use of algorithms, these are generally a closely guarded secret. Keeping up to date with forums about SEO and keeping your website content up to date and keyword enhanced will give you the best chance to succeed in your search engine optimization.

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!

Once you have created your website, structured it around keywords and key phrases, established links and generally optimized it for search engine ranking without detracting from its customer appeal; dont make the one mistake that can potentially undermine all your hard work.

What is the mistake? I Thought you might be asking that. The one mistake that many people make is that despite their best efforts to implement great strategies for SEO; they simply forget, overlook or just dont know to make sure that they have a good sitemap. Whilst a sitemap is a useful tool if you have visitors to your site that havent found what they are after via usual navigation, the significance of a sitemap from an SEO perspective is slightly different.

With a great sitemap you will be able to get search engine crawlers to every page of your website, indexing all of them. If you know about SEO then you understand that the indexing of your site is vital for boosting your page ranking, therefore having a good sitemap is crucial once you have those crawlers there.

To create a good site map there are a few simple steps to follow. Firstly, write the sitemap in simple HTML code and keep the categories in order. Next, use simple lists that are reflective of the actual structure of the website, i.e. category headings should match top level pages and so on. Finally, if you are unsure take a look at what other sites have done with their sitemaps; this can be really helpful if you want to make sure you are on the right track.

o Large websites

If your site is on the large side then a few lines of explanation throughout the sitemap will help visitors to find their way to exactly what they are looking for. This aids the algorithms of the search engines to find their way around your links also. There are a few sitemap tools available that can be helpful if you are creating a sitemap that is to be used with a large website. As a rule, look for a sitemap tool that will run from your desktop, can work with templates that will help to structure your sitemap and will hope you group your pages into the applicable categories. With the introduction of the Google Sitemap Protocol, then it is also worth ensuring your sitemap tool creates a sitemap that meets this requirement as well.

o Google sitemaps

When you are developing your sitemap you should now take into account the fact that Google has introduced a Sitemap Protocol. This simply means that you need to build your sitemap in such a way that you include information required by this protocol and that you create the sitemap not in HTML but in XML format.

For your Google sitemap you will need to incorporate information about URLs; the last time you modified them, if they are regularly changed and a measure of their importance against other URLs in the sitemap. The Google protocol also requires the user of XML not HTML sitemaps. This is important as it is a format that the search engines spiders will more easily recognize and understand.

If you are unsure about how you can create a sitemap that meets these criteria, then it could be worthwhile to look at the sitemap generator tools available. There is a Google Sitemap Generator tool available through Google, and there are others such as Site Map Pro, that can be found online.

A well built sitemap is a crucial part of your SEO plan. If you have gone through the process of optimizing your pages then dont fall down at the last hurdle. Invest the time and energy today into creating a quality sitemap for your web pages. It truly will be time well invested.

We all know that if we are looking for something online, we usually make our first stop a search engine, such as Google or Yahoo. It is important to remember this when you are trying to increase traffic to your website. If you look for everything in Google or Yahoo, then the chances are that is what everyone else is doing so as well. So I use a search engine, what is the big deal? I hear you saying. Well the big deal is that you use a search engine and so does everyone else!

But of course I am sure you know that already, so why am I still banging on about it? Well the thing that many small businesses fail to grasp is that getting your page onto a search engine and as a highly ranked page at that is often not fully understood.

Here are the options for getting your site recognized by the Google search engine:

o Put in an application. Not an altogether bad idea and relatively easy, but how long are you willing to wait? Putting in an application via Google Addurl, Yahoos How to Suggest Your Site page or via the Open Directory Projects How to add a site to the Open Directory page is a worthy effort, particularly as Google has made agreements with Yahoo and Netscape ,owners of the Open Directory, that any sites indexed in their directories will be placed in Googles index. The downside of this is that you could be waiting anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks before this happens, and even then you may end up somewhere around page 20 in the rankings; basically your efforts are hardly worth the time spent on them!

o Link your site to others. Great, sounds terrific but what does it mean? Well quite simply linking your site to others is just what it sounds like, having links to other sites on your page; but more particularly, having links to your site from other peoples pages. The advantage of this is that it creates a search engine position that is known as organic. This means that the search engine crawlers that locate links to pages via other related pages find your site and index it by linking to it from another site. The advantage of being indexed in this way is that instead of being relegated to a page ranking where you are unlikely to ever be found, the organic placement of your website will start to creep up. The more links the more popular your site becomes, and the more links you can establish the higher your ranking is likely to climb. As an added bonus, you may also pick up traffic to your site from other sites that people with an interest in your particular product or service are visiting.

Clearly option number two is going to get you a higher ranking and a whole lot faster, so the next question is how do you get those links in place? Well to start with, consider what sorts of sites would be interested in linking to your site. If you are selling fine wines, then you may not get much benefit being linked to a site for pet food. A great way to get started is to link via relevant directories for your product or service. These can often be found simply by looking in the very search engines you are trying to get your site on to.

You can also request to exchange links with sites that are related to yours, simply add a link from your site, contact the other site to do the same, and very soon you will start to build up a large number of incoming quality links that will boost your page ranking. If you are unsure about taking this step, then it is worth getting started with the help of a reciprocal link managing tool. The better quality links you get the faster you will rise in the page rankings on Google.

A final sure fire way to get your page ranking to increase is by having articles and information about your site posted on article directories, which then include a link to your site from the article. If you are selling fine wine, then an article for example about how to store fine wines could be posted with a link to you site. This can be a great way to bring in traffic that you know is interested in your product or service, whilst at the same time increasing the quality links to your site and the ranking your page is given by Google.

Getting onto Google is a worthwhile endeavor, as this is one of the surest ways to bring targeted traffic to your website. By following a few simple steps to be certain that your site can be easily found, you will be on your way to getting onto Google in just 48 hours!