One of the most important steps to getting a real online business up and running is web site traffic. An excellent source of website traffic is search engine traffic. Many people who start a home-based business hesitate to use search engine traffic because they do not think they can compete with the larger websites. They believe it is impossible to outrank them.
Here is what you may not realize. You can beat many websites in search engine rankings because there are a number of keywords and phrases these websites are not even trying to get ranked for. We offer a book for sale called “Thomas Jefferson Education.” There is only one other website on the first page for this keyword that sells this book as well. As a result, at the time of this writing, we are listed on the first page of Google for this keyword and phrase.
Do you see how powerful this is? With a high ranking and little competition, this gives us a significant advantage. There are times where we even had a higher search engine ranking than the publisher of the book. Amazon has also ranked well for this book, but they only have used copies.
One of the most common questions that I receive is “How do I know what Google looks for to determine my ranking?” The fact of the matter is Google keeps this information secret so that people cannot manipulate the search engines.
If you see someone selling an eBook that claims to teach you “everything you need to know to get listed in the search engines” you should proceed very cautiously. The reason why no one can teach you everything is because no one knows everything. Google itself changes the formula all the time.
I am not saying that people are lying when they tell you this. There are certain fundamentals that will typically always hold true. However, no one knows the specific components that you need to know in order to manipulate the rankings.
Since no one knows the algorithm is there anyway to dictate high search engine placement? One of the best ways to do so is to create a campaign where you create back links to your website. A back link is a link on another website that when clicked on, leads the visitor to your website.
Most search engines use back links as part of their search engine algorithm. For example, if you get a link on a website and the link says, “Butterfly”, this will help your search engine rankings if your website is also about butterflies. This is how search engines determine what website should get placed where.
There are many ways to get back links. Here are some suggestions:
1. Reciprocal Links: This is where you ask someone to put a link to your web site. You in turn will put a link to their web site.
2. Write a press release: You can write a press release and submit it online about your company. You need to include a link to your website to get any benefit. If a news website uses your release, they will publish it along with a link back to your web site. An example of a press release site is http://www.free-press-release.com/
3. Write an article: You can write an article about the topic that your web site is about with a link back to your website. You then want to submit it to the different article directories that are available online. Many ezine publishers and blog owners use content in these directories so you can get free links that way. You not only get the link from the directory, but you get the link from each site that uses your articles as well. One of the best directories is http://ezinearticles.com/
I believe the easiest and fastest ways to get backward links is to go with the article option. A single article can create hundreds, even thousands of back links for your web site rather quickly. This will result in search engine traffic for your real online business as well as traffic from visitors that come across those articles as well.