Below are three different ways to develop content for your site.

The first and most effective strategy are articles.

Articles actually work for you in several ways.

a. Brands you as an expert so that customers come to you. b. Provides valuable content to your potential customers. c. Builds a relationship between you and your potential customers. d. Creates a viral marketing strategy for your site. e. Builds a linking strategy for you every time a webmaster publishes one of your articles.

No other strategy that I have employed has brought me more business than this one.

To find sites that accept articles, go here: http://www.jogena.com. This is one of sites that I use because it's one of oldest, and most reputable sites online for finding information on ezines. Unfortunately, there's no search, but everything is done by category, and information is comprehensive, so you will locate rather quickly what you are looking for.

However, if thought of writing your own content gives you nightmares, there's a way around this.

You can use public domain information. Public domain information is information that is free to use because it's in public arena, or copyright has expired.

To help you easily locate this information, I recommend that you download public domain toolbar. You can get it at Public Domain Forum - http://www.publicdomainforum.com/forum. You have to register for an account to get toolbar, but both forum account and toolbar are free. The toolbar is a very comprehensive resource of public domain sources.

The third content strategy you need to consider is blogging.

What a blog does is allows you to create search engine friendly content on your topic of interest. Combine this with an RSS feed, which search engines love, and you have a winning strategy.

Not only will it help you build content for search engines, but it can also help you raise your traffic and sales.

Here is a comprehensive ecourse that you can take that will drastically reduce your learning curve, as well as provide you with resources you need to implement this strategy.

http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/blogging-course.htm

Finally, to keep abreast of what's happening with search engines, you need to subscribe to Search Engine Watch - http://www.searchenginewatch.com. This site offers tons of resources, news, and a newsletter on search engine optimization.

Apply one, or all, of these search engine resources to your search engine strategy, and you can expect a major increase in your traffic and sales to your site.

5. Join a link co-op. Co-ops such as one found at http://www.digitalpoint.com/ are an amazing source of valuable back links and free advertisement. What is a co op network? A Co op network is a network of site owners/webmasters that offer ad space to network. In return, ads they define are displayed across entire network. The best part of ad networks such as one found at digital point, is, they are free. Having your site in a co-op can literally mean thousands of back links for your site.

6. Buying ezine ads is a paid method of advertising, but it works, because it is most targeted of these approaches. Write a concise ad for your business, and link to either a lead-capture page or directly to your autoresponder. Then, begin contacting ezines to place your ad. (Do a search for “ezine directories,” and you will find enough lists to keep you busy.) When you contact an ezine, look for rates for both classified ads and solo ads. The advantage to a solo ad is that your ad goes out by itself in a separate email, but they can be more expensive. Because these ads are targeted (you should NOT advertise in an unrelated ezine), you will definitely see traffic, but you will need to track your results to see which ezines bring you most and best traffic.

7. Ad Swaps can be an exellent source of advertising. Start by writing some killer copy (to coin a phrase...there are many free articles and ebooks writen on subject). Simply use your favorite search engine and type in...how to write ad copy. I googled this as I am wriying this and it showed 12,400,000 results. WOW! Once you have your ad written, search out Ezines that are in same catagory as your business or service. Again use your favorite web search. Build yourself a list of ezines and then email them asking if they except ad swaps. Include your ad in your corrospondance with ezines so they can see what you are offering. Another place to check for ezines is to type in Ezine directories in your seach engine. Look up ezines in your catagory of business or service. Most listings will tell you if they except ad swaps and peramiters of ad such as how many lines and how many characters per line. Don't forget to ad your website url in your ad.

If you want to have a successful site, whether-it-be a hobby or for business, you have to understand how search engines work. Part of that understanding, is knowing about link development. Maybe in early 90’s idea of “if you build it they will come” might have been true. But in year 2005 internet is a far more competitive and complex place. To be successful today, you have to work at it. Without a quality source of back links search engines will all but ignore your site.