Not only will writing articles bulk up your website’s content, which search engines love, but will also add value to other websites that publish your writing on their websites.

The good thing about good articles is that they tend to circulate Net pretty well. By adding an optimised link to bottom of your article you could in turn generate more traffic to your site.

But articles aren’t only way of generating traffic to your site. Something that is destined to become more popular is inclusion of a business blog on a website. This lets you build a personal relationship with your customers. Naturally, blog needs to be well thought of before being added. Will it be a regularly updated blog or one that is updated less frequently? Will there be one or more voices/writers for blog? Everyone has their own preference to a style of writing. Letting your staff or departments publish their own blogs will create even more opportunities of attracting more than one type of reader or client.

Adding a tool that people are searching for is yet another excellent idea. It could be a currency converter, BMI calculator or a free online travel organiser – anything that is related to your website and that offers an invaluable benefit to those who find it.

As ludicrous as this may sound, being a hub for industry-related websites and information is another great idea. You could have a section devoted to your reviews of market-related products, services and websites – with links pointing to them. Your users will come to trust your knowledge and advice, and as such will refer your website to their contacts.

The bottom line

Regardless of what you write about or have to offer your visitor, key is to keep it simple, fresh and non-salesy. Your website should already have a section that does all that sales pitching. Offering genuinely useful content and tools is what will differentiate your website from that of your abandoned peers.

Ideas are everywhere. It takes some time, effort, research and a bit of imagination to come up with soothing other than a good link request email. Your user’s word of mouth will reward your efforts.

It is difficult to provide precise numbers because there are so many different variables that can come into play. What we tried to do was keep variables as consistent as possible from one medium to next. The ads in business magazines were most expensive but they provided greatest audience reach (next to SEO) and because size of ad was larger than newspaper and yellow pages ad. Radio came in as next most expensive. We asked to run a 30-second commercial that would be aired 60-times in a month (the recommended number of airings was 100). Newspapers came in third only because frequency option we selected was one ad appearing once per-week (Saturday issue) and because size of ad was fairly small. The yellow pages came in around same cost as SEO, but what good is a yellow pages ad to an online business? SEO on other hand, had one of lowest costs, provided greatest audience coverage, and with a 24x7 frequency.

Which of these forms are you currently using? How effective have they been? Do your own research and see what you come up with. Because of variables, your numbers will be different than ours, but when you break them down to measure overall costs (CPA, ROI)... majority of you will see that hands down, SEO is best option.

It doesn't matter what form of advertising you are using... for online success, SEO really is most cost effective and efficient way to promote your business. That's why SEO is gaining in popularity with everyone from small one-person operations to large, multi-national Fortune 500 companies.

SEO lets you target your message to right people at exactly right time... when they are looking to buy... at a fraction of cost of other advertising media and a better ROI.