Ask Your Visitors to Link to You

Make linking to you as easy as possible. Create a page on your web site that includes your banners and text link descriptions. Put a link to this page on your main page that says "Link to Us."

Provide a Valuable Service

Give your visitors a reason to link to your web site. If you provide a valuable service, you can be sure your visitors will tell their visitors, their visitors will tell their visitors and so on. Word of mouth is one of best forms of free advertising.

Give Away Free Ebooks

Everyone loves getting something of value for nothing. Create a free ebook and allow it to be freely distributed. Provide complete instructions in regard to linking to your web site, including a description of your ebook.

Write Articles

Write an article and allow it to be freely published. With each article you write you are entitled to include your author bylines. These bylines are nothing more than an advertisement for you, your products or services and your web site. Many web site owners will publish articles on their web site and include live links to author's web site.

About 80% of all web site traffic originates from Search Engines. It is well worth your time and effort to spend some time developing as many links to your web site as possible. Not only will these links bring you additional traffic, but you'll increase your ranking at Search Engines as well.

Web sites come and go each day on Internet. If you visit a web site and find it to be a great resource, show your support for that web site by giving them a link. In addition, tell your ezine subscribers about them. By supporting your favorite web sites, you can show your appreciation for all of hours and hours of hard work that goes into developing web site and help ensure it will be there next time you visit. Without your support, many of your favorite web sites may not be there in future.

Why design forwards? Because search engines judge and rank your site on basis of keywords and keyword phrases. Choose right keywords and use them right, and you will get high search engine listings and high visitor traffic. Without high visitor traffic your web site is bound to fail.

> Choosing 'right' keywords

What are 'right' keywords? Obviously they are specific to each site and each page. To be able to select right keywords for your web design you need to get yourself deep into brains of typical members of your target market. What words or phrases would Mr, Mrs, or Ms Searcher use in trying to find a web site offering your products, services, information or ideas? > Anny's Hideaway

Imagine you own a guest house called Anny's Hideaway. Would your would-be guests be searching for Anny? If they were, they probably would not be looking for what you have to offer! Would they be searching for Anny's Hideaway? Not unless they had heard of your establishment and had remembered how to spell your name! Words and phrases like guest house, accommodation, bed and breakfast, country lodge, and words that describe your location, or what you have to offer (fishing, tennis, bowls, yachting, gourmet meals, great wines, fireside chats?) are more likely to connect you to your target market.

Even when you have selected your list of keywords your work is not done. You still need to check your choices. Is there a high demand for your selected keywords (frequently searched for)? And what about supply (how many pages do search engines have to satisfy demand)?

The best keywords and phrases are those with high demand and low supply. They can be found for any site. But it takes time, effort and skill. And it cannot be done last – after design is complete and text written. By then it is too late!