Having a top placement on a search engine and enjoying traffic that comes with a top ranking is dependent on many things. Certainly at top of that list is having as many links and quality links pointing to your site. Your competition has hundreds and possibly even thousands of links pointing back to them. This is what it is going to take for you to compete with them as well.

Did you know that over 90% of search engine traffic comes from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. These three search engines provide results for many other search engines, and if you are listed on these three search engines, your site will be listed on many other search engines too.

AltaVista for example gets their search results from Yahoo. AOL and Netscape use Google and also get some results from Open Directories like DMOZ.

When you see an ad offering to submit your site to thousands of search engines save your money. It simply is not worth time it takes to sign up for their service and you are better off to spend your money on another form of promoting.

What is worth time and money is to submit your site to as many different directories as possible. Directories are viewed by human beings before being approved for submission and their inclusion helps increase your link popularity as you have more and more links pointing back to your site.

Since your submission is viewed by human beings it is important that you make sure your site is ready to be submitted. To get your site in shape to be submitted consider following:

1. Make sure your site is completed. Fix all broken links. Have all pages completed. Make sure it loads properly and quickly. If you want get another opionion on whether it is ready to be submitted. Here is a good company that validates websites: http://www.htmlvalidator.com/

The recent spurt of interest in blogging has begun to ignite hope that people can make a full-time income from blogging.

Although there are a few people actually doing this, there aren't too many business models yet that can support someone making a full-time income from their blogs.

I believe that blogs should be an important part of any traffic-generation plan for a website, but don't depend on blog itself to do much selling.

Blogs are best viewed as an addition to site content, in reality, a very simple content management system that helps you update your site more frequently, so your search engine listings and traffic increase.

Email campaigns are still best way to produce sales on demand and to announce specials and time-limited offers, because blogs do not yet have immediacy and reach of email.

Blogs are not about selling anyway. As an internet marketer and publisher, I find that blogs can be an excellent tool to support your main business, to provide value, build relationships with prospective customers and to build your personal brand and image.

For corporates and small businesses, blogs can help put a human face on an otherwise bland business site. In corporate world, blogs are being for internal communication and knowledge management, and for brand building and public relations campaigns.

Nike's Art of Speed blog is an excellent example of subtle brand building using blogs. http://www.gawker.com/artofspeed

As an internet marketer and publisher, here are some ways you can use blogs to support your business.

1. Write reviews of products in your field