2. You must create a presence on web by linking your site with others. Because that's what most successful sites on web all have in common: They link with sites they would like to share visitors with and they drive traffic to their sites for free with a good, themed link directory. Not a directory of random links, but a directory of links most suited for your visitors and relative to products, services and information you have on your site.

That's what you expect to be listed in on other webmasters' sites, so that's what you have to provide to them in return. You owe your visitors that and you owe your link partners that.

3. Link Popularity Google, for example, uses "link popularity" as an indicator of how "important" your site is. That is, if x number of people are linking to you, I mean they actually took time out to "recommend" visiting you, then your site must be of "x" value to Google searchers.

Webmaster Traffic Tools went from zero visitors and no search engine ranking to a Number 1 listing on Google in less than two months solely because of my linking system. The search engines found me through another site, not by spidering me directly.

You see, when I link, I look for high-traffic sites that are already listed in search engines with high ranking. Google spiders those sites frequently and 99% of time they are going to run into your link somewhere else before they get around to visiting your site for first time directly.

When they see your link they come over and spider your site 1) to guage whether link FROM other site is relevant to that site, giving them higher link popularity and, 2) to make their job easier they spider your site because they are already there.

In my non-profit years (all 12 of them in various environmental protection organizations) I raised money, lobbied Senators and Congressmen in halls of Washington D.C., and educated people about open spaces and protecting wildlife.

But my most rewarding job ever was working in wildlands of New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico. I took prospective donors on raft trips to show them what they would be protecting if they donated to our group.

I took Sierra Club members into Blue Range Mountains of Arizona to hear wolves howl and teach them to track bears.

Which brings me to why I got up at 5 a.m. this morning after laying down to sleep for only 20 minutes all night. I couldn't get it out of my head how much tracking bears parallels what we as internet marketers do to generate traffic for our sites.

You see, bears in wild have an incredible communication system. Much like those big cork boards that are placed all over college campuses for students to pass information on to each other, bears have high-traffic areas in wild where they leave messages for each other too.

When you get on trail of a bear, if you follow it long enough, you will come to something most people will walk right by unless they know what to look for. Wherever major wildlife corridors and paths cross in wild, trained eye can pick out signsthat wildlife can see, smell, and sense a mile away.

In these "crossroads" you can find incredible signs. Like links we leave around internet to let people know of our presence, bears leave their scent and marks in these wildlife "high-traffic" areas to either let other bears know to stay away from their turf, or to let bears of opposite sex know "Hey, I'm here, drop by sometime."

I can take you out in woods in bear country and within a short period of time show you a bear "sign post" which is really just a tree, usually biggest one in area, where they scratch their backs and leave their hairs and scent.

They will also claw as high as they can, stretching up on their hind legs to leave marks to show how big they are. Again, either "Don't mess around in my territory or you'll be dealing with me" or "I'm biggest most beautiful bear in woods, wouldn't you like to meet me?"