It’s no secret that if you want to get traffic to a website, you need to get it ranked well in search engines, especially Google. The first thing that needs to happen is to get your site indexed, meaning that the search engine’s spider has visited your site and has added it to their index of web pages. This is commonly referred to as a search engine spider crawling a website.

When you build a brand new website, like a niche site, and have all the core components in place and are ready to share it with the world, your number one goal at this point would be to get it indexed by Google. Period.

The problem, though, is that there are many misconceptions on how to go about doing this. There are varying opinions among beginner webmasters and those trolling around the forums. I’m here to set the record straight and tell you the wrong and right way to get your site indexed by Google.

The Wrong Way

If you’ve been online for even a small amount of time, you may have seen in various forums or even have had people offer you a service to submit your website to 1,000′s of search engines. Let me just state for the record that submitting a website to the search engines, including Google, is a complete waste of time, and an even bigger waste of money if you fall prey to the so-called “Gurus” who claim this is necessary.

Submitting your website to the search engines is a thing of the past. It was once effective, but it’s no longer necessary. There is talk that doing so may even harm your website in some way. I’m not going to tell you that this is true because I honestly don’t know. But, what I do know is that if you go this route you could end up wasting a lot of time and getting nowhere.

There is a better, easier, and most of all, free way to get your site indexed by Google and other search engines. Not that any other search engine really matters, but hey, some people like Bing for some reason. Obviously you know where I stand.

The Right Way

We already know that your goal is to get your site crawled by search engine spiders, as discussed earlier. The way search engine spiders work is by following links on any given page. They follow and visit web page links that they come across, and if they find any links that are new (meaning, they haven’t been added to the index), they then proceed to add them to the index.

Easy enough, right?

So, where do we go from here?

My Approach

As you may know, I’m currently building a new niche site over at http://getbackyourexadvice.com. The relationship niche is booming, so I thought I’d try to get a little piece of the pie, meanwhile helping to mend a broken a heart or two at the same time. We’ve all been in that awful situation before, right? I know I have.

Social Bookmarking

The first thing I do to start building backlinks that are going to get noticed by search engines and draw the spiders to my site is to social bookmark my site to some of the do-follow sites. Bookmarking to the “do follow” sites is important here because you want the spiders to follow through and visit your links so that your site can be included in the index.

I know there are a ton of social bookmarking sites out there, but I use socialmarker to make the whole process super simple. There is also IMAutomater as well, which offers a free and paid service. Definitely worth checking out.

High PR Backlinks

Okay, so after you get some good backlinks from social sites, your website should be indexed shortly after. Usually within anywhere from a few days to a week, up to two weeks tops. An easy way to tell if your site has been indexed is to go to Google and type in “site:yourdomain” into the search bar, without quotes. Just replace “yourdomain” with your full website URL. If no results come up, that means your site has not been indexed yet. Just hang tight if it isn’t.

Once your site has been idexed (and even if it isn’t yet), start building more quality backlinks to it.

I’ve been using Paul and Angela’s high PR backlink packets to build quality backlinks to my sites for over a year now. I’m also using these services to get backlinks for my new niche site as well.

I definitely recommend utilizing sites like these to build quality links as this can improve your site’s search engine rankings and Page Rank (PR).

Article Marketing

I’m a huge advocate for article marketing. It’s a great way to build quality links to your site and drive direct traffic from article directories at the same time. I’ve done my fair share for this site and will continue to do so. I’ve also done a lot of article marketing when I was doing freelance work. I learned a thing or two in the process, so I know what works and what brings results.

Having said that, I haven’t yet had time to do any sort of article marketing for my new niche site. I may end up outsourcing the task of writing the articles to someone else. Outsourcing is a viable option for anyone who doesn’t have the time or just doesn’t want to take the time to do a task themselves.

Over to You

What I shared is just the beginning stages for building quality links. And obviously, there is more than one way to get a site indexed by Google.

So, what strategy do you employ to get your site indexed, and what do you to start building backlinks to your site?

Let me know by leaving a comment…

The following is a guest post by Jonathan Scott. If you like to write for this blog, please contact me.

No matter what you’re trying to sell on the internet, you need traffic. If you want to make money, you need to get it in front of people. The internet is the best solution when it comes to selling stuff  because you can sell to the entire world. But, you need traffic, otherwise you’re not going to sell anything.

I am going to give you some tips on how to generate more traffic fast while helping your search engine rankings at the same time. Everything I’m about to show you is completely free and works very well.

When getting traffic to your website, you want traffic quickly but you also want to be around for the long haul, right? Here are some strategies that will allow you to do both.

Press Release Marketing

A lot of people don’t think their website or what they are offering is worthy enough to do a press release. If you think that, let me tell you that you are wrong. You have just as much to offer as a Fortune 500 Company. Press releases offer you the opportunity to get A LOT of traffic and backlinks fast.

You get this traffic because the press release directories you submit to syndicate your press release to other websites automatically. If you do a search for just about anything these days, you will notice a news section within the search results. With the right keywords, your press release could be sitting nicely on the first page of Google, Yahoo, or Bing in as little as 24 hours.

Here are some press release sites to submit to: PRWeb (Paid, but the BEST), PRLog.org, Free-Press-Releases, I-Newswire, and 1-888-press-release.

Social Bookmarking

This is a great strategy for both traffic and backlinks. A Good amount of people search these sites looking for information, tips, and advice that they may not find via the search engines. Take DIGG for instance. This site gets massive amounts of traffic. The key to sites like DIGG is submitting content that will get promoted and moved up to the homepage.

To do that you want to submit content that has a really good chance of getting to the home page. Submitting your own website will not make this happen. People on these sites like entertaining, controversial or newsworthy topics that they can actually comment on. Submit things like your press release, videos, or a guest blog post you did. Some other big players in social bookmarking include Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, and Reddit.

Video Marketing

This is huge! I put this third because it takes a little longer to put a video together if you have never done this. You DON’T even need expensive software to do this. Are you on a PC? Use Windows Movie Maker (it comes free on every PC). Are you on a mac? Use iMovie. Free tools are great. Use them!

Video Marketing is huge because we now live in a video society. From YouTube to HULU to NetFlix online movie streaming. It’s no longer foreign to go online to watch a video, movie or TV show. As the world uses the internet more and more to watch videos, this gives you an opportunity to show them what you have to offer. And, it’s all Free. If you’re not sure how to create a simple video, get this Traffic Training Course that walks you through the whole process.

Some great video sites to submit to are: YouTube, Vimeo, Revver, and 5min.

Article Marketing

Article marketing will never be dead. I don’t know about you, but I still see Ezine Articles in the top 5 of some search results. Other article directories have the power to get ranked highly as well. Submitting your article to the top article directories gives you great high authority backlinks, and you get traffic from these sites as well.

Here are some top article directories to submit to: Ezine Articles, Go Articles, Articlesbase, Article Dashboard, and ISnare.

Forum Marketing

Forum marketing is great when it comes to backlinks and improving your search engine rankings. Of course you want to participate in your niche forums. Participating in your niche forums is a great way to find new customers, and you also learn what is needed in that industry. That gives you an opportunity to fill a void and quickly become an expert in the niche.

But, I use forums for backlinks. Just make sure you use your forum signature correctly to get the backlinks.

These are a just a few great ways to generate targeted traffic to your website and increase your search engine rankings at the same time. I have more secrets to show you in my new Step by Step Traffic Training Course. You get 12 hours of video showing you exactly how to generate traffic fast and increase your search engine rankings. I haven’t even talked about software marketing, pad marketing, classified ads, RSS Feeds, or Web 2.0 websites.

If you’re like me, seeing is believing and I learn better by seeing and then doing. Take advantage of this amazing video training. Watch over the shoulder of an SEO Professional as you are shown step by step how to properly do the things I just talked about and more. What’s great about video is you can watch it over and over again until it sinks in. Go check out this awesome Traffic Training Course and learn how to get targeted traffic in as little as 24 hours. Go there now.

About the author: Jonathan Scott is an SEO professional who has been helping small businesses and individuals generate more quality traffic and get high search engine rankings since 2006. He has a new step by step traffic training video series showing you how to get traffic fast and increase your search engine rankings at the same time. Check out his traffic training course.

Believe it or not, there are proper and improper ways to use backlinks, and using them in the improper manner are not going to get you the results you want.

If you’re spending your valuable time building backlinks to your website, then it would be in your best interest to learn the proper usage, otherwise that’s a lof of wasted time with nothing to show for.

Please don’t let this happen to you.

The first thing you need to know is that there is a difference between a regular/plain link and an anchor text link.

What Are Anchor Text Links?

Here’s a clear definition I found: “The anchor text, link label or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.”

That pretty much sums up everything I’m going to be talking about. The anchor text is essentially keyword phrases that you want your website to rank for in search engines. Got it?

Search engines, specifically Google, factor in the anchor text as part of “off-page” optimization when determining how to rank websites in their search index.

What Keywords Should I Target?

This subject has been talked about before on my blog, so here are some past posts that should help you come up with some good keywords to target for your website.

• Are You Targeting ‘Paying’ Keywords?
• Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic and Generate Sales
• Why Good Keyword Selection is Essential for Home-Based Business Success

Once you do some minor “on-page” optimization as talked about in at least one of the linked posts above, you’re then ready to start building links to your site and increasing your search engine rankings.

Now, as I mentioned towards the beginning of this post, there is an improper and proper use of backlinks.

The Proper Use of Backlinks

A lot of beginners think that just any link will do, specifically an plain link, and that they’ll be counted the same or equal as an anchor text link.

This isn’t true at all.

While these plain and ordinary links are counted as backlinks, they’re not given near as much weight as if they were to be anchor text links. Knowing this, you’ll now be able to take advantage of every opportunity you have to create anchor text links rather than than just a standard link.

Don’t know what the difference is?

Here is what a plain backlink looks like with no anchor text used:

Now, here is anchor text being utilized properly in a link:

See the difference?

The first link shows the full URL to the website, while the second link shows actual words that describe the site that the link is pointing to. When the second link is clicked, it will still go to the same website as in the first example.

That’s taking advantage of anchor text, where you place your target keywords in the link. Then, the more links you build up using your target keyword phrases, the higher up in search engines your website is going to rank when someone searches for that keyword.

Exceptions to the Rule

You saw this coming, right?

There are going to be times where you can’t always use an anchor text link. It just happens. That’s the nature of the internet, and it happens on a per site basis. Now, this actually isn’t a bad thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

There will be times where you may be on a site that allows you to put a link to your site. Some may only allow you to type in the full URL to your site, and that’s it.

My question to you is this: Do you type in your URL and get a non-anchor text backlinks, or do you just ignore it altogether and not get any backlink?

The answer I think is pretty obvious. I would much rather get a backlink whenver possible, than to give up that chance and leave that particular field blank.

NoFollow vs. DoFollow

This subject has been the center of debate since forever, and here is what I have to say about it, and what others who actually know what they’re talking about will tell you.

DoFollow links are links that Google’s spider bots will follow and index and use for their ranking algorithm. Simply put, everyone wants to get dofollow links when building backlinks because they’ll be sure to get credit for them, and they’ll help increase your site’s search engine rankings.

NoFollow links are shunned by many internet marketers because they think that nofollow links hold absolutely no value whatsoever and that it’s a waste of time to even go after these types of links.

The truth is that nofollow links do hold little value, but they DO have value, and it would be in your best interest to at least get a few nofollow backlinks.

Why?

Diversifying Your Link Building Efforts

Building links should be a natural process, done over time and in the most natural way possible. Google likes it this way, and if it thinks something fishy is going on, that can be bad news for you.

This means you don’t want to build 1,000 backlinks in one day. That’s not natural at all, and you’ll most likely get your site banned because you’ll be seen as a spammer. Not good at all.

Another thing to consider is the types of links you get, for instance: plain links, anchor text links, nofollow links and dofollow links.

The truth is that you want to get all of these types of links. It will be in your best interest to get more of the anchor text links and dofollow links, but you want to diversify your link building and keep it as natural as possible.

The next thing to consider are the sites you get links from. Getting a link from a non-relevant site, meaning a site that has nothing to do with your site, will be weighted lower than getting a link from a site that is relevant to yours. However, with that said, the Page Rank of the site is also a factor to consider. If the PR of a non-related site has a very high PR (PR 4 or higher), then it would be in your best interest to get a backlink from that site.

Now that you’ve absorbed all of this information, you’re probably wondering where you can get backlinks that are going to help your website increase its search engine rankings.

Where to Get Backlinks

This subject has also been covered pretty extensively in the past, so below are all of the posts I’ve ever written on how to build backlinks to your website. I encourage you to take some time to read over them…

• Get 80 High PR One Way Backlinks Each Month
• How I Get Backlinks to My Blog Posts Resulting in Sales
• 30 Ways to Get Free Website Traffic In Minutes
• Improve Search Engine Rankings the Easy Way
• Build Long-Term Traffic to Your Work From Home Site with Article Marketing
• Steps to Building a Successful Online Business – Article Marketing
• A Better Alternative To Article Marketing? Give Free Traffic System A Try
• Marketing Your Work From Home Web Site with Proper Use of Forum Signatures

So now you should have a strong understanding of how to use backlinks properly and how they are used to increase search engine rankings, and also where to get quality backlinks for your website/s.

I would now like to turn it over to you. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, leave a comment below…

Creating an internet business website is just the first step to a long road of making money online. Once your website is up and you’re ready to do business (regardless of what business you’re engaging in), it is then time to market your online business.

The first part of marketing effectively on the internet is making sure your website looks professional. There’s no sense in spending time driving traffic to your site if it’s not appealing and people just leave right away. I recommend using WordPress as your website platform and then buying a professional WordPress Theme that you can customize.

Once your website is squared away, it’s time to get the word out. I’m a huge advocate of article marketing and is the primary marketing method that I use. The simple reason is that it works, and it works well on many levels. Articles bring in direct traffic, but they also add backlinks to your site and can be syndicated across the web by others providing even more backlinks and direct traffic.

Another effective marketing method is using videos. Now, I must admit that I don’t use this method near as much as I should, but I’ve noticed in the past that it has brought in traffic. If used correctly, video marketing can be used to generate leads for your business and bring in sales. Plus, videos can also provide backlinks to your content.

One thing you need to understand if you hope to rank well in search engines, specifically Google (which should be your ultimately goal), is that Google is looking for new and relevant content. What this means for your website is that it should be updated with new and relevant content on a regular basis. And, if you took my advice about using WordPress, you’re ready to use your website as a blog, which makes it exceptionally easy to keep updated with fresh content.

Another component that your online business should have is a newsletter. This allows you to keep your visitors and potential customers up to date with what’s going on. This also allows you to market products and services that are relevant to your site and newsletter.

As you probably noticed when I covered article and video marketing, I mentioned about getting backlinks. Once everything is in place and you’re ready to get traffic to your internet business website, backlinks are the glue that will hold everything together.

Search engine rankings… Traffic… Sales…

Backlinks are the key to everything. I can’t stress it enough. Article and video marketing are just two of the many ways to build backlinks to your site. AND… building backlinks through many varying marketing methods is the key to marketing your online business effectively.

My next posts (I don’t know how many yet) are going to cover backlinks in much detail. Everything is going to be broken down into segments, starting with what exactly backlinks are and the proper use of them… all the way to how to get them and much more.

This was spurred due to an influx of questions in my email inbox from people reading my blog and asking about backlinks, Page Rank, keywords, etc. I figured there is a good change that maybe some of you have similar questions or concerns, so I want to address everything publicly so that you’re all aware about this stuff so you can apply it to your own internet business website.

Be on the lookout for the first installment coming soon.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below…

Aside from the usual perks you receive when you become an Ezine Articles Expert Author, I wasn’t aware that they actually mail you some goodies as well. Pretty nice of them actually. You can see the cool coaster on the left, and I’ll post pictures of the mug below.

Inside the mug was a packet of gourmet coffee, which I’ll never use. If you want it, leave a comment or email me with your address and I’ll ship it to you free of charge. I only have one, though, so be quick about it.

It’s nice to get perks like this, and I’m sure all the other Expert Authors feel the same way. It helps to encourage authors to continue sending their articles and makes them feel appreciated.

Becoming an Expert Author really isn’t that difficult, and if you’re serious about making a name for yourself and your work from home business, then cranking out, say 60 articles, shouldn’t be all that difficult. If you can’t or don’t like to write, just outsource the work for a small fee.

No matter what you do, incorporate article marketing into your daily, or weekly, marketing habits. You’ll establish yourself as an “Expert” and build targeted traffic to your site. And, you’ll build quality backlinks to your site which will increase its ranking in Google.

Okay… here’s the cool mug.

I know you’re all jealous…

The following is a guest post by Darrell Lischka of about-internetmarketing.com.

You decided that you had enough at your job and want to start building an online business to make money. Great, welcome to the internet club. Now what are you going to do? In today’s article, I will describe the process of creating an authority site and how you rank it on page 1.

The article will go over the essential elements that one should focus their time on, if they truly want to see results. This is not the fluff type of article that tells you how to make 10K a month in only 3 months. Nope, far from it, because if you truly want financial freedom, then you will have to pay a price to fire your boss. My article will cover keyword research, domains, back linking strategies to rank on page 1, niche marketing ideas and strategies, and even mentioning some software that will leverage your time more effectively.

The fact is Google is the most popular search engine and because of that, my methods will be related to ranking well on their search engine.

Authority Site

My definition of an authority site is simple. It’s a website that ranks on page 1 of G. The fact is authority sites come in all types and sizes. They can range from a 1 page website, to hundreds of pages.

How to make money with proper keyword research

When I first got started, I listened to someone that I honestly believed knew what they were talking about. I found out later, they were just trying to up sell me with their own marketing system. So I learned the hard way and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out keyword research. I was new at this SEO game several years ago. I made the same mistakes the that newbies make, by going after the big keyword categories. Forget the big keywords when you are starting off. Go after the low competitive terms. It will literally save you time, money and of course some sleepless nights.

Niche Marketing Tactics – What The A-Listers Won’t Tell You

My advice in terms of niche marketing ideas and niche marketing strategies, is to start at the low end and work your way up the keyword ladder. For example, search for key phrases that range between 10 to 20 searches a day. Your competitors will be lower in that niche market, than attempting to rank for large key phrase categories. Better to start out small, build up your rankings for a number of low phrases and start earning some cash, than waiting 6 to 12 months or more to see results. Successful individuals who earn money online, use this approach all the time.

Domains

Before you register any domain names, first get your keyword research out of the way. The reason, you should when possible, try and include your keyword phrase in your domain name. You certainly don’t have to, but it will give you a little extra SEO juice based on personal experience. You can of course take any domain name and rank it on page 1 for essentially any keyword category. But any advantage that you can get, make sure you do because your competitors are doing it.

Another tip that you can do when registering a domain name, is to see if there’s a domain available for sale with that term. Now, I would never suggest you invest hundreds or thousands of dollars, but depending on the niche and your financial situation, it might be worth it. I would suggest you only do this when you have some experience first.

The Importance of Getting Back Links

Back-links are the back bone of the ranking game. One way links should be mostly external, but you will also need to do some internal linking within your website. An external links means, when you post an article at an article directory like Ezine Articles, you hyper link your keyword term back to your website. That is what the SEO community means by back links.

As well, you can improve your own site by making sure your internal link structure is set up correctly. For example, for some of your pages within your website, link that page back to your home page. Don’t do it for all of them, but a few of them. As well, you can pass some link juice from 1 page to another page. Those little tips can again, give you a little bump in the rankings.

To Rank Well – You Need a Back Linking Plan

Now that I covered what external and internal links are, lets discuss how you go about getting the maximum back links for your website. It really revolves around creating content and submitting it to various article directories and Ezine directories. The most popular is Ezine articles. The best thing to do is simply type in top article directories or do follow article directories in G to get a list. There are literally thousands of places to post content.

My general approach is to post 5 to 10 unique articles at the top article directories and move on. However, there is one key piece of information that must do, to rank well and make your site strong. When you link back to your website, make sure you are deep linking 80% of the time to pages and actual articles on your website.

If you are confused, just hang on for a minute. Deep linking means your URL that you hyperlink from your article will link to an actual article within your site. Fail to do this for competitive terms and you will likely never rank on page 1. Trust me, I have made this mistake in the beginning.

You can help you website by doing some comment marketing at other forums and websites. My only caution is to make sure you add value to the discussion and not some spam type comment. Over time, you will gain recognition as someone that can be trusted and other readers in time, might start checking out your site. The more readers that go to your site and spend time there, will count towards the overall ranking game because how much time someone spends at your site is part of the algorithm for Google or better known as the bounce rate.

One final comment about back links. They are not created equally. For example a back link from Ezine articles is not the same as a back link from a brand new article directory. So, when posting your content, go for established and authority directories. To look natural, you will end up with a variety of links for all over the place. Just getting high quality back links could flag Google and that’s the last thing you want is a manual inspection and get de-indexed from the search results.

Strategies To Help Your Article Marketing Efforts

If you struggle for time like most people because they work full time, you can leverage your time more effectively by looking at software tools that help you create more versions of your article. They are referred to as article spinners or an article rewriter. If used properly, you can create dozens of unique versions. Just keep in mind, you still want quality content, but I have found it saves me time on manually editing articles and being able to post to more places.

Well, there you have the essential elements on building and ranking an authority site. Just keep in mind, start with good keyword research, picking the right domain name, niche marketing strategies and the most important part, building back links for your website.

If you want to dramatically improve your article marketing efforts and get more back links to rank higher in the search engines, Go Here: Article Rewriter.

I promised another backlink building strategy if you read my post Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic and Generate Sales. If you were waiting in anticipation for it, the wait is now over… it’s here!

This strategy, if used correctly, can catapult your blog posts, web pages, homepage, etc. to the top of Google and other search engines. Once you’re sitting high and mighty at the top, the sales will follow (if you’re targeting the right keywords).

To get started, you’re going to need a blog post (home page will do just fine) that you want to get a lot of traffic to. This is especially if you’re promoting something big and want to earn commissions (affiliate marketing). For your home page, you’re probably promoting something, selling your own product or building your list. In any case, you obviously want traffic, so this will work just as well.

Assuming you’ve done all the on-page SEO stuff for your blog post or home page, you’re now ready to start building backlinks. But not just any backlinks will do here. While article marketing is still very effective (and I recommend using this method as well), there’s another link building strategy that works very well.

It’s called a Link Wheel.

You may have heard of it before…. or maybe not. It can actually be somewhat confusing to people, so I’m going to explain it the best way I can without confusing you.

If you’ve heard of this strategy before but just don’t quite GET IT yet, then pay close attention here. Better yet, the diagram above should do all the explaining that needs to be done. But, I’ll still do my best here to explain everything.

With the Link Wheel strategy, you’re capitalizing on free blogs/web 2.0/social sites. Take a look at the sites in the diagram, and you’ll notice one thing. They’re all free to use and post content to, and there’s a social aspect to them (this doesn’t really matter for the sake of this strategy). Simply put, Google and the other two major search engines love these sites.

So to get started, you need to write some articles. Anywhere from 6 to 8 articles will be sufficient.

There are some key requirements needed with these articles, though. They need to contain your keyword in the title and two or three times throughout the article body. If you haven’t done so already (you should have), your blog post should contain the same keyword in its title and content. This is very important!

The articles you write for these sites only need to be anywhere from 250 – 350 words long. You don’t need a novel here, just enough useful information to make the content relevant to the keyword you’re targeting.

If you don’t feel like writing the articles yourself, outsource it to someone else. I can get 10 articles written for $27 that do just fine. That’s actually very cheap, by the way.

Once you have your articles, you need to sign up for these free sites. Once you sign up with a site you won’t ever have to do it again. This is a one-time process.

Here are the sites I recommend. This isn’t an all-inclusive list, however. You can sign up for as many as you want. But for the sake of your link wheel you only need 6 to 8 sites.

1. Hubpages
2. Wetpaint
3. Blogger
4. WordPress.com
5. Gather
6. Xomba
7. Quizilla
8. Squidoo

There’s a couple I didn’t mention that are in the diagram. Like I said it really doesn’t matter which sites you sign up with. It’s completely up to you.

Here’s where it gets tricky…

Each article you post on a site should contain two links… one pointing to your blog post and the other pointing to the article on the next site.

BUT… those links need to contain the keyword being targeted.

For example, if I’m targeting the keyword “golf swing” then I have that in the title of both the blog post and all articles for each site as well as in the content. Also, the backlinks will contain the same keyword “golf swing.”

Follow? Just look at the diagram again and this should make sense.

Each article will do this until you’ve completed the rotation and placed one article on each site. You now have a complete Link Wheel.

Doing this correctly will boost your blog post or home page’s rankings in the search engines dramatically. Of course, you still want to perform other link building strategies I’ve mentioned in previous posts because this is not the only way I build backlinks to my posts and home page, just to clear up any confusion you may have.

Any questions about what I’ve shared regarding Link Wheels? Still don’t quite get it? Feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer you.

This post is going to contain the simple, yet effective techniques I have learned during my time online to generate targeted traffic and generate sales. These are strategies I’m using for my own online business and have found to be working well and improving over time.

If you’ve been following along with us, my last post was about a struggling internet marketer who is reaching out in a desperate attempt to generate sales with his affiliate marketing website.

One of the questions asked was, “How do I drive traffic to my site that can generate sales?”

This is going to be the topic of this post, and I’ll be going very in-depth, starting with the basics and moving towards the more advanced strategies.

I apologize in advance if this turns into a very lengthy post, but please bare with me as it will be well worth your time to read through everything.

So let’s begin, shall we?

The very first thing you must understand is that everything revolves around keywords. Keywords are the life-blood of websites and how they become seen by internet users using search engines.

SEO (search engine optimization) is the foundation of using keywords effectively, and this is how you’re going to target specific internet users to generate sales online.

Rather than going in-depth on the subject of SEO on this post, I have a few previous posts that should cover this subject thoroughly enough for you to understand. Please check them out, and if you have questions use the comment section:

• Web Page Optimization
• Easy Free Keyword Research
• Discover Commercial Intention of Keyword Phrases

Optimizing your web page for specific keywords is critical and is the foundation for which you’ll build the rest of your marketing efforts upon. Seriously, nothing else matters until you’ve done this. Don’t ignore it!

One thing I’ve learned is that backlinks are KING. Okay, so content is still KING, but backlinks are a very close second, and here’s why. Backlinks to your website or web pages are what helps to drive your site or pages higher in search engine results pages when someone searches for a specific keyword phrase. See how this is coming together?

Without building backlinks to your site, you won’t generate enough traffic to your site to generate sales. Now I know what you’re thinking here. There are other ways to generate traffic without building backlinks, and that’s true. However, the best traffic is free search engine traffic, and the only way to get it is to rank on the first page in Google, or Yahoo and Bing. I’d focus on Google as it produces over 70% of search traffic across the entire web.

Now that you understand the importance of building backlinks and getting your site or web pages to the top of search engines, you now need to start the backlink building process. There are numerous ways to go about this, and luckily for you, I’ve written many posts on the subject. Here they are:

• Improve Search Engine Rankings the Easy Way
• Get 80 High PR One Way Backlinks Each Month
• Build Long-Term Traffic to Your Work From Home Site with Article Marketing
• Build Your Online Business with Article Marketing
• Forum Signatures
• Free Traffic System

Remember when building backlinks that you want to use your keywords for the web page you’re linking to. This is the only way that your backlinks are going to be effective in boosting your search engine rankings.

Okay, so you now have  a great start in getting backlinks; however, I’m not done just yet.

Well… sorta. I have a post planned that will discuss another very effect backlink building strategy and will be posted soon, so stay tuned for that.

Hopefully right now you have a solid understanding of doing keyword research and web page optimization, and how it all ties in to building backlinks. This is all part of building targeted website traffic that will result in sales.

As always, if you have any questions about anything discussed here, leave a comment below.

My next post will discuss the second question asked by a struggling internet marketer, but in the meantime, start applying the tips I mentioned today to your website, and you’ll soon see an increase in traffic and internet income.

Marketing yourself on the internet is very crucial to anyone that wishes to reach online success. The days of marketing a particular program or opportunity are over. People want to know about the person promoting them more so than the opportunity or program themselves. If people can get to know you and trust you, they will trust your recommendations and advice.

This is the same concept as online branding which I blogged about before. The internet makes it a little challenging to be transparent, but at the same time there are numerous methods in which you can utilize to become known and seen as an expert in your field.

Here are 5 tips to help you market yourself on the internet:

1. Create Online Profiles – Profiles are an excellent way to get your name out there. They’re also a great way to get backlinks to your site as well. Take advantage of creating profiles on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

2. Post Videos – If you have a simple web cam or digital camera with video capability, it’s very easy to create short videos and post them on YouTube. You can also get free screen capture software like CamStudio to create tutorials. Take advantage of videos to create a web presence and loyal following.

3. Article Marketing -  Writing articles either for your own blog or submitting them to article directories is a great way to get yourself known. Create informational and valuable articles that people will want to read and share with others.

4.  Forums – Forums are not only an excellent source of information, but they can also be used to create credibility within your niche. The more people you can help, the more people will trust you and your recommendations.

Bonus Tip:

5. Blogging – Just as I’m doing here, you should be blogging about your experiences and sharing the knowledge you have about your particular interest. This will help build up a following of interested readers and build relationships with them.

Do you have any branding tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below…

2009 was a great year as I started seeing momentum with my online business. I learned a lot about what I need to do, and also about what I don’t want to do. Everything is a learning experience that I can take with me and improve upon.

Now that we’re a full week into 2010, I’m starting to plan how I’m going to build up my online business to reach even greater heights. Planning and evaluation is an important process no matter what kind business you’re in. I need to evaluate the areas where I can improve, and then plan how I’m going to do so.

Along with planning, this is the time to set goals that you want to accomplish. The goals should be realistic and achievable. Don’t set them too high, but at the same time you don’t want to set them too low as you’ll only be cheating yourself.

When it comes to making money online, many prefer building multiple niche sites to earn income from. This is a great avenue to go down and may be easier than building just one authority site.

However, I personally want to focus my time on building ReplaceYourSalary.com as an authority site and blog. That has always been my intention from the start, and right now I don’t see that changing.

Eventually, I may pan out and start diversifying my efforts into some smaller niches, but that won’t happen until I have met my goals for this site.

I’m slowly getting there, but I have a long way to go before I reach the amount of growth and income I expect to get from this site. The potential is and always has been there. 2009 was very evident of that.

My goal for 2010 is to have systems in place that are going to help me reach my desired income. Systems can be anything from having the right people for the job, to having the right processes in place.

This means I’m going to be outsourcing a good majority of work this year in regards to marketing my website. This I feel is the only way I’m going to be able to be most productive and achieve the goals I have set for myself. I’ll still be doing a good portion myself, but there are some areas I’d rather leave to someone else.

There are also new processes I have learned and will implement this year that should dramatically boost my site and earnings. I’ll mainly be focusing on Web 2.0 sites and article marketing. This combination has proven to be effective, and I need to start utilizing this marketing strategy.

Another area I need to do more with is video marketing. I hadn’t done much on YouTube last year, and I want to change that this year. Video is an incredible medium with so much potential. I want to really grow my OnlineWealth channel up and get more exposure with my current videos and also future videos.

Specific goals I have set for this year are:

1. At least $1,000/month income
2. Blog minimum of 4 posts a week
3. Alexa Rank – 100,000 or less

These are the main areas I’ll be focusing on this year. Like most people, time is my biggest concern. This is why I’ll be outsourcing some work so that I can focus on other areas of my online business. If you look at all of the successful internet marketers and online business owners, every single one of them outsources. It’s time for me to follow that successful pattern.

What do you plan to accomplish this year? What are some goals you have for yourself personally or for your business? Share them in the comments below…