It's all about traffic, i.e., visitors to your website. It is links pointing to your site that bring the visitors. Internet is a vast network of links. Web surfers follow links to land at new places. Some of the places they land in surprise and delight them. Others irritate them.



How Do You Get Links to Your Web Site?

If another Webmaster, i.e., a person who controls a Web site, is delighted on visiting your website, that person might include a link pointing to your site. This would be particularly true if your site contains authentic information not available everywhere. This is the best kind of link that search engines prefer highly.

Even if your visitor is not a Webmaster, if she or he finds your site an excellent source of information, that person might "bookmark" your site at a public bookmark site like del.icio.us. Each such online bookmark would be a link to your site.

You could submit your website to directories that classify and list websites under appropriate categories. Human editors compile directories by reviewing sites and deciding whether to include it in their list. Directories have policies on the kinds of sites they accept. If your site meets their criteria, it is accepted and included in the directory, giving you another link pointing to your site.

Another way to get links is write articles and get them published in an online newsletter or in an article directory. You write readable and informative articles that include the keywords related to your site's theme and submit them for publication online. At the end of each article, there would be a short paragraph called an author byline. In that paragraph, include a link to your Web site.

Author bylines are also permitted in the case of most forum postings. Forums are online areas where people with a similar interest gather together to discuss that interest. You could reply to a forum post, or start a new forum ?thread?, and get a link to your site for each contribution.

Press releases are another way to get links. You write a "newsworthy" story about your Web site or business and send it to agencies that distribute press releases. If it is indeed newsworthy, it would be picked up and published at many online publications, each of which would be another link to your site. If it is published offline, e.g., print media, it might bring even more visitors directly to your site.

You could also start a blog on the same theme that is discussed at your website. Include a link to your website in each blog post.

If you keep at it, you could build hundreds of links pointing to your site in due time. And that would mean not only visitors who follow these links to your site. The more the links pointing to your site, the more likely search engines would feel your site worthy of a top rank while displaying search results.

And the largest numbers of site visitors come through search engine results pages.

Not All Links Are Equal

A link from CNN.com counts much higher than a link from your own blog post or a link from a free-for-all "link farm". Both people and search engines give greater weight to links at reputed sources.

Do try to be selective when you spend your time building links. Get links from relevant and reputed sources.