If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. So that you can read the latest updates about Web2.0 tools, Making Money Online, Tips in SEO, Ajax and many more. Thanks for visiting ProgramimiCOM!

Every webmaster wants to build traffic. There are a myriad of ways to go about this, but here we will focus on backlinks. Backlinks are simply links outside of your website that lead back to your URL.

These links are invaluable for building traffic, and not just any traffic, but good, quality, targeted traffic! There are all sorts of silly programs available that promise 1,000 or 10,000 hits a day, but these do you absolutely no good unless you are getting paid by the hit. What you need to do is to begin building traffic steadily, but surely, attracting visitors who are actually interested in your website and who will stay there for more than the required 45 seconds in order to get paid.

Backlinks can be generated in several different ways. Writing free articles with resource boxes linking back to your site is a good way to start building traffic. These articles can be submitted to free article directories. This alone gives you one link per article for every directory that you submit to. That could be up to 100 links, simply by submitting to directories. Every time someone is scanning the directory for interesting articles on your theme, they can click on your link and go see what your website is about. Once your articles get picked up by other websites and ezines, you will begin building traffic at an exponential rate!

Another way to continue building traffic to your site is to post in forums relating to the topic of your website. Include your URL along with a brief description in your signature line for extra exposure. It is amazing how many people will read a quality post and eagerly click on your link to see if you have more information that could help them. Forums are perfect for building traffic.

Building traffic can also be done on the up and up with certain programs that offer banner or link exchanges. You put their link on your website and they add you to theirs. This is not only good for building traffic; it can also help your Page Rank if you end up swapping links with someone who has a higher level Page Rank.

Don’t forget the offline world when promoting your site. Business cards with your business name, logo and URL are invaluable tools to bring in extra traffic and should not be overlooked. You might want to try running a couple of ads in the local paper as well, to see if you can draw some interest that way.

Another method of building traffic is to offer an affiliate program. You can set one up through Clickbank. This gets hundreds or even thousands of other people working for you, promoting your products and services and sending people back to your website to buy. This is possibly the best kind of traffic, returning and buying!

Building traffic is very effective when using backlinks. Only visitors who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer will be arriving at your site, which means they will be more inclined to make a purchase! The ideal hit.

• 0 Comments

Here’s an email message that I received today, quite similar to email messages I receive at least a half-dozen times each day:

I am contacting you about cross linking. I am interested in ProgramimiCOM because it looks like it’s relevant to a site for which I am seeking links.

Not too bad, so far. But read on…

The site offers a comprehensive selection of over 6,000 technology products at academic prices including computer hardware, software, and books. With a Page Rank of 5, the site has an excellent reputation in the industry. It has a very professional look and feel.I’ll keep the web address confidential and will send it to you only if you give me permission to do so. Just let me know if it’s OK, and I’ll send you the web address for your review. If you approve of the site, then the intention is to exchange links.

Looking forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Ritchie Hilario - Sr. Link Builder

P.S. If for any reason you don’t want me to contact you again, email me with the words “NO EMAIL” as the subject of your message.

Link Builder
Apartado Postal #18
Tijuana, B.C. 22432

Can you see what’s wrong with this message? If “Ritchie Hilario” is genuinely interested in cross-linking, she’s going about it all wrong. First off, using Google to search for Ritchie’s name reveals no results at all, suggesting that it’s a fake name. Strike one.Secondly, a spammy opt-out “NO EMAIL” postscript is a sure sign that this isn’t someone sitting at their keyboard, finding my Web site, and then genuinely requesting a link but rather someone using a mostly automated application that blasts out thousands of these sort of link exchange requests. Strike two.

Thirdly, did you notice the “legal mailing address” at the bottom of the email? It’s there because of the toothless CAN-SPAM law and as much as I’d like to think that the border town of Tijuana has a thriving Internet business community, it’s pretty darn clear that it’s either a completely bogus address, or at least a post office box that’s routinely emptied directly into a trash can. Strike three.

But even more, Google search results and page ranking are influenced much more by them trying to capture algorithmically why a site is linking to another site. I’ve talked about this extensively on the site, including The Right Way to Link to Pages On Your Site , Three Ways to Adversely Impact your Google Pagerank , and How does Google figure out what pages are more relevant? Pagerank .

With this perspective in mind, it’s clearly not a winning strategy to blindly trade links with sites you don’t even know about, don’t endorse, and wouldn’t otherwise link to without the reciprocal link. One way I try to capture this concept myself is to ask: would you link to the site because it’s helpful, valuable, and informative for your readers, audience or customer base? If the answer is “no”, then you really need to think carefully about whether it makes sense to link to them, regardless of if they offer a link back to your site or not.

And if you do decide to cross link, to accept a link exchange offer, realize that it might actually be a fly-by-night search engine optimization “consultant” (I use the phrase loosely in this context) who will promptly try to sell you on how they can use similarly dubious tactics to help you improve your ranking for only $xxx!

• 1 Comment