So you have a website and it is online. What do you do now? MARKETING

Building a website is only the first hurdle, now you need to make sure that you get it working for you.

A working website should:

• provide valuable information on your product or services
• provide relevant resources for your visitors
• produce constant traffic
• increase or create new sales opportunities

Many smaller companies and individuals, with limited budgets, do not spend the time promoting or marketing their website properly. After a while they start wondering why they are not in the search engines or why they are not making any sales. Just because you built it DOES NOT mean that they will come! "You’ve gotta be in it, to win it!" was a popular phrase for US lottery promotions, but the same is true for the Internet and search engines. To be "in it" means to be visible and ranked well (for your selected keywords).

Today the top two ways people find what they want online are through search indexes and through links from other sites, so it only makes sense to invest in marketing within these two areas of Search Engine Optimization and Link Building.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of organizing your website to rank well in the search engines. Your visibility in the search engines will really determine how much traffic you are going to get. In general, SEO deals with Meta tags, keywords, internal site navigation, web page layout, and search engine submissions, etc. If done properly, SEO can make the difference in any website.

Search engines are used by approximately 80% of the population online today to find resources, but they do not index or list all of what is truly out there...so are lots of Internet resources that will not or cannot be found through the search engines at all.

Thus the question: 'If you can't find the resources through search engines and directories, how do you find them and where do they look?' The answer leads us to the second marketing technique - Link Building.

Link Building is the process of finding related/relevant websites and placing a link to those websites on yours then asking them to link back to you, i.e. link building is done through link exchanges or reciprocal links; the process by where both websites link to each other and bring mutual benefit to each site. By using 'targeted' link building, your website is one step closer to reaching your market.

The easier it is for folks to find your website, the easier it is to make them potential customers. Targeted links in addition to sending targeted market traffic to your site play a major role in enhancing your rankings or listings with the major search engines and directories, this is called link popularity.

Link popularity is one of the most important factors search engines use in determining where you will place in the search engine for your keywords, and phrases, as it helps them to determine how important or popular your site is. So linking is critical not only in driving traffic to your site from other sites but with your search engine placement as well!

Thus SEO and link building combine in a symbiotic relationship, one that you can use to your advantage. Targeted link building reaches out to the online community to find your target audience and build your network, therefore increasing your traffic, while SEO enhances and effectively submits your website assets and assists in your search engine placement.

To succeed online today, a well designed website, needs to be marketed properly through SEO and targeted Link Building. If you concentrate on these two areas of your marketing online, you will put your products and services before more folks that are looking for what you are offering and be well on your way to a successful online presence.

Larry Sullivan, webmster of Linking101, "your link to link building resources". For up-to-date information, reviews, articles, a monthly newsletter, and unique link building tools, visit http://www.linking101.com

John Gracey, CEO of 7th Dimension Sites, Inc. and Your-Link-Popularity.com, offering hand-tailored link popularity services for your web site. Get properly linked and attract pre-qualified site visitors prone to buy what you offer, and improve your search index listings. For your FREE link popularity consultation or to learn more about linking visit Your Link Popularity

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