Website Promotion - Writing Articles May Be Better Than Hiring SEO Firms

It is a well-known fact that a key to obtaining a good search engine search engine, SE: a program, which searches a document or group of documents for relevant matches of a users keyword phrase and returns a list of the most relevant matches. Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo search the entire internet for relevant matches. position is having a lot of other Websites link link: An element on a web page that can be clicked on to cause the browser to jump to another page or another part of the current page. to yours. The quantity is important, and the quality is important, too. A link link: An element on a web page that can be clicked on to cause the browser to jump to another page or another part of the current page. to your site from Amazon.com is regarded by the search engines as more important than a link link: An element on a web page that can be clicked on to cause the browser to jump to another page or another part of the current page. from Never-Heard-Of-It.com.

How can someone with a fairly new Website obtain links from other sites? Quite easily, as it happens. Write articles about your Website's topics and publish them on the Web WWW, WEB: Stands for "World Wide Web." It is important to know that this is not a synonym for the Internet. The World Wide Web, or just "the Web," as ordinary people call it, is a subset of the Internet. The Web consists of pages that can be accessed using a Web browser. The Internet is the actual network of networks where all the information resides. Things like Telnet, FTP, Internet gaming, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and e-mail are all part of the Internet, but are not part of the World Wide Web. The Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the method used to transfer Web pages to your computer. With hypertext, a word or phrase can contain a link to another Web site. All Web pages are written in the hyper-text markup language (HTML), which works in conjunction with HTTP.. It is easy to do, it provides fairly fast results, and it is less expensive and safer than if you hired a company to promote your Website for you.

Writing articles is easy. Just find a topic that relates to your Website and write what you know about it. Offer informative tips, information or other factoids that may interest the public about your topic. It need not be long; 250-500 words is just fine. At the bottom of your article, you may include a brief bio about yourself and you may include a link Link: When you're browsing the Web and you see a highlighted and underlined word or phrase on a page, there's a good chance you're looking at a link. These friendly little guys allow you to "jump" to another web site, another frame, or another part of the page you're currently viewing. to your site. The next step is to search for "submit free content" in your favorite search engine Search Engine: Google, Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, Infoseek, and Yahoo are all search engines. They index millions of sites on the Web, so that Web surfers like you and me can easily find Web sites with the information we want. By creating indexes, or large databases of Web sites (based on titles, keywords, and the text in the pages), search engines can locate relevant Web sites when users enter search terms or phrases. When you are looking for something using a search engine, it is a good idea to use words like AND, OR, and NOT to specify your search. Using these boolean operators, you can usually get a list of more relevant sites.. You will find many sites that accept articles from anyone who wishes to contribute. You usually publish an article by simply cutting and pasting into an online form. The Website where you publish your article shares your article with other sites that wish to republish them. Each time this happens, you'll get another link Link: When you're browsing the Web and you see a highlighted and underlined word or phrase on a page, there's a good chance you're looking at a link. These friendly little guys allow you to "jump" to another web site, another frame, or another part of the page you're currently viewing. back to your Website. It only takes a minute to publish an article, and I have seen additional links back to my site in as little as 12 hours! It works, and it's free! The more articles you write, the more the links to your Website will propagate throughout the Internet.

But what about hiring a search engine optimization Search Engine Optimization: Noun phrase. The practice of designing, modifying, and/or supplementing Web documents to rank well in search engines. Now mostly superceded by link building (q.v.) and/or link baiting (q.v.). (SEO SEO: Short for search engine optimization, the process of increasing the number of visitors to a Web site by achieving high rank in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that users will visit the site. It is common practice for Internet users to not click past the first few pages of search results, therefore high rank in SERPs is essential for obtaining traffic for a site. SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be indexed and favorably ranked by the search engine.) company? Can't you hire someone to promote your site for you? Yes, you can. These companies will modify your site to make it more search engine Search Engine: Google, Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, Infoseek, and Yahoo are all search engines. They index millions of sites on the Web, so that Web surfers like you and me can easily find Web sites with the information we want. By creating indexes, or large databases of Web sites (based on titles, keywords, and the text in the pages), search engines can locate relevant Web sites when users enter search terms or phrases. When you are looking for something using a search engine, it is a good idea to use words like AND, OR, and NOT to specify your search. Using these boolean operators, you can usually get a list of more relevant sites. friendly, and they may recommend some other promotion techniques, such as pay-per-click advertising. Depending on your financial situation and the amount of free time you have, such companies may represent a good investment. Unfortunately, there are also unscrupulous Website promotion companies out there, and there seem to be more of those than legitimate ones. I got a call just last week from one such company that promised to place my Website at the very top of the first page of Google's search results. They also promised to provide thousands of links to my site. I declined their offer, but did some research on the company. What I found is that they have done business under three different names in the last year, they've used hidden link link: An element on a web page that can be clicked on to cause the browser to jump to another page or another part of the current page., hidden code and other techniques that search engines don't like, they've built Web WWW, WEB: Stands for "World Wide Web." It is important to know that this is not a synonym for the Internet. The World Wide Web, or just "the Web," as ordinary people call it, is a subset of the Internet. The Web consists of pages that can be accessed using a Web browser. The Internet is the actual network of networks where all the information resides. Things like Telnet, FTP, Internet gaming, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and e-mail are all part of the Internet, but are not part of the World Wide Web. The Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the method used to transfer Web pages to your computer. With hypertext, a word or phrase can contain a link to another Web site. All Web pages are written in the hyper-text markup language (HTML), which works in conjunction with HTTP. pages that plagiarize from other sites and they've done work that results in their clients being blacklisted from the major search engines.

These things weigh heavily against their promise of having thousands of links that point to my site. I see no reason to pay thousands of dollars for a service that may obtain links for me or may get my site blacklisted on the major search engines. I'd rather save my money and obtain the links myself by writing and publishing articles. It's safe, fast, and inexpensive. And it works.

About the Author

©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including End-Your-Debt.com, a site devoted to debt consolidation and credit counseling, and HomeEquityHelp.com, a site devoted to information regarding home equity loans.