The Secrets To Improved Search Engine Placement

If you have a website, you know how important it is to be found in the first or second page of search engine results for as many search terms as possible. Most people find websites by searching in search engines, so if your site isn't ranked at the top of the pile for at least some search terms, then no one is likely to find your site. So improving your search engine placement is one of the most important goals you can have as a webmaster, especially if your website is the gateway into your online business.

Years ago, it was possible to use on-page optimization techniques to improve your search rankings. Webmasters could add keywords to meta tags, alt image tags, header tags, and so on, and the search engines would rank the sites better. However, the search engines soon learned that such techniques could be gamed easily by webmasters. So, starting with Google, the search engines switched their focus to rewarding websites that had lots of inbound links from other websites. And today it remains true that the best way to improve search engine rankings is to get inbound links from related websites.

So if inbound links are the key to top search engine rankings, how do you get them? The bad news is that getting links can be a time consuming and difficult task, the good news is that there are some techniques and associated systems that do indeed work if you put in the time and effort.

One of the very best techniques for getting links and traffic is by writing articles and getting them published as widely as possible. You simply write a 500-600 word article on a topic related to your website, and include a link to your website in the author bio box. There is a great deal of information on the web about how to write and submit articles to article directories, and in fact the process is very easy. But there is a key to successful article marketing that many people miss - you must write lots and lots of articles. If you only write 5 articles, it may well be the case that you see no results at all. Instead, plan to write 50 or 100 articles, or even more, depending on your niche.

When using articles to drive traffic, it really helps to get as wide a distribution for your article as possible. It turns out there are some systems that will get your articles published as separate pages on website related to yours, not just general article directories. Articles on related websites can really help drive traffic.

In addition to article marketing, there are some other techniques for getting backlinks. Social bookmarking is useful for getting permanent one way links. If you can collaborate with other webmasters to do social bookmarking for each other, this will greatly increase the effectiveness of your effort. Working with other webmasters to get links onto their sites is always a great idea if you can do it.

In fact, there is one particular link building system that not only leverages your article marketing efforts by distributing your article to other related websites in the network, but also provides website matching and social bookmarking components to build as many links as possible. Such a link system can help you get the most out of your backlink building efforts.