If you have just started a new website or currently have a website at some point in time you would need to consider optimizing your website for the search engines. Having your site optimized for the search engines is what keeps you in the top rankings for certain keywords and key phrases used in search results. This process involves editing content and code of the web pages to relevant and specific keywords. This process can be very daunting and if not applied correctly could cause you site to be penalized by the search engines.

Unfortunately, most company owners do not have the knowledge, skill, or time to properly optimize their own website and build a strong on line presence. That's why in most cases it best to enlist a SEO specialist for this.

The purpose of this article is not to go into the In's and out of on-page optimization. There are tons of information already out there on that. We will take a look at 3 simple ways you can start to generate traffic to your website before the on-page optimization begins. In my opinion these things should be implemented first especially if you are just starting your on line business. It will be hard for you to be able to compete with the companies that are already established with out first knowing how to position your self with the search engines. If you are a Small Business owner thats wants a solid on line presence you can do it gradually over time without spend lots of money. The bigger companies have more money to pour into their marketing campaign so do not worry about competing with them. Over time you will reap the benefits but you have to have patience and persistence. There are many ways to give your site the nudge it needs but here are just a few.

Building Back Links

Building back links is important for your site because it shows the search engines that your site is popular for searches. If you link to sites with a higher rank than yours it helps to boost your ranking as well. It is better to link to sites in the same category or niche as yours. In General Back links are just places on the web that have links that point back to your website. The more links you have the better you rank with Google will be. The higher the page rank of the website that links to your site. The better chance you have of getting up into the higher Page Ranks for your site. Here a few ways to building your back links naturally over time.

Web Directories:

Web directories in general list websites according to certain topic. They are completely different than search engines because they are usually maintained by humans instead software. In order to get your site including in a web directory you usually have to do it manually. It sometimes take 2- 3 months for you site to show in the directory. These directories have Page Ranks and will provide a back link to your website. I personally never searched for a product or service using a web directory but you will see your site listed in these directories if you do a search on your domain or company. One of the most popular web directory that you want to be including in is www.dmoz.org. this is the largest web directory on the web. But know that it can take over a year just to have a moderator review your submission! You can pay someone to submit you to the many directories that are out there if you don't have time to do it manually. There are software programs that can do this for you but it can get to be costly. However you chose to do it is important to start now being that it takes so long to be listed in these directories.

On-going Press Releases:

This lets people know that your doors are open for business. Having a press release written and submitted to various directories and news sites will do two things. The first is that people will read your press release and may be interested in trying your product or service. The second, is if you provide a link to your website from within the press release then you also get a one-way link from every website that displays your press release. If you have a good press release written you can potentially generate hundreds of one-way links. When people search for your company or domain the Press Release will also show in the search results. People will read all the good things about your company before they actually visit your website. Press releases should be ongoing. I would recommend at minimum 1 a month. It's not good for people to view your company as a thing of the past. You can also submit a Press Release whenever you want to highlight a new product or service. It shouldn't be written as and advertisement. The style of a press release is more like a journalist writing for a magazine. When submitting a press release to a directory it has to be very carefully written or it may not be published. You can hire a professional editor or do it yourself the choice is yours.

Article Submissions:

This is by far one of the most effective ways of improving your search engine rankings. How it works is you write an article about something that is closely related to the subject of your website. Some where in the the article you place a link to your website. You then submit the article to different Article directories on the Internet. Every time your article is published you get a link back to your website. You can also include SEO keywords in order to improve the articles search engines ranking. You don't want to over do it with the keywords to the point where your article is written in 'Frankein-speak'. Your keywords and phrases should blend in easily with the natural content and intent of your article. The key here is getting the article published with the content that is beneficial to the reader.

You can hire a professional editor or do it yourself again the choice is yours.

These are just a few ways for you to start giving you website the credibility it deserves. We will go over more ways you can build you site up at a later time. For now you should get started on these simple steps that have been outlined.