As work from home business owners, we need to acquire links to our website and get search engine rankings. You may use, or may have used some of these strategies in the past, some you may not have used at all. If you have tried these, but are still not getting the traffic you think you should be getting, then you need to revisit each strategy and make changes, and do so frequently. Also, we must keep up with the ever changing landscape of Internet marketing.
Here are a few strategies to use for links, traffic, and search engine rankings:
Classified Ads
You might be surprised at the amount of traffic you can get from classified ads — free or paid. There are many classified ad sites online, or Craigslist, or you might try classifieds in your local newspaper.
Press Releases
There are plenty of free press release websites to chose from. Make a press release about a new website, a special offer, or make a release for your current website. There are also many paid PR sites available for use, some of them are very pricey.
Content
Writing unique content for article directories, or your blog, is also a good way to get links. There are many people who think they can not write articles, but after you write a couple of article, it will become a lot easier to write more. These are not novels, just essays on your niche or product.
Video
This is a relatively new platform for advertising, but is growing at an incredible rate. You will need a digital video camera, and a format that is compatible with say YouTube. There are many sites where you can get this platform for free, but for better quality videos you will have to pay. This is a great way to get links, and advertise your product.
Directories
The two biggest directories are DMOZ and Yahoo Directory. DMOZ is a free open directory, but getting listed may take several months. Yahoo Directory is a paid directory, if you can afford the yearly fees, is very good for getting your website visible. You might want to use some alternative directories such as Business.com, Bestoftheweb.com, or Massivelinks.com.
Social Networks
This is also a relative new forum for advertising, these networks are exploding on to the scene. You can get unique visitors to your website. Facebook and Twitter continue to grow daily. This is a lot like building a list, in that you get followers.
Social Bookmarking
With social bookmarking, you can share sites with other members. These would include sites like Delicious, Digg, and Reddit. But there are many, many more sites like these.
As work from home business owners, we must keep current with new Internet marketing trends and keep tabs on our current advertising strategies. We need to change those strategies that are not working, and try new methods to see if they work better. If not, traffic to our websites will decrease and our competitors will gain traffic.
