When I first got started online, I tried some of the more conventional methods of advertising (and the things beginners fall for!). I tried buying traffic and I tried expensive PPC and I tried submitting to all the search engines. And it worked--sort of. I received traffic, I made a few sales, and I got my feet wet.

But things really began to turn around for me when I realized the power of link popularity. Link popularity is the relative number of inbound links one web site has relative to another. So if one web site has 20 inbound links and another 100, the web site with 100 has more link popularity than the one with 20 inbound links.

Why does link popularity matter? Good question. You see, the major search engines simply assume that if you have more inbound links than another site, yours must be more popular than the others. Because of this, they tend to rank your site more highly in the natural search engine results.

To increase my link popularity, I engaged primarily in two practices---adding my web site to online web site directories, and writing and submitting articles to the various article directories online.

An interesting note here---most of the links that I have with web site directories have higher rankings than the article directories, but the article directories ultimately give me many more inbound links because of the viral effect of submitting articles.

You see, when you submit articles to the articles directories, not only are your articles shown on the directory to which you submitted your article, but many web sites and ezines (if you have quality information in your articles) will publish your article and you receive additional inbound links which you didn’t directly solicit.

It has been working for me, and should work for you, too. Submit your web site address to any web directory that is related to your web site topic, and write articles related to your web site topic and submit them to article directories. The traffic will surprise you!