Movies have been around since…well, forever. When I was a kid, we saw new ones at the theater, and old ones on TV.

In 2006, movies appear everywhere. They’re on the big screen, on network TV, on cable, and all over the internet. But now, there’s another movie format that’s taking the world by storm.

Some folks call these videos compressed cinema. Others call them movie shorts. I call them “micro videos.”

TV commercial producers were among the first to use 30-second or one-minute formats to sell products. Today we can build entire dramatic productions in two minutes. But why do it?

Sadly, statistics tell us that the human attention span has shrunk exponentially. Why? Probably because we’re exposed to so many messages, we compress anything NOT already in compressed form!

For very little money, you can build a two-minute video to teach students, publicize your business, or enhance your professional reputation. Here’s how:

1. Focus on a SINGLE THEME. Two minutes goes by really fast. In fact, if you wrote a two-minute narration, it would run only about 250 words. (The average talking speed is 120 words a minute.)

2. Think about how you can present your theme VISUALLY. I just wrote a script for a business workshop presenter. The visual part will show still photos of him making a point, gesturing, and standing over a student recommending edits to a student’s paper. The dramatic photos will change quickly, emphasizing versatility and movement.

3. Provide a SOLUTION. In two minutes, there’s little time to build characters or present complicated dialog. Strive to point out a problem, then offer a way to solve it.

Need to see examples of short videos? Just go to a search engine, and check out video links. A few of the short movies I’ve seen are amateurish, unfocused, and downright silly. But even those gave me great ideas for my clients!

Movies have been around since…well, forever. When I was a kid, we saw new ones at the theater, and old ones on TV.

In 2006, movies appear everywhere. They’re on the big screen, on network TV, on cable, and all over the internet. But now, there’s another movie format that’s taking the world by storm.

Some folks call these videos compressed cinema. Others call them movie shorts. I call them “micro videos.”

TV commercial producers were among the first to use 30-second or one-minute formats to sell products. Today we can build entire dramatic productions in two minutes. But why do it?

Sadly, statistics tell us that the human attention span has shrunk exponentially. Why? Probably because we’re exposed to so many messages, we compress anything NOT already in compressed form!

For very little money, you can build a two-minute video to teach students, publicize your business, or enhance your professional reputation. Here’s how:

1. Focus on a SINGLE THEME. Two minutes goes by really fast. In fact, if you wrote a two-minute narration, it would run only about 250 words. (The average talking speed is 120 words a minute.)

2. Think about how you can present your theme VISUALLY. I just wrote a script for a business workshop presenter. The visual part will show still photos of him making a point, gesturing, and standing over a student recommending edits to a student’s paper. The dramatic photos will change quickly, emphasizing versatility and movement.

3. Provide a SOLUTION. In two minutes, there’s little time to build characters or present complicated dialog. Strive to point out a problem, then offer a way to solve it.

Need to see examples of short videos? Just go to a search engine, and check out video links. A few of the short movies I’ve seen are amateurish, unfocused, and downright silly. But even those gave me great ideas for my clients!

As the Internet continues to expand, video is taking hold and is responsible for the newest explosion in online traffic. Whether it’s an online news website like MSN, a sports website like ESPN or simply an email from your friends, video is a likely candidate for viewing content online. It’s almost not considered fun anymore unless there is some type of video involved in your online experience.

Many of you have probably heard of the website YouTube.com, it is a place for people to engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting on, and viewing videos. YouTube originally started as a personal video sharing service back in February 2005, and has grown into an entertainment destination with people watching more than 70 million videos on the site daily. Everyone can watch videos on YouTube —both on YouTube.com and across the Internet. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video, YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.

This new revolution in the way people can interact online is vastly expanding the ways in which we communicate and share information with others online. Video is exploding on the Internet everywhere we turn. Even emails from our friends and family include videos that someone has posted somewhere on the Internet. The newest controversial Internet topic is the so-called video of President Bush to suffer a digitally manipulated assassination entitled "Death of a President". The UK's Channel 4 has produced a movie that opens with the assassination of President Bush by an anti-war sniper in front of a Chicago hotel. They have used special effects to use Bush's actual face. It seems to be a shockingly real film, and it is understandable causing outrage among many Americans.

Death of a President uses digital trickery, archive footage and actors. This drama, which recreates the national paranoia following the murder, will be screened this month at the Toronto Film Festival. Channel 4 hopes to sell the film to US broadcasters but same say that is impossible. So wait until it hits YouTube. For the moment, all we have is the picture of the scene and the initial news cast by NBC.

The number of Internet users watching video online grew an impressive 18 percent between October 2005 and March 2006. That's according to comScore's first ever analysis of U.S. Web users' online video viewing habits, drawn from its new Video Metrix service. In March, U.S. Internet users initiated a total of 3.7 billion video content streams; and they watched an average 100 minutes of video content each during the month, compared with 85 minutes back in October.

Men initiated 52 percent of those streams, women 48 percent; splitting genders along roughly equal lines. But men spent far more time with the content, averaging two hours of viewing time during the month, compared with women's hour-and-twenty. Not surprisingly, males 18 to 34 were most engrossed with online video, averaging 140 minutes of video consumption.

But while certain demographic sets consume more video than others, the report's biggest surprise is that people from all ages and walks of life are eating it up, according to Erin Hunter, comsCore's EVP of media and entertainment.

"There are skews by age, but there isn't any group that's not doing it," she said. "It's not just college kids. It's also the older demographic, and clearly both males and females alike. In terms of content, we see entertainment and sports and news all with pretty strong rates of viewership."

So as we can see, the Internet is taking shape in a whole new light. Video is becoming a reality and has allowed millions of people to post video content online. So what’s next? Are we going to be able to form our own online TV stations with streaming media? Instead of writing a blog, can you watch me in the comfort of my own home talk about the latest and greatest topics regarding e-Business? I sure hope so and it seems that the Internet is definitely heading this way. With the birth of TV reality shows a few years ago and the recent outpouring of bloggers everywhere, it seems like that would be the perfect combination -- Internet reality TV stations, made by people like you and me.

If you're new and scouring the 'Net for a place to register your desired domain name, you'll likely come across websites charging anywhere from $35 a year to as low as $1.99 a year. More often than not, you'll choose the lower-priced one because it's cheaper.

There are literally hundreds of places where you can register your domain name with. There are so many around it's enough to make your head spin.

But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. And to whom you're registering and managing your domain name with is no exception.

What many people who wish to "put up a website" don't know is they might have little control or "say" (or even none at all) over managing the domain name they registered. While it's a reality many people don't know and probably don't care about this, what they don't know can and might hurt them.

Whatever their reasons and business models, many hosting providers will give you a limited degree of control and access to the domain name and your website hosting. However, they can retain full control and even ownership of the domain name itself.

It's well and good if you're having a relatively good experience with your hosting company for your website hosting and domain name needs. But if you're not happy with them and decide to cancel and transfer, then that's where the unwanted headaches might occur.

Nowadays you virtually agree to your hosting provider's terms the moment you sign up with them. Depending on the circumstances and the terms, they can deny you access to your domain name and even prevent you from transferring it to another provider of your choice.

If that happens, it can potentially cost time, money and effort to try to regain the domain name. And you don't have any assurance whatsoever you'll be successful in getting it back.

When browing through your potential list of domain providers, don't be afraid to ask any and all questions you have regarding how they handle domain name issues. Their answer to your questions can help shape your decision as to whom to take your chances with.

How do you expect to be found by people who don't know the name of your business? There are three categories of domain names to be chosen in order to make your domain name work for your website. I'll explain each category and why you need one from each of them.

We'll start with the old standby: your business name. YourBusinessName.com is great for printing on business cards and letterhead, vehicle signage and banners. This is the one that people will use IF THEY HAVE IT IN FRONT OF THEM. However, most people get stuck on using only this domain name. I'll tell you why this is such a bad idea: most business cards get thrown away - why do you think they're so cheap? Letters and invoices get filed. Your business domain name just won't be in front of the people you want it to be when you need it to be.

Dot net or dot com? For the name of your business usually it doesn't matter unless it's a well-known brand. Remember, this is the one people will have in front of them when they go online. You could even try one of the lesser used extensions like .info, .us, .biz or .tv if it works with your business name.

Next is the most basic, yet underused type of domain name - "Your Name". I don't mean your business name, I mean YOUR name. A good reason to get YourName.com is to prevent someone else from using it. Even if your name doesn't mean anything to anyone yet, we're certainly hoping it will eventually as you gain attention. If you write and submit articles, press releases, contribute to blog posts or forums, you most likely sign your name not your business name. See, already you're gaining notoriety.

Belong to a networking group or Chamber of Commerce? As you get involved in those organizations, people may not remember your business name (because you don't use it to introduce yourself, do you?), but will likely remember your name. They may not always have your business card available, but will remember working with you. They may just do a search for your name to see what pops up. If your business or articles are among the search results, you've just accomplished the goal of this domain name.

If you give seminars or participate in other speaking engagements, your name is stickier than your business name. Are you in real estate? Your name is on every yard sign you set out, not the name of your business. There are many other industries where that will apply as well.

So what if someone already has YourName.com? Then find a domain name that contains your name and add a word or phrase onto it that is pertinent to what you do. Jane Smith has a cooking utensil web site called Cooking Stuff Online, so she could use janesmithcooking.com. Hyphenated domains work too: janesmith-cooking.com. This one should be a dot com if at all possible because that's what people try first when searching almost anything.

The third type of domain is the keyword domain, and is undoubtedly the most important. Search engines give weight to a web site called frenchloprabbitpets.com that is about, and sells, French Lop Rabbits because the keyphrases for the web site are contained in the domain name. Most web directories will list links by category and allow you to search for a type of business, such as Pets. The goal here is to be found in searches of your keyphrase, type of business and product or service. The obvious thing to not do with keyword domains is try to use them for something they are not: sausages.com won't do you any good if you site is not about sausages!

I just fired my Internet design team and I think you should avoid the mistakes I made. So, as a public service, I’ll convey my lessons in an attempt to help you in your search.

I have been in advertising for over 35 years, but when my wife and I conceived a new online business, I needed help in producing the site. Sure I could create the basic screen shots and writ e the copy, but the HTML, PHP, or SQL, required was just a myriad of alphabet soup. So, being the savvy guy I am, I went surfing for a reliable Internet team to make the site happen. With so many to choose from, I figured that I could use a local group that had a nearby presence. Therefore, I did a citywide search and narrowed down the firms. After reviewing their sites, paying particular attention to their years of experience and portfolios, I called one for an interview.

Getting an answering machine should have been my first indication (warning sign 1) that disaster was looming. But I left a message anyway and waited for a return call. When it finally came, we agreed on meeting at his office. When I arrived, I realized it wasn’t exactly his office. It was an executive suite with a conference room that they rented to save money (warning sign 2). When the young man (around 30) showed up in shorts, I was a bit uneasy (warning sign 3) but gave him our background anyway. He appeared confident about being able to produce the site in a timely manner and sent my wife and I a fairly professional proposal via email. The timeframes and costs seemed appropriate and we decided to give his company a try.

After emailing him my screen shot for the front page, he sent a note asking if they could redesign it. Mind you, I have been a professional designer and consultant for over three decades. But I consented and received something we hated and I told him as much. He emailed back that he was insulted by our response and knew far more (at age 30) than us about web design. He changed our colors, which we finally acceded to, but we remained firm on the artwork. Eventually, we got what we wanted and moved forward. It was nearing Christmas, and work came through like molasses. His “guy” that was doing the majority of design took three weeks off for Christmas and our project sat dormant the entire time. (warning sign 4)

“Hey, it’s the holidays,” he explained. “What do you expect?”

I expected our site to be finished, which is what I paid for. After the first of the year, we asked for a meeting to discuss the problems getting it finished. He said he would give us a solid timeline and promised quicker responses. Until now, many of our emails went unanswered for days (warning sign 5). So we trusted his word and continued to try to get the site up and running. A few months flew by and the old ways returned. The timeline was now out the window and we were upset. The site didn’t work on my I-Mac using “Safari.” The owner told me that Mac’s are only 3.19% of the entire Internet, so why be concerned with that segment? (warning sign 6) I explained that the site should work on all platforms, as we first proposed, but he was adamant that we were wasting his time. His time? It was our site. I told him that there were over 8 million Mac users on the net and I wanted everyone of those potential customers. He told me I was foolish and I called him ignorant of Mac users, being he had never used one in his life. He was incensed by my accusation and told me so. The battle came to a head when my wife phoned him and he yelled and insulted her (final warning). Seconds after he hung up on her, I began my search for a new Internet group.

It wasn’t until later that we discovered he had been using a Russian working somewhere in the US to code the pages and all the support documentation was written in Russian. In researching on the net, I discovered and was told by others, that outsourcing to Russians to save money was a very common practice. I was never told that this was the case for our site and would not have used them if I had known in advance.

We have since chosen a firm that (a) has a physical office, (b) has the programmers on the premises, (c) has good communication skills, (d) will meet their obligations and fill your needs. My recommendation to you is to know who and where your site will be developed and have a contract that includes penalties for missed deadlines. Check references, interview at least three firms, and make sure they understand your needs. Finally, if they show up in shorts to your first meeting, don’t walk, but run, for the nearest exit.

In this article, I will show you how to build a web directory in a few and easy to follow steps. Using these tips will not only save you a huge amount of time, but it will also reveal to you new ways to build a good quality site loved by net-surfers and search engines as well.

1). Purchase a domain name and a hosting plan. You can buy a domain name for as low as 2.50$ (e.g. http://domain.yourwebpoint.com). Choose your domain name carefully, according to what kind of key words do you target. For example, if you want to build a directory for garden lovers, you can call it 'My Green Corner' or 'Green Garden Directory'. If you want to build a general directory, you may want to use some top popular searched words on net. As for hosting, you can choose between free or paid hosts, each of them has advantages and disadvantages. Use the Google search tool to find out about everything. For example, just type on Google 'free hosting plan', and you will get almost 100 million results. Similarly, you can type 'top most searched words', and so on.

2). Choose a directory script. I personally recommend phplinkdirectory script (known as phpld). You can choose the free version 2, or you can pay a small fee for purchasing the later version 3. Installation is very easy and does not require major coding skills, and the support forum is excellent. Basically you just have to upload the script to your server and follow some simple installation steps.

3). Choose a template and customize it. There are many templates available for phpld v2 and v3, and with some minor Photoshop skills, you can tune your web directory to look exactly how you want it to look. There are also available some extra mods for phpld script, you just have to read their support forum. You don't need to know how to modify the script source, most of them are simple 'cut and paste' jobs. Find and install all the mods that you like, this will give to your directory a fresh look.

4). Add extra features like some web seo related tools from iweb, for example, a forum like phpBB or a blog like wordpress. All of them are free scripts just waiting for you to install and customize. Syndicate at least your blog, with your directory (you can use the RSS feeds from your blog or from anywhere else, and syndicate them to your website by adding a script like rss2html to it's code). This will add content and utility points to your directory.

5). Advertise your new web directory on forums, blogs, on everything that you can. Write articles. Build a newspaper and let people to come and subscribe for it. Start a link-exchange campaign. Make friends, do some reciprocal linking, but stay away from link farms. Submit your directory to other directories. Search engines like directories, because most of them are human-edited, and they will crawl your page, whenever they have the chance. Get into as many directories top as you can. If you have some money to invest in it, buy some links on top pages of other directories with higher PR, or apply for Google ad-words, so that people can hear about your new creation. Try to blend into the system. This step is called seo, short for search engine optimization, meaning the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine.

6). Last, but not least, enjoy your work, enjoy this experience.

One of the first steps in building your website is choosing a domain name. There are several important things to consider when deciding on a domain name for your website.

Following are a few tips to keep in mind when selecting a new domain name:

If possible, opt for a domain name that is easily recognizable and describes your business. This will be helpful when you promote your site.

Keep your domain name as short, simple and easy to remember as possible. The shorter it is, the easier it will be to remember. Although a good number of the short and simple .com domains are likely already taken, you may have the option to purchase a domain with a different extension, like .net or .us.

Your domain name can be 2-63 characters long (excluding the extension), and can contain the characters a-z, 0-9 and '-' (dash). However, domain names cannot begin or end with '-' (dash).

If your first choice is not available, try to utilize synonyms, rearrange the words, add dashes, or use abbreviations or acronyms to find an alternative.

You now have several options to choose from for extensions as well. Following is some information about some of the extensions you can choose from:

.com denotes the word "commercial," and it is an unrestricted global domain name extension. Many businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet. However, the number of available .com domain names is shrinking as more and more businesses go online.

.net represents the word "network," and is an unrestricted global domain name extension most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies, or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet web sites.

.org represents the word "organization," and is an unrestricted global domain name extension that is primarily used for non-commercial sites. However, many commercial entities register the .org extensions corresponding to their .com domain names in order to protect their brands.

.biz is a restricted-use global domain name extension used for business web sites. As a relatively new type of domain, .biz offers a company the opportunity to get the domain name it really wants and enhance its presence on the Web with a domain name that means business.

.info is an unrestricted domain name extension that creates an opportunity to reach a worldwide audience with information about your business and ideas. .info is growing in popularity, but still has many great names available.

.us is a restricted-use country code that may be used by any individual or organization with residence in the United States or its territories, including foreign organizations that do business in the US.

What about .TV, .WS, .FM and .CC?

Although often marketed as such, .TV does not mean television and .WS does not mean web-site or world-site. .TV is the country code extension for Tuvalu a small island country located in the Western Pacific Ocean with a population of approximately 11,000 that gained independence from the UK in 1978. .WS is the country code extension for Samoa. Samoa, also in the Pacific, gained independence from New Zealand in 1962 and has a population of around 180,000.

.FM masquerades as the TLD (top level domain) for radio stations, but is actually the country code for Federated States of Micronesia. .CC is the Internet country code TLD for Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory, but has been promoted for international registration as "the next .com".

I have spent the last three weeks working with one of my new clients. They have been building their own website for over three years, spent $20,000 and have virtually no traffic. Like many people on the internet, they saw an opportunity to license some material from another company and did so in the promise they would make money. Yet to their distress they have never ranked well online and have never had high levels of traffic.

This particular client has spent thousands of dollars on building email lists using Adwords to assist in driving traffic their way. They are fast running out of money and becoming very distressed. The client has spent lots of money paying other people to get search engine traffic but has never achieved a good ranking and in some search engines did not even register an existence.

Two weeks ago we worked out what keywords would suit the licensed products that the client had purchased, built a website based on the sales pages the licensor had provided and using the right keywords this client has now achieved the most outstanding results.

The client achieved within 1 week of the site being live a #1 ranking in Yahoo.com on a keyword. A number one ranking is predicted to bring about 50 hits a day. The website also achieved a number 2 ranking in Google.com on a keyword which is predicted to bring about 150 hits a day. The reason our client achieved these outstanding results was simply because of the process we followed in choosing the right and appropriate keywords for the domain and key webpages. I should note that whilst the client will only pull about 200 hits a day on this one key world, we expect to make 3 to 5 sales a day for a $300 product. If you look at the numbers from the best case scenarios, the sales will pull $1,500 a day US which works out to about $10,500 a week and about $500,000 a year. Not bad for one single keyword.

There are four key issues you need to consider when trying to choose the right keywords for your domain name.

Issue #1 – Identify The Actual Words Your Customers are Using To Search For Your Products

One of the biggest mistakes many people make is to not do the research to identify the actual keywords your customers are actually searching on. In fact I have found that often what a client thinks their customers are using to search for their products is totally different to what their clients actually search on.

There are many tools on the market to help you do this and there are new ones coming out every week. My team and I use a range of tools like WordTracker and Overture to develop lists of keywords our clients customers are actually searching on. I find that Wordtracker is a fantastic tool for this.

When you are trying to use Wordtracker, I recommend that you start your searches with just a single general word about your product. This will give you a full list of all the words and a range of important information.

Issue #2 – Identify the Right Keywords with Minimal Competition

When you work with Wordtracker the system will give you a range of information about your keywords including the number of competing sites by search engine, the total number of hits per day in total to expect and a prediction of the number of hits per day by search engine. There are two issues you need to consider. One is the number of competitive sites for the keywords and the second is the number of hits you can expect.

The number of competitive sites is the most important issue to look. Keywords that have few competitive sites are much better to go after than those keywords that have lots of competitive sites as it can take a while to rank well. For example, my team and I have been going after a general term which currently has about 900,000 competing sites. The downside is that it takes a lot of work, lots of articles and a lot of time to achieve a number one ranking. In particular it has taken us 4 and half months to rank in the top twenty and we expect it to take another 2 months to get into the top five.

I know of one company that wanted to rank well for the keywords "wholesale hats" and that it took them 6 solid months of writing articles and building back links to be ranked well in the number one position. When you are starting out, you will want to make sure that you choose low competition websites. Now here is the interesting issue, just because a keyword has 1 million competing webpages does not mean that its going to be hard to rank well. What you need to do is to identify how many backlinks the top competitors has for the keywords. If the top competitor's webpages have only a few links to their page or even their site then you may find it very easy to top those webpages.

One of the aspects to consider when choosing your keywords is to make sure that your general keywords are in fact included in the domain name. For example if you were creating a website on Asthma, then in your domain name, you would want to include the keyword Asthma but it is unlikely you would get Asthma.com. However you would want to include the term asthma as the search engines give a better ranking to those that have the keywords in the domain, simply due to relevance.

Remember one key issue, the more relevant your keywords and domain, the more likely your website will rank highly.

Issue #3 – Identify Keywords with Good Daily Hits

The next issue you need to look at is the number of daily hits you can expect using those keywords. If the only keywords you can get with low competition webpages have 10 to 30 hits per day, then it is going to be a long haul.

The best type of keywords are those where you have a couple of hundred hits per day, preferably a thousand plus a day and only a few competing webpages. One of the sites we did for one of my clients had 350 daily hits per day but only had 104 competing webpages. This number of competing webpages is minute and it will not take a huge amount to get a top ranking position.

Issue #4 – See What Your Competitors Are Doing With Your Keywords

The next issue you need to look at is which keywords your competitors are using. When you are trying to work out your domain name you need to weigh up what your competitors are using to secure your customers, what keywords they are using in the keywords section of their meta data and what keywords they are using in their webpages and the text in their hyperlinks and their domains.

With all of this information you need to then balance out which keywords will give you the best results. Knowing what keywords your customers are searching on, which keywords have the least competition, what keywords your competitors are using and the total number of hits per day on your keywords will help you choose the right domain.

There are a number of link building strategies online today, some that are more effective than others.

I personally have found that writing articles and submitting them to the online article directories is one of the most effective ways to build high-quality back links to my site.

How does it work?

Basically when you write an article and submit it to an online directory, several things occur.

1) Once the article directory accepts your article, they publish it to their article directory. Your link has been embedded in your article or in the bio box the article directory gives you.

2) Other web sites that are looking for much-coveted ‘fresh content’ see your article and copy it to their web site, leaving your link intact.

3) Some article directories use an RSS feed to automatically send your articles to a number of subscribed web sites, all of which receive your article and upload it into their web site via an automated method.

4) Ezine and newsletter editors find your article and use your article, link intact, in their ezine or newsletter, giving you added exposure.

5) When the search engines spider the various websites that now have your link, you are credited with having many quality back links to your site, something that goes a long way in determining where your page will rank in their search engine results.

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!

Optimizing your website for high ranking on the SERP is a step by step process. Great content, SEO optimized pages and an amazing website layout are not enough to bring traffic. Being on the Web means being a part of the Web and not an isolated entity. Google places no importance on solitary websites. To get Google’s attention and increase traffic, you need solid linking strategies. However, it is not only Google you should consider when you collect links. All other search engines follow links to spider and index web pages. Links are like channels driving search engines and traffic to your website.

The most important aspect you need to consider at the very beginning of the process is that you’ll need quality links to rank high on the SERP. If you manage to gather more than 100 links, the quality of the links is not as important anymore. Not for Google.

Remember, collecting back links does not imply using link farms or other black hat SEO techniques. If you are part of a linking farm you might have your website seriously penalized by Google. Honest linking strategies take time and effort to develop, but it’s time worth spending. Think about it: on the web, businesses are built or destroyed depending on their positioning into the SERPs of Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. As the average user relies on Google, ranking high in Google should be your main priority. The only way you could achieve lasting results is collecting links. Google’s algorithms have changed so often, but one thing has remained constant: the importance Google places on incoming and outgoing links.

The number of links is important, but so is the quality of the sites linking to your website. If you can get links from highly ranked sites it is almost certain your site will rank highly too. You need to link to related sites, to show Google and the other search engines your main concern is providing useful resources to your visitors and valuable content for the web. Getting back links from industry related websites also has another very important advantage: their clients might have interest in what you have to offer. As a result you’ll increase your chances of increasing traffic and sales.

From the entire link collecting strategies available online, one of the most used is writing articles. Most of the websites using this technique are sites on SEO, but any type of site should use this strategy. The trick is: write unique articles and don’t “over-submit” them.

When it comes to articles, there is another very important thing you have to remember: online branding. Indeed, articles are a great means to make your name known and to persuade readers to trust your products and services. Do write regularly, let’s say twice a month, and try to keep a high quality standard of your writing.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required.

A sad fairy tale of a Fall from Grace in the Kingdom of Google...

A long time ago, well, around 2002 I was using "reciprocal linking" with outstanding results. I had five home business sites all interlinked and the search engines loved me. I was their favourite subject....Not really, but you get what I mean.

It wasn't unusual to see two or three of my sites sharing the same top page on Google for highly competitive "work at home" terms. I had five different accounts with Linksmanager managing my different sites, sending me new link partners daily. I believed that there was no end to the heights I could reach, in terms of search engine rankings and the subsequent traffic that the top results produced.

Alas, a lot has changed since then......

The search engines soon cottoned on that wiley Internet Marketers like myself had automated the process, with the help of quality services of course, but automated no less. So in the space of a few weeks or months maybe, my sites lost the power through reciprocal linking that they once enjoyed and my rankings fell. I wasn't banned or banished to the nether regions of Google BUT, once you fall off the top two or three pages you might as well not be listed at all.

You see, Google likes to see "natural" linking activity, ie. a person visits your site, they like what they see, maybe see your site as a valuable resource and decide to add a link back. This is a "natural" process. When Google finds that the linkback is being reciprocated then they know that some sort of deal has been set up and the relevancy drops way down.

Today I am climbing back up the charts, so to speak using one way linking and I am happy to report that it is semi-automated and starting to produce the same kind of results that I used to acquire. There are a few of ways to get one way links:

1. The natural way, of which no one has control over - Visitors will find your site useful or not and decide to add a link back to you of their free will.

2. You can buy one way links - Many companies out there are brokers for website owners who sell a link on their site for a monthly or yearly fee.

3. You can set up a linking strategy with another webmaster to set up a link back structure, ie. he links to your site and rather than link straight back to the site he links from, you link to another one of his sites. So one way links are created and they look "natural". This is an effective strategy but too labourious for my liking.

4. Add your site to link directories - This is the most effective way from my experience, especially if you have automated or semi-automated the process. One way links from high quality directories will do more for your website ranking that any other single internet marketing method.

It's important when getting back links that you use different anchor texts. Using the same link text will look automated. Link backs from websites all using a variety of linking texts will look as natural as you can possibly expect.

In conclusion, the more natural you can make your linking strategy appear to be, the more you will benefit in the Search Engines. And as Google, Yahoo, and the other top dogs become more stringent in routing out automated processes, you may still have a chance of keeping one step ahead of the pack.