Another Google PR Update has passed and the general impression still remains the same. Sites with little or no useful content have received better pageranks because they have a very good link building strategy whereas quality content sites with few inbound links have fallen back.

Looks like webmasters will be required to spend lesser time developing good content and more time building inbound links if they want to be in Google’s good books.

As for myself, I have received mixed results from this update. I think it’s time to rack my brains and get some creative ideas for link building as I am not in favor of intensive ‘link buying’.

I Am Bored. As the name suggests, the traffic from I Am Bored is people who are looking for some fun. You cannot count on them to buy your products but if you have a site that offers some form of entertainment, I-Am-Bored.com is a good bet.

Rates
Their current rates are $100/week and you can buy a link on I-Am-Bored.com from AdEngage (a service similar to AdBrite).

How Many Clicks Can I Expect?
According to the stats shown there, you will receive an average of 3500 clicks per week, but from my personal experience, you can even receive up to 6500 clicks in a week if you have something really interesting to offer.

Simply said, Search Engine Marketing is the best way to drive quality traffic to your website. An overview of the steps involved are:

Understanding Keywords and Search Terms
Search Engine Optimization
Submitting Websites to Search Engines and Directories
Building Link Popularity
Paying for Performance and Traffic
Analyzing Traffic on your websites
Understanding How Pageranks and Webranks work

This might take some time to be perfected and is perfectly possible to do yourself. But it does have one drawback. It takes up an awful lot of time and is one process that does not really end. A nice alternative will be to hire a marketing firm like Apogee Search. They are more than an just an alternative actually. Their advanced tracking systems and expertise are not something that every DIY webmaster would be capable of doing.

Apogee provide Search Engine Marketing and the promosing feature of their services are that they talk ‘pay per conversion’ and not just ‘pay per click’. You can also have a look at their list of clients who have received Top Google Rankings through their services.

And while you are there, don’t forget to check out their Search Marketing Blog which is a really nice resource for Search Marketing tips and news.

The webmaster world seems to have ‘awaken’ to the importance of Link Building for their websites. Sadly, webmasters are still not making optimum use of this wonderful tool called link building. I guess that is because no one really wants to take some time out and educate theirselves properly on what proper Link Building is.

You can Google the words and go through the first 100 results that show up and do your own research. Or you can let someone else do the hard work and read a consolidated and simplified guide to Link Building. Yes, I actually found one single article that expalins it all - the types of inbound links you should look for and how to get them.

Jim Westergren’s comprehensive guide to building quality inbound links is what I am talking about here. Here’s the link for you:

Link Building Guide

SEO is the best thing to do in order to bring loads of traffic to your new website, but it does not give immediate results. You will have wait till search engines index you properly and most important, give you good rankings. It is, in short, a long-term measure. So how do you bring immediate traffic to your website? Here are some tried and tested ways:

1. Immediate Traffic Without Spending a Dime

1. The best thing to do is join related forums and start posting with your website address in your signature.
2. The next best thing would be to hold a contest and submit it for free to contest directories. You can read more about holding and promoting contests in my previous post ‘Contests are great promotion tools for content sites‘

2. Immediate Traffic by Spending Some $$

1. Start a contest as we talked about earlier in this post and this time, submit it to contest directories as ‘paid or featured listings’. That will be sure to drive in a lot of traffic.
2. Start a Pay-per-click campaign at Google Adwords, Overture etc. by choosing keywords which cost less.
3. Purchase ezine ads in ezines/newsletters related to your niche.

3. Immediate traffic by Spending a Fortune

1. The first thing you should jump to, if you have the money in your pocket, is to set up a nice PPC campaign.
2. Send out a paid Press Release (choose the $80 level and add a couple more $10 to add more value) at http://www.prweb.com/
3. Purchase advertising on websites as well as ezines related to your niche.
4. Spend some money on offline promotion.