Link Popularity - The founders of Google worked off a premise that has been active in academic papers for years: citation authority. They found that the more academic papers cited another's work, the more likely that cited work was to be an authority on the subject. Similarly, when a lot of sites link to one site, it's likely that site is an authority for the topic. The "topic" is whatever those links say it is. If 25 sites link to another site with the term "oak shelving," it's likely that page is an important page for oak shelving.

Manipulation of Links - It didn't take long for people who wanted to rank well for certain terms to figure out that they needed a lot of links with their chosen keyword phrases to improve their rankings in the search engines. Many schemes were born, including mini-sites, site networks, link farms, and reciprocal linking.

Reciprocal Linking - At the most basic level, reciprocal links are links you trade with other sites (you add their link, they add yours) in order to build link popularity. There are online services, group exchanges, and software available to help you link up with more like-minded webmasters, fast. As a result, many sites have grown sizeable directories on topics that have nothing to do with their area of expertise, simply because those other sites were willing to trade links with them.

Does this work? At the moment, it does seem to work. The engines (except for Teoma, which analyzes link communities) tend to count a link as a link, regardless of the subject matter of the originating site.

Will it continue to work? Who knows? As the engines look for more ways to determine which sites are truly expert and which ones are simply manipulating their way to the top, link relevance is sure to come into play. Some say it's already starting to affect rankings.

Mutual Linking - I like to separate mutual linking from reciprocal linking. Mutual linking is where the content of each site actually benefits each other's sites. If you sell shoes, you may want to recommend other sites for replacement shoelaces and still other sites for shoe cleaning supplies. You may even maintain a directory of regional shoe repair service shops. This is useful information for your visitors, who are likely to need these services as well. It makes sense for these sites to also recommend your shoes and link to your site. While it's technically still a reciprocal link, it has a mutual benefit for both sites.

While you can make a case that visitors to your shoe site might actually need weight loss formulas, like to gamble, or are concerned about the size of certain body parts, it really isn't likely that links to these sites will be clicked and followed by your visitors. They only make your site look unprofessional. The links you trade with these sites may or may not actually be helping you in the engines, but they're definitely not helping you to make more sales.

Will I Be Penalized for Reciprocal Linking? - You might. I don't say that to send you into a panic, but the truth is if you link to a site that is considered a "bad neighborhood" by the engines, it could negatively affect your site. That innocent-looking pet accessories site may be cloaking, hiding links or text, or participating in other linking schemes and just hasn't been caught yet. Why risk it for a link that probably won't even bring you traffic? Sure, people who wear shoes often have dogs, but if you're just linking to them for the link, it's probably not a good idea.

Be very aware of whom you link to. You control where your site links to and that could come back to haunt you. Link only to the sites that will help improve your credibility and your sales!

Should I Hide All My Outgoing Links? - Absolutely not. There have been many people who feel that since Google's Florida update (in Nov. 2003), adding relevant outgoing links seems to have a positive effect on rankings. Besides, if you hide or block their links, and they hide or block yours, what's the point of participating in a reciprocal linking program at all?

So. What Will Happen if I Do Reciprocal Linking? - While no one knows for sure what the future of link relationships will be with each search engine, I tend to think that as soon as they can figure out how to do it most effectively, off-topic links simply won't count anymore.

If you pin ALL your link popularity on trading links with whoever will trade with you, you could find yourself starting over from scratch at some point. If you are looking to build long-term rankings (and real business links that can attract customers), it takes more work and creativity than just sending out automated emails or joining a linking program.

Give your site an advantage by giving people a reason to link to it -- a helpful tool, a guide, an industry-specific directory, or some other useful content that people will feel good about recommending on their site. If your site is worth linking to, you won't have to rely as much on swapping links as a promotion strategy.

1. Get Your Site High In The Search Engines - Getting your site linked high in the search engines for your keywords and keyphrases.

One of the best ways to do this is to ensure your site has a good number of incoming links from quality sites - I discuss how to achieve this with relative ease below.

2. Create A Buzz - If your site offers something new and exciting, it creates a wow factor, and news about your site will spread far and wide with very little further effort on your part.

I stumbled on how effective this was myself almost by accident, when I created one of the very first popup generators online and added it to my first very amateurish web site. It was free for people to use, I did no promotion of it whatsoever, but people came from far and wide to use it, it was mentioned in many high profile ezines with large readerships, and it proved so successful that with some further development it turned into a piece of software that I still sell today on one of my sites.

3. Don't Waste Your Visitors - Every visitor that comes to your site is hard-earned - so don't 'waste' them. You want them to come back, to return time and time again. This will ensure your traffic climbs over time, rather than remains static.

First, ensure your site doesn't scare them away. Make it easy to use, visually appealing, and treat critical emails that you may receive from visitors from time to time like gold - while not all criticisms are valid representations of how the majority of visitors see your site, some of these emails can help you turn your business around if you listen in a positive manner instead of react negatively and defensively.

Secondly, try to subscribe as many visitors as possible to a list, so that you can correspond with them time and time again. Sending them news about your site for example will keep them coming back.

4. Pay-Per-Click Engines - Bidding for keywords on PPCs like Google Adwords won't usually bring you large amounts of traffic, but if you do it carefully, the traffic it does bring you should be highly targeted and therefore very valuable.

The trick is to know your stats. Know exactly what your sales conversion rates are per keyword, and how much investment on each keyword is viable for you.

5. Strategic Linking - This can be one of the most important methods to generate traffic over the long-term. Not only can you receive traffic direct from the links, the more links there are, the higher your position will tend to be in the search engines.

Yeah. You have got it. Plain and simple. Friendly and functional. No cosmetics. No facelifts. No fuss.

Simplicity matters in web design as it does in other spheres of life.

Web design is not a medium to show off your technical prowess. Nor, you are supposed to demonstrate your superb graphic acumen. These are necessary but only in moderation; let them not dominate over your site friendliness and usability.

Here are some useful and rather important tips that will help you-- turn on the right track--to establishing a site professional in appearance, and high in quality and usability.

Formulate your mission statement and understand your target audience - A mission statement or statement of direction on where the company intends to go in the foreseeable future is critical. It will definitely provide some stability from which the website can springboard forward. You must pursue some explicit goals to excel on the web. You must be pretty clear on the counts like :

Ponder well on your layout and navigation - A clean layout and neat navigation that employs a lot of white space enhances your site's look and appeal. Be focused focus on your content. You can better use dreamweaver templates for your site - all pages or a group of pages have one basic design and only the content varies. And this will be taken note of—hopefully with an appreciative eye.

Make your site interactive and rich in content - To make your website stickier you can add a few simple interactive applications like site polls, surveys, a guest book, an event calendar, newsletter sign-up, etc. There are many applications on the net but you need to choose them wisely.

Macromedia Flash is another way to add interactivity to your site. 95% of the world's browsers have the Flash Player plug-in, so you need to think about compatibility as long as your movie can be played by lower versions of the Flash Player. You may well try having a HTML and Flash Sections "Entry (Splash) Page" if you have a heavy movie to accommodate users on slow connections.

Make your site scalable and cross browser compatible - Making your code and design scalable pays you off well. This is crucial simply because as technology advances and configuration of computers and their monitors keep increasing and varying it becomes impossible to test your site in all screen sizes and platforms.

Also, check your site for Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Opera 7.0 and Netscape Navigator 6+ as they constitute 95% of the world's browsers.

Incorporate consistency all over your website - Consistency is crucial as it could give your site a more professional look and feel, and also makes way for easy navigation. For consistency to pervade throughout your website, try using database templates to create a common look and feel for your site.

Although database template is not commonly the answer for all web sites, and may not be practical for smaller sites, it is a big help for all pages in your site to share common elements, and reflects a high degree of page-to-page consistency. The advantage arising from it is that it is all the more easier to create, and make your site consistent regardless of changes in personnel. Database templates also facilitates you to make changes to your site much more easily, and help you change certain elements without recreating the entire page from scratch

The dividends of simplicity can not be ignored and put at stake While designing a website it is important that the site is attractive, fast-loading, user friendly, focuses on your content and has a high stickiness factor to it. This is probably what it takes to be professional in appearance, high in quality, and value added in functionality. Any deviation from the cardinal principles of simplicity may well backfire, and energies so spent can go down the drain. So, miss out on the finer points of simplicity, and stay tuned to face the music.

While designing a website it is important that the site is attractive, fast-loading, user friendly, focuses on your content and has a high stickiness factor to it. This is probably what it takes to be professional in appearance, high in quality, and value added in functionality. Any deviation from the cardinal principles of simplicity may well backfire, and energies so spent can go down the drain. So, miss out on the finer points of simplicity, and stay tuned to face the music.

MSN - Microsoft Rolls Out Windows Live Local - Windows Live Local debuted in December with a bunch of cool mapping features.

AOL - One of December's big stories was AOL's stock sale to Google, giving them a 5% ownership.

Yahoo! - Got a question? Provided that you don't mind it being answered for free by a pool of volunteers with uncredentialed authority on whatever-the-subject, Yahoo might have a service that works for you. Yahoo Answers.

I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web.

Of course, that shouldn't be a surprise, considering how often officials at Google proclaim the importance of good content. Yet traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about good writing.

Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really ignore traditional standards of quality in the publishing world? Does Google, like so many website owners, really get so caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses the whole point? Apparently not.

Most Common On-the-Page Website Content Success Features - Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is doing a pretty good job of identifying websites with good content and rewarding them with high rankings.

I looked at Google's top five pages for the five most searched-on keywords, as identified by WordTracker on June 27, 2005. Typically, the top five pages receive an overwhelming majority of the traffic delivered by Google.

The web pages that contained written content (a small but significant portion were image galleries) all shared the following features:

• • If you write your own content, make sure that it passes through the hands of a skilled copyeditor or writer before going online.

• • Update your content often. It's important both to add new pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use free-reprint content.

• • Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the content. It will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility. Fears of a "duplicate content penalty" for free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.

In short, if you have a mature website that is already indexed and getting traffic, you should consider making sure the bulk of your investment in your website is devoted to its content, rather than graphic design, old-school search-engine optimization, or linking campaigns.