Today if we hope that a website will succeed, we have to work with first class content, niches, search engine optimization and tremendous competition. And this list is just the beginning. We will most likely have to study copywriting and marketing as well as converting visitors into buyers. But, for virtually all webmasters, the biggest challenge is attracting traffic.

And that brings us to the subject of this article. How can I attract Internet surfers to my website?  Well, one answer to this question is backlinks!  So, just what do we mean by backlinks and precisely what do backlinks have to do with getting traffic to my site?

Well, there are basically two types of traffic, paid traffic and organic traffic. Paid traffic includes such things as advertising through pay per click networks, banners on other sites and a host of other ways in which you are able to pay to attract a web surfer's attention and tempt her or him to come to your site. If you are only focusing on paid traffic then you don't have to pay much attention to backlinks.

Organic traffic comes when someone performs a search on one of the search engines for a subject that they're interested in. When the free listings come up the surfer then clicks on one of the site listings to visit the appropriate webpage. In the case of organic traffic the webmaster does not need to pay directly for the link that the visitor clicks on.

Usually, organic traffic is talked about as being free traffic. Although it can be, it generally comes at a price. To get a website page included on the first couple of pages of search engine results the webmaster has got to do quite a bit of work. This brings us back to the subject of backlinks.

Usually, the quality and number of backlinks pointing to a site are what determines sites that appear when we perform a search. A backlink is defined as nothing more than a hyperlink from one site to another site. So it helps to have a whole lot of websites hyperlinked to your site if you'd like to be ranked well in the organic search engine results.

But don't forget that quality is also important. A backlink can be seen as offering high quality if:

• The words that make up the hyperlink (called the 'anchor' text) are very relevant to the subject of the web page that the link is pointing to. (You do not want to use "click here"!)


• The subject on the site on which the backlink originates is related to the subject on your site.


• The page rank of the site linking to you is relatively high (say a PR3 or more) and the higher the better.


• The site linking to you has plenty of high quality backlinks linking to it.

Naturally there are many more criteria, but the criteria listed here are an excellent starting point.

So, just how does a webmaster go about building up a quantity of high quality backlinks pointing to her or his site?  There are many ways and even more software programs that are designed to provide the solution. Of course, buying the software programs adds some cost to your backlinks.

The really free way is to simply wait for another webmaster to find your site and like it enough to link to you. That is the best, but can take a long time (or may never happen at all!). Of course you can get in touch with other webmasters and ask if they want to trade links with you. You simply give them a link from your site and they give you one from their site in return.  These are called reciprocal links and are generally thought to be of questionable value now days.

Another way is to use Article Marketing, which initially means writing articles on subjects that are relevant to your site. You then submit your articles to a number of article directory sites and include links of your own choosing in the resources box which is attached at the bottom of your content. Submitting your website to several site directories is still another option that can fit into the free category.

You could also decide to pay for backlinks. One of the simplest methods is to purchase a link directly. Internet marketing forums are a surefire place to find links on offer. You might have to pay as much as $50 a month or more to get a link from a site with a PR of 5. You'll probably get a lot of attention from it, but you will have to pay. It goes without saying that the higher the PR is then the higher the cost will be.

Whichever technique you choose, acquiring backlinks to your site is critical to your success in ranking in the search engines. You'll want to get hundreds or if you can, thousands of them. The important thing is to get going and build your links up steadily over the months ahead so that you will enjoy a continuous flow of site traffic.

To learn more about backlinks and discover an easy and fun way to get a cheap backlink and a whole lot more, visit  www.squidoo.com/boymillionseo. If you'd love to know more about Internet Marketing, but you're not much of a techy, check out www.yellowdogmarketing.com for a great experience.