This is the first in a series of articles we will post with information, links, and resources to get your site promoted and start building traffic.

Ok lets skip many of the finer points right now and just get the basics started...

You have your site up and running, now how the do we get traffic started?

First things first, your site is running, you have a ton of work in it and now you need visitors. There is no hard fast rule on how to achieve this. It will vary from site to site just due to the type of site you have. If you have a store, you are certainly going to need a different approach that say a site that is directed at "How to create dry flower arrangements".

The very first thing we want to do is get our site listed in the major search engines and index sites. These sites are used by surfers to locate sites with relevant content.  So, we want to get our site submitted and in line to be spidered (they actually come on to your site and check most of the pages with a robot)

There are literally thousands of search engines and you can purchase software to automatically submit your site to them. DO NOT DO THIS...
First thing is that these search engines are ineffective, secondly , it will only generate tons of spam email to your and your account. 

Tell me how many search engines do you use?  How many can you name?  Most will answer 1 maybe 2 and can name maybe 4 or 5 engines. 

These are the ones we want to use! Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL Search, and Ask are easily the most famous, most used and the best bet for real users.  All offer Pay Per Click advertising and we will cover this a bit more in detail later.

All of these engines are going to require that you logon to a registration page and submit your data:
Take the time to carefully  word your keywords (cut the fluff) and use clear, concise descriptions in the key fields that request it. Overly colorful or descriptions loaded with superlatives are a waste of time, we want simple and factual text.

Next I would highly suggest that you list your site with DMOZ (http://dmoz.org)  This is an open directory where each and every site has been "human" reviewed for content and accuracy of descriptions. Some search engines require this listing to even consider adding your site. Again, careful concise wording is important. Look at other sites in your category for hints on what will or will not fly.  They will edit your entry to specific standards if you fail to meet the criteria so pay attention to their guidelines.

These steps will get your site listed and hopefully ready to start climbing in the ranks...

We have much more to cover however.  Meta-data, meta-tags and how they are constructed all contribute (or distract) from how your site ranks on these engines.   Our next article will go over "Pay Per Click" Advertisement (end)