You have just built a beautiful site. You have something to tell the world. The only question left is how will the world know? Putting up a website and expecting to get noticed is like expecting someone to find a needle in a haystack without any clues as to where it might be. Websites today are like grains of sand on a beach. I don't mean to take the wind out of your creative sail, but if you build it, will they come?

One of the key factors in determining how your site ranks with search engines is inbound links. These are links that point to your website. But please pay heed, the days of a link is a link is a link are well over. Google's algorithm evaluates in-bound links and outbound links for both the page rank of the referring page and the nature of the links on that site and it compares those to the nature of the outbound links on your site. This will affect the number of pages in your site that actually get linked. Do not link to, or accept links from "junk neighborhoods" on the web. This means they are looking for "natural" links, links that make sense. If you are a website about theatre, why on earth would you have links about Viagra? You see my point.

The best links to have are one-way on-topic links into the site. There are a number of directories out there that do not ask for reciprocal links. This brings us to the DMOZ directory. DMOZ, also known as The Open Directory Project (ODP), is a large, categorized directory of websites and pages, which is staffed by volunteers. Every website and page that is added to the directory has to be manually reviewed before it is included. Being listed in the directory is free. This is a terrific directory that you should submit your site to. Be forewarned, it may take a very long time to get your site reviewed for inclusion and even then it may not get included. The directory is staffed by volunteer editors who ONLY edit the category they are assigned. If you assign your link to a certain category, be sure you have correctly categorized it or it may end up sitting in multiple queues. When one editor has to move it to another category, it goes back to the bottom of the list. This is a valuable directory to have your site listed in as they provide search results for many other sites, including Google. Being listed in the DMOZ directory can actually increase your page rank on Google.

Another way of directing traffic to your site is via keyword cost-per-click (CPC) advertising. Both Google and Yahoo! have CPC advertising available. This is the advertising you see to the right of the main results that says "Sponsored Links." With both Google and Yahoo! you can create campaigns that direct ads based upon the keyword(s) searched. You have complete control over these campaigns and the amount you spend. You can also add a piece of javascript to your pages (provided by Google and Yahoo!) to monitor traffic (clicks) and conversions. From the MarketDoor Business Center you can take advantage of an offer for a $25 credit when you sign up for Yahoo! search advertising.

Andrew C. McGibbon is the owner of MarketDoor.com, a web hosting and development company. MarketDoor's products include web hosting, domain name registration, a library of articles about web development and other tools for building and developing a website.