There are literally billions of websites scattered throughout the web but more then 90% of them are drowning on the endless information matrix. Banner advertising and link exchanges simply won't suffice these days. In order for a business to compete online, webmasters must have a clearly defined roadmap to success that includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is a long term process which requires a well-defined strategy, a strong knowledge about the algorithms of specific search engines and a broad view of all of the underlying factors involved in an effective optimization process. The roadmap to online success will outline a step-by-step implementation method that is best suited for the nature of your business with a careful study of do's and don'ts.

Some SEO professionals tend to give less importance to certain factors in SEO, with the assumption that these factors do not apply to their business model, which can to take the process off the beaten track. Therefore, it is crucial for all factors to be carefully considered before implementation of the roadmap begins.

One of the main factors for SEO is what is called Link popularity. Having lots of links throughout the web is not enough; in fact, this can in some cases lower your rank among the returned results. One of the do's and don'ts of the process which will actually drive traffic to your site is to maintain the relevancy of those incoming links.

The relevancy of the text which points to a deep-linked page within your site plays an essential role in getting good ranking in Google since the nature of Google's search engine robots is to bring the highest relevant results for its queries and puts less emphasis on the popularity of a specific page.

An effective strategy in link popularity is to create as many quality *back links as possible. Back links are incoming links to your website or a specific deep-linked web page. Back links enable you to keep track of posts from other pages on the web that link to your site. The number of back links is an indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page. Keep in mind that linking to and from sites that are not relevant to your business can lead to a drop in the Google Page Rank (GPR).

Search Engines

People that use the internet to search for information on a specific product or service, will browse through the top 10 results, not only because they assume that these returns are the most relevant to what they are seeking, but also because it is convenient. If the user finds what he/she is looking for in one of those first ten sites, chances are they won't sift through the deeper links. Most people stick to the more popular search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, yet the truth is that these more popular engines import their data from other Meta Search engines like Dogpile, Ixquick, Mama and Vivisimo and let the users decide which result is the most relevant to them.So, it will suffice to say that submitting your URL to these smaller, less frequented Meta Search Engines is fundamental to your success.

Web Directory

Another way people search for information is through web directories like Dmoz. Dmoz specializes in linking to other web sites within in its directories by categorizing them accordingly without using any other parameters whatsoever. By categorizing the links, Dmoz provides users a better quality of relevant results. Directories are a great way to find relevant information, sometimes even better than search engines since they are so meticulously organized and make perhaps stronger efforts to specifically match the category to the URLs.

SEO Friendly Meta Directory

Still a more ingenuous method for finding information without losing your head is using an SEO friendly Meta directory like 1234directory.com. 1234directory.com is a clever, well-designed, quality Meta Directory which has implemented all of the strong organizational features of a regular Directory but has added improved searching methods and contains spam free relevant SEO links. 1234Directory does not try to index or map the web but rather brings together the best suited SEO relevant results in a variety of categories granting the user a superior searching experience. Each single category and link in the directory is meticulously hand edited in order to improve the relevancy and quality of the links found throughout the site.

This SEO friendly Meta Directory is composed of eight different main directories. These eight directories represent the most often searched topics on the web. Each directory gives different search results for queries on Software, e-Books, Games, Articles, etc. 1234Directory has a growing GPR, it is optimized daily in order to ensure it lives up to it's title of being one of the best SEO friendly Meta Search Engines to date. By submitting your link to this growing directory, you can drive Organic Traffic to your site, increase you're Google Page Rank (GPR) and literally force Google crawl your site.

For webmaster it is a fast and easy solution for gaining link popularity over the long term without exchanging links with other sites. Webmasters can get a lifetime SEO back link submission for just 3.99$. Affiliate Networks and Career affiliates can also buy a lifetime submission for their affiliate programs for the same low price. In addition 1234directory offers free submission for articles using a SEO friendly embedded Html content editor so that the authors can include hypertext links inside the organic content for relevant pages to their sites.

*In basic terminology, a back link is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node. Back links are also called incoming links, inbound links, in links, and inward links.