Search engines are by and far the largest supplier of traffic to
your web site. Moreover, its targeted, meaning the visitors that
arrive at your site were looking for information that you are
delivering. At least this is the goal of the search engines: to
deliver high quality results to web surfers.

Recent major changes in Google, Yahoo and MSN have put the
internet market however in a frenzy. As the search engines battle
it out to be the one producing the highest quality results by
frequently altering their index algorithm, search engine
optimization has taken an almost obsessive importance.

The problem I see is that the battle is not going to end soon and
repeatedly trying to stay ahead by optimizing after each re-
indexing is truly a never ending battle. A balance must be struck
between search engine advertising and other online venues.

Starting out with an online home business business is
intimidating. There is pressure to build a quality site, offer
valuable information, promote, build subscribers,...and the list
goes on and on. Having a few different forms of advertising that
you slowly utilize can payoff big in the long run. With a market
that can change on an hourly basis, you musn't focus too heavily
on any single form of site promotion.

Think of it as your advertising bag of goodies. You reach in and
pull out one method and give it a try. Don't dump all of your
resources into it. Spread them out. Reach in and pick another,
until you have a few in the works. Now pause and see which is
working. Tweak a bit here and there and sit back again.
Continuously re-evaluating your advertising campaigns, you will
begin to grow a deep feeling as to which works for your online
business.

Here are a few types of advertising for your home business you
should consider:

(1) Classified Ads - cheap and short to write.
(2) Article submission - write an article and post for free.
The rewards reaped can be enormous in the long term.
(3) Paid ads in E-Zines - hit those seldom used small niche
markets!
(4) Link exchange - can you bring in traffic from another
site? You betcha!
(5) Newsgroup and Discussion lists - join in on discussions
and pass out a small blurb about your business at the end.
(6) Sig files - after all your online! Make use of all of the
emails you send out daily.
(7) Flyers - yep, offline!

The bottom line here is not to stagnate. Search engines are
important but not the only way to promote. Its better to balance
your site optimization with other promotion strategies. If one
method fails you at least have others to fall back on.


About the Author
Dan J. Fry is an independent researcher and owner of
e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing resources for small
budget home businesses. He has a PhD in Physics and is married
with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on
home business resources at mailto:e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or by
visiting his site at http://www.e-kinetic.com . He can be reached
at mailto:comp@e-kinetic.com .