Devoted to lead generation, lead generators, and successful lead gen campaigns

David Cross, an online Internet exposure consultant, had a great piece recently on how to ensure great traffic from any kind of online promotion.

Cross says you want your website to be placed high in search engine rankings, because the top five positions in search results get approximately 80 percent of all the clicks from people searching the Internet for information.

So how do you get those coveted top rankings?

For one thing, the number of relevant incoming links to your Web pages is an important factor in how well your site is placed. For instance, if you have a site about mountain climbing, you'd want sites about mountain climbing, climbing equipment, outdoor activities, and mountainous vacations to provide links to your site.

As important as those links are, you don't want to fake it. As every fisherman knows, you stand the best chance of hooking a big catch when you use bait that occurs naturally near your fishing spot - perhaps a smaller fish or an insect prevalent in the area.

Search engine marketing is surprisingly similar. You will find many companies offering enticing offers for "thousands of incoming links" that are guaranteed to get your site to the top of Google. However, Google - like those discerning fish - is wise to websites that suddenly get lots of incoming links. In fact, Google may even penalize such sites by not featuring them at all in search results.

Instead, you should build the number of incoming links to your website steadily over time, requesting incoming links from relevant sites as it is appropriate to do so.

Whenever you see a website that you think should link to yours, simply contact them and ask them for a link. If your site has relevant, useful information for their viewers, they should be more than happy to oblige. For example, if your website is about tying your own fishing flies, you could contact a website that sells custom-built fishing rods for a link. Their customers would almost certainly be interested in what you have to offer.