Just a bit about search engine optimization.

A great deal of effort and time can go into improving a website’s rank in search engines, with a majority of the tasks potentially taking days or weeks depending on the size and nature of the pages in question. These large, monumental tasks are a necessary part of any SEO plan, but there are also several smaller, more compact tasks that you can preform for an hour a day both during and after your site’s SEO overhaul that can cause a large jump in your page’s rank on the results pages of several search engines out there.

All of these tasks actually deal with ‘off the page’ factors, and focus primarily on inbound links and generating traffic. Since that’s the goal of all SEO campaigns, these tasks are a natural fit into any plan to reach it.

One of these ‘hour a day’ tasks is contacting other websites requesting inbound links. In return, there could be some form of payment negotiated or you could return the favor, linking their site from yours. While link swapping can be useful, it should be known that they can have a negative effect if overused. This is thanks to spammers abusing this method of traffic generation in the early days of the Internet. Trading links with a site known by search engines can also have a negative impact on your SEO efforts, but such sites are usually very easy to recognize. As long as you pay attention to who you’re dealing with, this potential pitfall can be easily avoided.

You should know that receiving inbound links from sites related to your field of business or study can be worth much more than others. This is due to search engines viewing such links as a ‘vote of confidence’ from individuals who would know, and these engines will likely raise your page rank much faster.

Having your website listed in several directories is also a good idea, as directory links can increase traffic and raise you search engine rank fairly quickly. With directories available on the Web for every subject imaginable today, there is no shortage of potential inbound links you can generate with a little effort an hour a day.

Inbound links from blog posts is also worth the time and energy to solicit them, as these have great potential benefits. As with the website linking above, receiving inbound links from blogs related to the same field of business or study as your website can yield greater results.

The performance of these tasks can fit into any schedule, and the benefits such tasks can yield are very much worth the hour you should spend in doing them. Not only are such tasks an efficient use of time (and therefore money), but the continuing positive results can give you the motivation to continue working on your personal site, or make holding your job easier if you are working on a client’s site.

About the author: Rune Risom, passionate SEO entrepeneur from free seo suite SEOsupporter.com. Also the founder of Hubdir.com, a PHP link directory script.