| If you've decided to publish your own book | | | | The key to reducing this amount of time is to |
| there's one thing you better do, and you have to | | | | have links to your site on other people's sites. The |
| do it right now: get a website. I'm sure you want | | | | spider can then follow these strands of the web |
| to promote your book on the web, but what you | | | | back to you.The most common means of getting |
| may not realize is the time it takes to build traffic | | | | these links are to swap them with other websites. |
| for your site. If the web will be your biggest | | | | This reciprocal linking isn't quite as good as a one |
| promotional tool, you'll have to get your site up | | | | way link, of the sort you can acquire by writing |
| and drawing hits before you publish, unless you | | | | articles (like this one), and getting your website |
| want your sales to languish through the months it | | | | registered with every decent directory you can |
| may take to develop a significant number of | | | | find. Of course, it does happen that another site |
| visitors.For the first time publisher-web developer, | | | | will give you a link because your content would be |
| it may seem a relatively simple course of action. | | | | of interest to their readers.Even with a good |
| You build your website, register it with search | | | | number of links to your site, you may still rank |
| engines and directories, then when someone does | | | | low in the search results. The best remedy for |
| a search on Google or MSN your site pops up as | | | | this is to write keyword rich pages about your |
| one of the options.Essentially, that is the way it | | | | subject that inform the reader. Quality will rise to |
| works. What isn't factored in is the time it will | | | | the top, particularly if your search term is |
| take the search engine's web bot, or "spider" as it | | | | featured throughout the page.Michael Quarles is |
| is commonly called, to find your site and crawl it. | | | | the author of "Building a PC for Beginners". |