Here's another subject I've talked lots about without ever devoting a whole posting to it.

"Inbound links" means links from someone else's website to yours.

These are extremely important to your search engine rankings. IF someone links to you AND their website is considered important by the search engine AND the link says the same things about your site that yours does.

That's three big ifs.

1. Someone links to you. Some sites collect inbound links without working at it. We've a client with hundreds of them. They are in a niche market (classic Lincoln automobiles) with a very loyal and interested following and after over 20 years in business, are extremely well known.

Most businesses starting out aren't in that position. So you have to work to get links to your site.

Make sure you do this by "white hat" methods.

You work at it bit by bit over time. Seeking out sites, blogs, directories, portals that would be interested in linking to you and getting them to add a link.

2. Their website is considered important by the search engines. The most valuable links are from sites with high Page Rank or so-called "trusted sites" such as educational institutions and major media sites.

Any inbound link is good. But links from these kinds of sites can rapidly make an enormous difference in your rankings.

3. Links say the same things about your site that your site says about it. To make this clear, if your site is about Florida condo rental, and you've optimized the site for "Florida condo rentals" and related search terms, then the best links are ones where the so-called "anchor text" or adjacent text says "Florida condo rentals." "Anchor text" is the words which if you click on them take someone to your site.

So it could be

Here's a great source for Florida Condo rentals.

Here's a great source for Florida Condo rentals.

You don't always have that much control over how the links read, but again, even if it just has the URL or name of the site, that is much better than nothing.

Even a small number of less-than-ideal links can make a big difference in your rankings.

Of course, inbound links can also generate traffic to your site, but in most situation, the biggest upside is from improving your rankings and generating valuable traffic that way.