The web turns every business into a publisher.  Whether you are a professional services firm, a niche retailer or a bespoke dressmaker, if you want to be found online by new customers, you need to attract quality traffic to your website. The most effective way to do this is by building up relevant, authoritative inbound links - which help to source the right type of visitors, and also improve your natural search rankings.  So how do you go about building quality links?  The best route is specialist content - even if you don’t think of yourself as a publisher, you are an expert on your product or service and understand your customers’ problems.  Content is far more compelling than paid-for directory links, as it engages the customer on the point of a purchase decision and positions your business as providing useful advice.  First you need to identify your target audience, and work out their main concerns and where they need help.  Then build a list of target sites to link to: they need to be relevant, the sort of places your customers go, and have good page rank.  Then you are ready to start using content to acquire links and grow traffic… (more…)