Ask any business person who's website is at the top of the search engines if his/her site is making money, and the answer is almost always "yes".

An example is Glenn Canady, the author of "Gorilla Marketing" who employed only one of these strategies, and it made him over $1 million dollars.

The fact is, search engines can get you an enormous amount of traffic, and it's traffic to your sites that's free. However, in order to ethically and effectively market in the search engines, you need to use strategies that actually work.

Below are three different ways to effectively, and ethically, raise your rankings in the search engines. I've included seven different resources that you can use that will help you implement these strategies, and do it quickly and easily so that you can begin to see an increase in your traffic almost immediately.

1. Optimize your site.

To make sure that you are properly targeting your market, you need to make sure that you are marketing using the right keywords. This means optimizing your site to make sure that the keywords you have on your site are the keywords that your site is actually optimized for.

There are two tools that you can use to help you with search engine optimization:

a. Search Engine Optimization Fast Start Ebook -

http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/seo-book.php - will teach you simple and effective techniques for optimmizing your site. This ebook is now in its 4th edition, is completely up to date, and is one of the best ebooks I've seen on search engine optimization.

b. Web CEO - http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/search-engine-optimization-software.html - This is a complete search engine optimization suite that offers 10 different tools to help you optimize your site for the search engines. It offers the most comprehensive, and step by step, set of instructions I've ever seen with any software package. According to the instructions, you can get started in one hour. The free version of this software will work for most, and it also includes a $97 search engine optimization course as part of the package.

2. Develop a linking strategy.

One factor that influences how well you are ranked in the search engines is linking. The more inbound links that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be ranked in the search engines.

For each link that you have pointing back to you, that's another opportunity for your potential customer to find you. With credibility being such a big problem on the internet, to have someone recommend you increases your chance of making the sale.

To help you develop an effective strategy, I recommend that you read "Linking Matters" - http://www.linkingmatters.com/. This ebook shows you how to develop an effective linking strategy for your site, and do it very quickly.

3. Develop a content strategy.

The truth is, "Content is King". Most people online are looking for information. The more information that you provide for your customers, and the more valuable it is, the more likely you will make the sale.

Below are three different ways to develop content for your site.

The first and most effective strategy are articles.

Articles actually work for you in several ways.

a. Brands you as an expert so that customers come to you.

b. Provides valuable content to your potential customers.

c. Builds a relationship between you and your potential customers.

d. Creates a viral marketing strategy for your site.

e. Builds a linking strategy for you every time a webmaster publishes one of your articles.

No other strategy that I have employed has brought me more business than this one.

To find sites that accept articles, go here: http://www.jogena.com. This is one of the sites that I use because it's one of the oldest, and most reputable sites online for finding information on ezines. Unfortunately, there's no search, but everything is done by category, and the information is comprehensive, so you will locate rather quickly what you are looking for.

However, if the thought of writing your own content gives you nightmares, there's a way around this.

You can use public domain information. Public domain information is information that is free to use because it's in the public arena, or the copyright has expired.

To help you easily locate this information, I recommend that you download the public domain toolbar. You can get it at the Public Domain Forum - http://www.publicdomainforum.com/forum. You have to register for an account to get the toolbar, but both the forum account and the toolbar are free. The toolbar is a very comprehensive resource of public domain sources.

The third content strategy you need to consider is blogging.

What a blog does is allows you to create search engine friendly content on your topic of interest. Combine this with an RSS feed, which the search engines love, and you have a winning strategy.

Not only will it help you build content for the search engines, but it can also help you raise your traffic and sales.

Here is a comprehensive ecourse that you can take that will drastically reduce your learning curve, as well as provide you with the resources you need to implement this strategy.

http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/blogging-course.htm

Finally, to keep abreast of what's happening with search engines, you need to subscribe to Search Engine Watch - http://www.searchenginewatch.com. This site offers tons of resources, news, and a newsletter on search engine optimization.

Apply one, or all, of these search engine resources to your search engine strategy, and you can expect a major increase in your traffic and sales to your site.

Jinger Jarrett is a writer and internet marketer living in Alpharetta, GA. You can get all of her best free internet marketing resources, including freeware to help you market on the forums when you visit her site at http://www.askjinger.com