Make sure your website is ready for traffic. Your homebased online business website will never be finished in the sense that changes need to be made from time to time, and new content should be added to keep it fresh and up to date.

However, before you start promoting your online business make sure that the essentials are completed. Navigation should be in place and easy for your visitors. Make sure all links are working and that your spelling and grammar are presentable. You can start with fifteen or twenty pages and build while you are promoting it.

And do be sure to optimize your pages as you build them. Optimizing is not difficult and it is just one of the basics that should be built in as you build your pages.

Link exchanges are a good place to start. Join a link exchange where others are eager to get links and it will be easier to get started. Other methods can be employed once you get under way. Make sure links are relevant to the topic of your specific homebased online business and from good quality websites. Choose links from websites that could benefit your own visitors. While it is good to get links from high page rank websites this should not be the only factor in determining who you link your online business website to.

All sites start at zero and some of those websites will evolve into very successful online businesses in time. The quality of the website and the relevance to your own online business is important.

Arrange your links in categories and keep the number of links per page to a minimum. Reciprocal links will help your homebased online business get noticed by the search engines and get the process of promotion started. You will not get tons of traffic through the links directly, but it will be more targeted. Indirectly these links will bring traffic because they will help with search engine placement.

In addition to reciprocal links you should work on one way links. One way links usually take more time to get. Begin submitting your website to free directories who do not require a link back. They take some time, but they are free and one way links hold more value for your online business.

The first directory you should submit your online business to is DMOZ. Be sure and read and follow their rules. Getting accepted is a long process, but worth the wait. In the meantime move on to the smaller directories.

Submitting articles to article banks is a powerful way to bring both traffic and a higher ranking in the search engines to your homebased online business. Write and submit articles on a regular basis and you can get hundreds, even thousands of links incoming to your online business.

Developing a successful homebased online business does take time, and it does take effort and patience but the benefits are worth all of it. Where else but the internet could you find so many ways to promote a business for free?