Building a web site just isn't enough these days. With millions upon millions of web pages floating around in cyberspace, you don't want yours' to be lost among the crowd. The key to web page promotion is pretty simple, but takes some work to realize its full potential.

Once you've built your web site, you still have a lot of work to do. Sure, you've come up with the best images to represent your company, edited the text to ensure it sells your product and hired a layout designer to approve of the site's functionality. But once the site goes live, your work has just begun.

Web page promotion begins by simply telling people about your new web page. Any discussion forums you're a part of are the perfect place to start. Include a link to your site in the signature line of your e-mails and be sure to include a snappy slogan. Once you're getting a few visitors on a regular basis, it's time to step it up a notch.

What's your area of expertise? What are you selling? Once you've answered these questions, then do a quick search (there are many web sites for it) of the keywords that are most associated with your topic of choice. Next, rewrite your web page content to include these keywords as much as possible, without losing the integrity of the writing or without failing to make the sale. This process is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO and doesn't just stop with your content. You can also boost your search engine ranking by including these same keywords in between the META tags in the HTML files. When someone searches for one of those keywords, your web page will be displayed among the listing, depending upon your overall ranking.

You can also boost your search engine ranking by linking to other businesses and having them return the favor. External or backdoor links key the search engines that your web page is popular and boosts it up in the listing.

Before you even bother with all of the search engine placement work, you need to actually submit your web page to search engines. There are many services online that offer this for free or for a small fee. Regardless of what other search engines you choose, be sure to list your site with Google and Yahoo, as they are the two most popular search engines. Web page promotion can't even really begin until your web page is listed.

You can always boost your web page ratings by promoting your site through articles. Write up a service-oriented piece that's related to your business and use it as web page promotion. Submit the article to other web pages and enjoy your success as your hit counter keeps climbing higher and higher.