Back in the old days (in Internet time, two years ago was "the old days"), submitting your site to free link pages (AKA Free-for-All Link Pages or "FFA" pages) was not a bad way to promote your business. That is, for a small amount of effort, you could get a medium amount of traffic.

The theory was: "If you submit to one hundred FFA sites, you may get a click or two. Automate this process and submit to hundreds and you may end up with a decent amount of traffic."

Eventually, software appeared which would submit your FFA links to hundreds of pages at a time. The solution to your traffic-building
woes, right?

As you probably know by now, this just isn't the case. It doesn't work that way, and here's why:

Once this automation software began to proliferate, the effectiveness of the FFA postings went down dramatically. That is, your listing would last about 10 minutes on any given page since there were hundreds of other people out there submitting at any given time. It stands to reason that if your FFA listing shows up on a page for less time, your link has a smaller chance of getting seen.

So, what I'm saying is, if you are submitting using a popular software program, your chances of getting traffic from those postings is lessened.That is why the FFA submission feature in Webmaster Multi Tool is free:

Now, my company still submits to FFAs on a regular basis. Why?

Two reasons:

1. There *is* still a way to submit to FFA sites that will get you good traffic, and it will probably surprise you. It's something most people don't take advantage of.

2. There is a whole other reason to submit to FFAs that will bring you traffic *indirectly*.

Are you confused? Don't worry, it will be clear in a minute.

Now, as for #1, this is really cool. Remember the paradox about FFA submissions - if you could automate, you would increase your chances of getting seen, but the act of automation itself actually lessened the overall result. What if you could automate the process *without* lessening the result? Wouldn't that be great?

The good news is that you can automate and still get results. An amazing little tool called "Free Link Finder" takes all the good things about FFA submitting and removes all the bad.

You see, the paradox occurred because everyone using the software was using the same list. If you were submitting to a list of FFA pages that no one else was using, wouldn't your chances for exposure increase? Of course they would - dramatically!

Free Link Finder does this by spidering the net (based on search criteria you feed it), finding FFA pages, and submitting to them one by one. You simply give the program a set of search criteria and set it loose. Then go on about your other important business while the app generates traffic for you. This is very cool.

I use this app all the time and the results are *far* better than what I get using a canned list everyone else is using. Since the sites to which I'm submitting are generally pages that are submitted to less often, every submission I make brings exponentially better results than what I would get from a FFA submitter that submits to the same list over and over.

Give this a shot and see for yourself. (Keep in mind that a well crafted title for your submission will increase your results even more. As always, experiment with various titles to see what works best.)

OK, so what about Reason #2? It takes a few logical jumps to understand how this works, but let's give it a shot:

a. Some search engines use "link popularity" when deciding how to rank your pages. That is, if more sites are linking to you, your link popularity is higher. The logic being that if more people link to you, the quality and importance of your site is probably higher. (The free version of Webmaster Multi Tool lets you check your link popularity on all of the engines that support it.)

b. If you can somehow increase your link popularity, all of your listings in the engines will be given a bit more weight.

c. You can artificially increase your site's link popularity by submitting to FFA pages. That is, many of the FFA pages to which you submit will be spidered by the engines. Your links will be found and increase the link popularity for that particular URL. This is an instant, automated way of giving your listings a boost.

Now, let's turn this into an action plan. This information will only increase your traffic when you *act on it*.

*Action Plan*:

OK, let's put all this together. Here is an action plan you can use to increase traffic to your site with just a small amount of effort on your part:

- Basic Steps

a. Use the free version of Webmaster Multi Tool to check your site's link popularity.

b. Use the free version of Webmaster Multi Tool to submit your site to over 1,000 FFA pages.

Then, check your link popularity again one month later. It should be higher by at least a few hundred.

- Advanced Steps

c. Download Free Link Finder and begin using it regularly: Free Link Finder

d. Over time, you will build a huge list of FFA pages to which you can submit. The URLs of each of these pages are saved to a file. Upload this file as an HTML page to your site. Then, turn the Swiss Army App spider submitter loose on that page and submit each of those FFA URLs to the engines. Do this *right after* you submit to the FFA pages. This will
ensure each of those FFA pages is spidered by the engines. Do this once a week.

e. Check your link popularity after doing this for two months. It will have gone through the roof.

Remember folks, this information will only increase your traffic when you act on it. Download both of those apps now before you forget. This is an easy way to increase your traffic.