HI Lenora,

Thank you for your questions. I don't know anything about buying links in the way you mentioned. I don't know if I would be inclined to do that because chances are many of the links either won't be valid or working; not what you are looking for; and low ranking sites. More links on your site is not necessarily the best way to go. Links with high page rankings (and fewer of them) is better.

A great way to drive traffic to your site is to write and submit articles specific to your industry, market and topics and then distribute to various article directories. Also, post on forums specific to your market. At least those forums that have a section for articles.

Article writing can be one of the best strategies for positioning yourself as an expert and gaining high visibility. These also give you links into your site.

Be sure to include a strong resource box at the end of the article. A resource box simply tells people something about you and often makes an offer of some sort.

If you would like examples of some I have used, let me know and I will post several. This is how I have built a highly responsive database.

You can also listen to a recording I did on cost effective marketing strategies. http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/interview.htm

Regarding how we get speaking engagements, I will address some of that in another post. However, in the short term I would highly recommend accessing Lori's free ebook entitled, So You Want to Be a Speaker? You can go to http://www.lorigiovannoni.com/presentation_tools.htm to access it.

Toastmasters is an excellent organization. I was a member years ago and found it to be one of the best choices I made in learning how to develop my presentation style. And, in my early days as a professional speaker, Lori was one of my primary mentors.

In a couple weeks (January 17th) I am going to be interviewing Lori during a teleconference called, How To Become a Six Figure a Year Professional Speaker.

My best
Kathleen