by: Matt Bacak
Today, the biggest problem that new website owners have is: “How they can get traffic to their website?” Significant amount of time and energy is spent today on this single task. You or your webmaster needs to commonly focus on:
- Get ranked well on the most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn, Ask.com, etc.)
- Pay Per Click (PPC) programs
- Cost Per Click (CPC) programs
- Link Exchanges
- Directory Submissions
- And more…
All of these methods are valuable for getting traffic to your website. If you are not competent enough to rank well your keywords, you can obviously hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) for this work. From search engines you can get a very large portion of traffic to your website.
Today, everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic to their website. Every day I see an article or an ad talking about driving people to your website; driving traffic to a website has become the “holy grail” on the Internet. People are realizing that if you build it, they won't come... unless you give them a reason. Website traffic just doesn't happen by itself. Your website is just one of many millions on the web and people rarely just stumble upon your site by accident.
There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. You can buy traffic from vendors that will pummel your website with hits from automated programs. This will increase your hits but will it increase your bottom line? Probably not. You can set up blogs that spider (connect to) your website increasing your traffic count. Does this drive users to your website? Only if your blog is so interesting that people are reading it. There are thousands of blogs posted on the internet and your blog is just a needle in the internet haystack.
Another trick is to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your website and subscribe to other RSS feeds. This again will increase your hit count but will do very little to drive potential customers to your website unless you're providing valuable information. Tricks will increase your hit count but do very little todrive potential customers to your website.
People often turn to traffic exchanges. Quite simply, a traffic exchange is a program where you sign up and agree to surf sites in exchange for some credits. These credits are then used when other members of the exchange surf to your site. This traffic is not highly targeted traffic. In fact, if this were your only method of advertising your website, you'd probably fail. BUT it is a great method of getting traffic to your site in addition to the other methods listed above.
So, why do people use traffic exchanges? Here are a few of the benefits:
- Increase your Alexa rating! Did you know that some search engines factor your Alexa rating into their algorithms? More traffic means higher search engine placement!
- Increase your branding awareness. Any marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that branding is extremely important to stand out amongst the billions of websites out there. More traffic equals more sales. A percentage of people surfing will be enticed by your ads and click on them to find out more information. Another source of revenue. Many traffic exchanges will actually pay you money to surf. More importantly, as you refer other people to the network, you'll earn a percentage of the money that they earn! It may be small amounts but if you work the system it could amount to a lot of money.
Now, before you head over to Google and search for Traffic Exchange, I'd recommend knowing a few facts:
- Some traffic exchanges are simply out to get money from you and will refer very little traffic to you.
- Some traffic exchanges have poor systems in place to stop cheaters from running programs to increase their credits faster.
Finally, some traffic exchanges will allow popup, active x controls, site rotators, etc. in their network. Any of these can stop your auto surfing from working, or even worse, allow your computer to be infected with a virus.
The best part about Traffic Exchanges is that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The worst thing that could happen to you is you get a little bit of traffic which increases your Alexa rankings and you don't get any money.
Of course, for the system to work, you've got to make sure that you do some surfing yourself. The makers of the exchange programs realize this and some of them even have an auto surf feature where you get a reduced number of credits while your browser happily loads page after page every 10 seconds or so.
About the author:
Matt Bacak became "##1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours.
Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is
turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories.
Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com
How to get traffic to your website!
Using Your Online Presence to Drive Offline Sales from Your Customer Base and Beyond, Part 2
by: Tom Swanson
Copyright 2005 Tom Swanson
In the last article in this series, I talked about a few basic ways to drive in-store sales by using your online presence. In this, the last installment of the series on this topic, I’m going to cover some more in-depth strategies to boost sales at your brick-and-mortar location.
Create an Online Customer Rewards Program
You can institute a customer rewards program that you post on your web site exclusively to drive offline sales from your online presence. First, encourage both current and new customers to sign up for the customer rewards program when they buy something in your store. They can then visit your website and participate in the program from the convenience of their homes. For example, you could set up a points system whereby your customers acquire points for every purchase, and then keep track of their progress on your website. Once they rack up a certain amount of points, they can redeem them for merchandise, discounts, etc.
Having a program like this in place will encourage repeat visits from customers to both your store and your website, and once they’re there, you can introduce them to new specials, upcoming sales, etc. This will, in turn, encourage repeat patronage from these customers. Many times, in fact, customers will actually buy more products than they normally would if the rewards that you feature in your program are incentive enough for them to desire more points. High-profile rewards could include things like plane tickets, new electronics, spa packages, etc.
If you’re at a loss to what kind of rewards program to implement, there are a ton of turnkey solutions out there. A quick online search turned up customer-loyalty solutions from Destination Rewards (http://www.drloyalty.com/), Online Rewards (http://www.online-rewards.com/index.html), and iRebates (http://www.irebates.net/) along with countless others. Obviously you’ll want to shop around, do some research, and make sure that you find a solution that best fits your needs. And of course these are paid programs, but often times turnkey solutions are lifesavers for busy businesses owners.
Develop Online Incentives to Visit Your Store
A great way to encourage patronage from your current customers – and new customers, for that matter – is to develop online incentives to visit your store. When customers visit your website, encourage them to sign up for your e-newsletter for an exclusive online coupon that can only be redeemed at your store.
These coupons don’t have to be complicated to work, either. For example, if you’re already having a sale, you might offer a coupon that entitles customers that sign up to receive an extra 5-10% off the sale price. Consumers love promotions like these – they make them feel like specially valued customers and leave them satisfied with their purchase because they got a good deal.
Be sure to encourage your customers to check your website for announcements and specials regularly. Let all current and potential customers know that, by giving you a little information, they can take advantage of incredible savings offers. Advertise that you do this. Become known for it – your website traffic will increase dramatically and so will your bottom line.
Once you have some online incentives in place, you can partner with other savings/coupon-aggregating sites that feature savings for their site visitors from all sorts of businesses. Some of them require that you pay to have your business listed with them, but others are free. Two popular sites of this type are CoolSavings.com and CouponMountain.com.
Institute an Online Referral Program
As you probably know, word-of-mouth advertising is a very effective way to get new customers. Well, if your customers are already talking about your business – or even if they aren’t – why not give them a reason to send their friends to your store? Implementing a program to encourage customers to refer people to your store is another great tool for driving in-store sales, and using the web to do it makes it hassle-free because you can automate most of it.
For example, you can add a section to your website where customers can register for your referral program, just like they would for an e-newsletter. Once they register, you’ll have their information in your system so the next time someone says they were referred, you’ll know who referred them and you can add loyalty points to their account or just give them cash, which is always a hit.
In addition to rewarding customers who refer other customers with immediate incentives, you could run a contest and reward the customer that gives you the most referrals with a more substantial, larger prize. This will emphasize the fact that you encourage referrals and that you reward the customers that refer new customers to your store.
One note about getting referral information from new customers: often times, even when one customer says, “Tell them I sent you” to a new customer, the new customer forgets to mention it, and then you end up in a situation where you’ve inadvertently upset the customer that referred them in the first place, because they’re not getting the reward they thought they would. To avoid this, you should train your sales staff to ask of everyone that checks out how they heard about the store.
Not only will you be sure to find out about all the customers that are referring other customers, but you’ll also learn a lot about how customers are hearing about your business in general, which might very well give you insight into some of the media you’re using or into potentially innovative ways to market your business in the future.
Each of these ideas will help you bring current or new customers that visit your website into your store. Make sure that you take advantage of the new in-store traffic though – when a new customer walks in your door, make sure your sales staff are greeting them properly and offering to help them without coming off as pushy. And make sure your store environment will foster repeat visits. It’s one thing to drive traffic into your store, but it’s another to retain those new customers. Give them a shopping experience they won’t soon forget. Taking these steps will ensure repeat visits, loyal customers, and lots of referrals.
About the author:
Author: Tom Swanson Web Site: http://www.lowhangingfruit.com Email:tom@itimeinc.com Phone: 563-323-4609 Tom Swanson’s experience in sales, marketing, copywriting, multi-media advertising, and publishing have given him incredible insight into the world of marketing both online and off. Tom writes articles to help local businesses learn to strategically leverage their Internet presence and capture easy online profits. His articles include thoughtful, down-to-earth explanations of various marketing media and philosophies, and local businesses can take away simple tools, ideas, and techniques that they can implement to shape their local Internet marketing efforts. ฉ 2005 Low-Hanging Fruit
The Facts You Should Know About Internet Marketing.
by: Raamakant S.
I wakeup this morning and see my lovely wife. She was
sleeping and looking like angel. I thought probably I am
the luckiest guy in the world. I have a gorgeous wife, a
cute doll (my daughter). I have money and time to enjoy
life, and I dont need to worry about my future. Suddenly I
remember those days when I started Internet marketing.
I can't forget those worst days when I used to work 16
hours a day. I come from my JOB (Just Over Broke) and
started working on my computer till 4.00 o'clock in
morning. I had dark circle under my eyes. I had no time for
friends, family and even for my love. I did every thing I
read and almost exhausted my Credit Card but I couldn't
make money.
It happens with almost every newbie's. So the question here
“what is the secret of Success in Internet marketing”? The
answer is your own OPT-IN LIST and Targeted visitors on
your website.
OPT-IN LIST:
Youve probably heard about “The List” many times. This is
the only fact that there is nothing more valuable in your
online business than your email list. EVERYTHING you do
online should grow your list, even if it's one person at a
time.
Think about it... if you've got a list, you can send
valuable content, and then create lots of product offers as
time goes on. But if you DON'T have a list... it doesn't
matter how many offers you create, because NOBODY will
see them.
A Proven Fact:
A very crucial element of online marketing is a proven fact
that people are likely to do business with those they
trust. The best online ways of building trust with a
prospect is through e-mail marketing. Give your prospect
something valuable and gain there trust.
5 Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic for free.
01. JV Partnership:
Youve probably heard about Joint Ventures before. They are
one of my biggest sources of traffic. Initially its hard to
find JV Partners especially big names because nobody knows
you so start with smaller marketers. Don't forget to keep a
list of everybody you have had a successful JV with. They
know you and they like to work with you in the future.
02. Write Articles and submit to article directories:
Writing articles and submit to article directories is
another great method to attract tons of visitors. It takes
little time and builds your credibility all over the web.
It improves your sites search engine ranking because of
link back to your site.
03. Forums:
Forums are the best place to drive targeted Visitors to
Your Website. You can also increase your marketing
knowledge, make joint ventures and get quick help by
joining some marketing forums. If you're serious about
building your online business, it's must. Be sure to check
out the rules of forum before any posting.
04. Viral Tools:
Viral e-books and reports can drive massive traffic that
you cant imagine. Why? Because it's VIRAL. Your reader can
customize the book with there affiliate links and giveaway
for free. Thats why it spread like a virus all over the net
and send traffic to your site.
05. Link exchange:
Link exchange is permanent source of traffic infact it
gives you double benefits. You get the traffic from your
link on other peoples site and at the same time it pushes
up the ranking of your site on search engine.
Pay per Click Search engine is also a good way to get
instant and targeted visitors but it's not free. You need
to do a lot of homework and make a huge list of relevant
keywords before starting or you may burn your hands.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Download my latest Report “Amazing Traffic Formula”. How to
get a flood of Targeted Visitors to Your Website and build
your own opt-in Subscriber List... At NO COST!!
http://www.umtezine.com/atf/aatf.htm
Free Rebrand and Redistribution Rights Included.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Some Hype you should avoid:
A. Guaranteed 10000 Visitors for $….
You have seen it every where on net. When you buy a package
you will come to know that you haven't made a single sale
by the time the package runs out. The reason behind it is
that they show your site in a small pop-up window and
pop-ups are not much effective. The other reason is your
site shown in front of untargeted people who are not
interested in your product.
B. Blast your ad to over 10 million sites….
There was a time when it really worked but its no longer
true. There are so many automatic submitters these days and
there's very little chance anyone will ever see your ads.
C. Send your ad to 10million email address….
This type of Marketing Are Now Considered SPAM! And if you
are reported for SPAM, you can lose your ISP, website,
e-mail account, and much more!
D. Guaranteed Search engine ranking….
Top placement on search engines is a hard task and requires
lots of money and time. There are millions of websites
across the internet and everyone wants a top search engine
ranking. If you are not in Top 20 for your keyword you'll
not be getting many visitors.
E. Just Push one Button and get 1000 visitors a day type
Software….
Internet is filled with this hype “Targeted traffic at the
push of a button”. They show your site at autosurf traffic
exchange programs where everybody uses this type of
software to gain credits and nobody actually sees your site.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 Raamakant S.
About the author:
Raamakant S. is owner of http://www.umtezine.com
Subscribe to his Ultimate marketing Tips eZine by sending a blank
e-mail mailto:umtezine@getresponse.com -- Learn Everything
You've Been Wanting to Know about Internet Marketing. REAL
Tips, Tricks and Techniques You Can Use In Your Business and
Consistently Produce MASSIVE Amounts of Profits.
Turning online purchases into profit.
by: Michael Lever
Copyright 2005 Michael Lever
Dear internet marketer,
I have some advice for improving your bottom line, whatever that may be.
It could be many things ranging from improving website traffic to increasing sales or even just expanding your mailing list.
But whatever your bottom line is, you have two choices when setting out to achieve it.
Your first choice is to employ an assortment of free traffic, sales, or opt-in subscriber generating techniques.
These can be effective but generally take time and results are usually slow.
Most people adopting solely this choice end up failing and frustrated. But at least they haven't lost their pants in the process.
The second choice you have is to pay for services designed to improve your bottom line. This will almost certainly speed things up and improve the results you achieve both short and long term.
If you find yourself choosing this second option, make sure you can measure quantitative results as you need to know what ROI (return on investment) is being achieved for each paid service.
Most of you are probably a combination of both choices. And if you're anything like me, you probably started using free techniques before moving to paid alternatives.
Enough beating about the bush.
What's my advice? Simply this.
If you pay for any form of online advertising or promotion, do yourself a big favour and explore services designed to assist this process without attempting to influence your decision-making in any way.
Affiliate directories and Customer Acquisition Exchanges also known as "Customer Reciprocation" are 2 such services.
These are really an extension or improved version of link exchanges as they can provide paying customers instead of potential traffic generation (leads, click-throughs, or visitors).
It's that simple. These paying customers earn you sales or commission, depending whether they purchase your own products or products from your affiliated merchants.
So what are you waiting for?
Each time you purchase online and don't take my advice, you're missing out on paying customers willing to purchase through your own referral URLs.
Choose wisely and turn your online purchases into profit.
Side note - I've mentioned thus far your online advertising and promotion purchase intentions but did you know that all online purchases you make can gain you paying customers?
That's because customer reciprocation services incorporate unrestricted global shopping directories.
A comparison with Ebay makes interesting reading.
Whereas Ebay matches buyers and sellers of products through an auction process, customer reciprocation services match buyers and sellers through referral URLs via their own exchange engines.
In effect, they work like limited versions of Ebay.
The exchange process can only be completed for people who promote product using referral URLs.
However, they expand on the Ebay model in the sense that with Ebay, sellers can only offer their own product whereas sellers are able to offer both their own product and those of other merchants through the use of customer reciprocation services.
Regards
Michael Lever
About the author:
Michael Lever is a co-founder and CEO of SpinningTornado.com , an independent company offering unbiased tools and services to help affiliate and network marketers build profitable online businesses . http://www.SpinningTornado.com Partnering affiliates the world over .
3 Freebies That Guarantees Constant Traffic
by: Oluwafisayo Akinlolu
You are permitted to republish this
article as long as it remains unchanged
and the author given complete credit
for it. Do not forget to send the author
a courtesy note.
admin@profitbomb.com
------------------------------------------
3 Freebies That Guarantees Constant Traffic
By Oluwafisayo http://profitbomb.com
In 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead decided to
move to a town that had four things; a good
school, a Catholic Church, a doctor and an
opportunity.
They wanted to open their own pharmacy.
They eventually chose Wall, South Dakota, as
the perfect location. To others, however,
Wall seemed to be in the middle of
nowhere - somewhere between the Black Hills
and the Badlands.
The first year was a tough one - thick dust,
intense heat, and strong winds.
In their desire to move on to a more
welcoming place, tired, throat - perched
travellers rarely stopped. Then, Ted and
Dorothy came up with an idea.
They made a sign that read: Free Ice Water At
Wall DrugStore.
The sign became something of a novelty. They
made more sighs and put them farther and
farther from Wall - eventually, as far as
other countries of the world.
All druggists, of course made "free" ice
water available for their customers. Nobody
however, had thought of advertising the
luxury.
Eventually, some 4000 to 6000 customers a day
stopped at Wall DrugStore.
Josh Billings remarked, "Common Sense is
instinct and enough of it is genius.
"When it comes to attracting traffic,
everybody has ideas BUT it all seem not to
work!"
I was almost ready to quit when I found a
blend of strategies that work. Top Internet
marketers use it to achieve tons of results,
brand their names all over the Internet,
explode sales and achieve record breaking
list size in minimum time with little or
absolutely nothing spent.
It is all captured in the word FREE and
truthfully, if you have nothing FREE working
hard for you out there, it is time to get
down to work and get up with one!
Here are 3 easy to implement freebies you
can start with right now.
1. Give Out A Collection Of Free eBooks.
Go around the web and harvest a collection of
free ebooks, then give it away for free on
your website in exchange for people doing
something e.g. signing up for your newsletter.
2. Write Articles and Give It Away Free.
I wrote 2 articles last year and got 700+
subscribers from it without lifting a finger
after submitting it to a few article
submission sites.
It is surprising to note that my list still
grows today as a result of those articles.
3. Pull Your Articles Into A Report and Give
Away Reprint Rights To it Free.
This sounds insane but if you are smart, it
can make you a success overnight.
All you need to do is bury your other
programmes in the middle of your ebook and
"wham," you start getting dangerous results.
ฉ Oluwafisayo, 2005.
-------------------------------------------------
Achieve record breaking list size and incredible
website traffic on a complete, zero budget ...
GUARANTEED.
Oluwafisayo's latest *FREE* report takes you by
the hand and shows you exactly how.
http://profitbomb.com
-------------------------------------------------
About the author:
Oluwafiayo is the owner of http://profitbomb.comwhere he unleases closely guraded traffic secrets of internet heavy weights.
The Most Effective Free Advertising
by: Ollie May Rains
Copyright ฉ Ollie Rains
http://www.OMRains.net
After a few months of advertising my online business opportunities’ website, I have learned a valuable, but true advertising fact. The best way to advertise an affiliate program is through writing articles and submitting them to syndicated sites for others to use, thereby creating links to your own website.
If you are new to website promotion, you may need to know how this works. First, you need to read, and then you write about what you have learned. I have found that there is definitely no shortage of information on the web. Take the information and put into your own words, your thoughts and feelings regarding what you have learned through your reading, and experiences and knowledge of your own. Sit down and write from 350 to 700 words about what you think or have learned in this process. When submitting them to article publishing sites for approval, make sure to add your website links in the author’s note, to link your website to other websites. Then when other website owners need valuable content to post on their website, you have gained the opportunity to put your link on someone else’s website. They go to the article publishing sites to find good content, and if they like yours, you get a free link. Easy, and free. You can join a power linking forum and get a complete list of article syndication sites to submit your articles to, or do a search of your own. You then can either submit your articles manually, or pay an article submission site to submit them for you for approval. Since I want mine free, and have the time, I do my own submissions manually. Please take the time to correct grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure before submitting your articles, and be sure to read each sites rules for submission to insure your articles are considered for publishing. Some of them have some strict rules and guidelines, especially regarding where your links can be placed in the article. Most will only allow links in the author’s note box.
The next thing you need to do is set up a blog. This, too, is free and lots of fun! There, you can even post your very own personal journal. I have chosen to make mine about online business promotion, and post only articles about online businesses. Do a search for free blogs to find the one that is right for you. Post your articles on your blog. It’s easy and fun to do, with copying and pasting from a word document. You can also post your photos on your blog. To build your traffic, make sure you include a link to your main website near the top of your blog. The more content your blog has, the better the search engines love you. If you need more content than you can possibly write in the beginning, you can use articles others have written on the subject you are creating for your blog. Article publishing sites are full of good quality articles on just about any subject you may want to choose. But you must always include the author’s note at the bottom, to give the author credit and the opportunity to have his or her link displayed on your site. After you have given your blog valuable content, you need to “ping” your blogsite, so search engine spiders will find you. This helps to build your traffic to your blog. Then due to your link on your blog to your main webpage site, you increase your main website traffic. I use “Ping-O-Matic” for mine. It gets submitted to many different sites at once, and very simple to do.
Next, you can link your blog to other blogs by joining a bloglinking site. You get lots of free traffic, and other bloggers leave comments on your blogspot, leaving a link, and you can link on their blogs the same way. Free, Free, Free, Traffic!
About the author:
Ollie Rains owns the
work at home directory website located at:
http://www.OMRains.net
Come by and visit us today! Also, be sure to
check out our "top pick" work at home opportunity
at: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-9523
For articles on promoting your online business, visit:
http://www.omrains.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------------
NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)
Website Traffic: Build It and They May Come Back
by: Wendy Maynard
Copyright 2005 Kinesis, Inc.
Keep the Content Coming!
Your website is finally built. It’s professionally designed, has compelling content, and it has vast amounts of helpful information about your products or services. But, and this is an important but…is your website working for you?
Your offline tools and advertisements may get your customers and prospects to go to your website home page once. But you want them to return many times. Here are some things to improve your website’s sales power:
1. Update Your Portfolio: If you have a portfolio of your work (photographers, architects, landscapers, designers, writers, etc.), keep your "latest and greatest" work current. Send an enthusiastic e-mail to your customers to let them know it’s been updated.
2. Write Articles: You are an expert in your field. Customers are hungry for the information only you can provide. Give them helpful advice and tips. On your homepage, let website visitors know about this section.
3. Add a Discussion Forum: Your website designer can help you add a discussion forum. This allows visitors to communicate with each other, and your staff can provide helpful answers.
4. Create a "Links" Page: Customers like being able to find out more information regarding their purchasing decisions. With a links page, you can map the way for them to visit other related websites.
5. Publish an Ezine: Publishing an ezine will help position your business as an expert in your field. In addition, you will be providing tips to your customers that will help them. It sets you apart from your competitors and instills confidence and trust in your readers, making it easier for them to do business with you. Archive your articles on your website on an ongoing basis to refresh your content for business.
6. Ask Your Site Visitors: Is there something in your business you are considering? Do you want some feedback on a service? Why not ask for your customers’ opinion? You can post an online opinion poll and down the road, post customers’ responses.
7. Start a Blog: If you are committed to posting regularly, a blog can be a great way to build relationships with your customers and leads. You can give them advice about services or products, you can offer them helpful advices, and you can give business updates. Best of all, a blog is easy to set up and update!
ACTION ITEM: This week, look at your website. Would a visitor want to come back? If not, write down several things you can add to your site that will entice people to return. Take the necessary steps to get it in place. Then, update your site!
About the author:
Wendy Maynard, your friendly marketing maven writes Kinetic Ideas: A Marketing Blog at http://www.wendy.kinesisinc.com Signup for Kinesis Quickies at http://www.news.kinesisinc.com: This twice-a-month ezine features free marketing tips and secrets for business owners and entrepreneurs.
Generating Traffic On A Budget
by: Wayne McDonald
Copyright 2005 Wayne McDonald
Most webmasters keep their prized web traffic generating systems to themselves or charge an arm and a leg. I am one of the guys in the trenches. Before I share with you the simplest and easiest methods to generate website traffic I will begin with a little background information.
I have several websites and in the past ten years I have worked with gurus that promised to deliver traffic to my sites. In fact I have paid from $200 to over $2,000 for traffic to my sites. I had one person that charged a reasonable fee and my traffic went from 500 visitors to 8,000 visitors. Three years later his fee wasn’t that reasonable, but I decided to go ahead and try another website. After three months and two thousand dollars I saw no results.
As many people know the search engines create algorithms so nobody can beat the system. The gurus figure a way around this and charge lots of money to drive traffic to your site. Then the dance continues and the search engines create new algorithms. Next thing you know you are going back to the guru or searching for someone new.
Many of us have been sold a bill of goods about generating traffic to our websites and the lure of getting on the top ten. I can tell you from personal experience that I have been in the top ten and it wasn’t that big of an impact. The hook the gurus use to charge a higher fee is the number of keywords you need to get in the top ten. After a while you’ll realize that ONE keyword may have over one hundred variations.
Working with gurus creates a roller coaster of traffic to your website. Your traffic and sales are dependent on the gurus and the search engines algorithms. When you stop working with the gurus, or their magic isn’t working, your website traffic and sales hit bottom.
Yes there are rewards working with gurus, but you better have a hot site that sells. Start with methods that cost less and allow your traffic to build. Check your status reports to learn more about your visitors and the keywords they used to find you. A good hosting provider will offer this with your hosting package.
A wise marketer once told me that it was best to get off the roller coaster and put my money into methods that build steady website traffic. As an owner of a website, you learn how to update your own pages so you are not dependent on someone to update your website. The same goes for generating website traffic. When you take the time and invest in building traffic on a regular basis, then you will be free from the gurus and the search engines algorithms.
The simplest and time proven techniques that take very little time are your best answers. One method I know you have heard over and over is submitting articles. Let me give you the WHY submitting articles is important. When you are found in the search engines you are just another listing on all those pages. When submitting articles, I get a loyal audience that reads my articles each week. In fact, when they visit another website and see other articles I have written on other topics, it builds more credibility, rapport, link popularity and traffic.
Generating website traffic is using a combination of methods. Submitting to the search engines is still important, but it is only a part of your overall traffic building strategy. With most search engines it may take one to three months to see results.
Now here is the INSIDE INFORMATION most gurus won’t tell you. I am using a traffic generating system that is available to anyone at no cost. In fact it is simple to implement and takes only ten minutes of your time to set-up. This system is instant and you will see an immediate increase in your traffic and it you can verify your results with your own status reports.
About the author:
Wayne McDonald is the TRAFFIC KING! Get your FREE Special Report "Generating Traffic On A Budget" at http://increase-your-website-traffic.holisticwebdirectory.comand for web hosting solutions visit http://webhosting.holisticwebdirectory.com
3 Ways To Swarm Your Website With Highly Targeted Traffic For FREE!
by: Andy Murray
Copyright 2005 Andy Murray
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.
1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:
By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you're expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you'll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.
This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.
There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don't recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn't look very professional.
Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are...
The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com
Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you're pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/
Axandra's Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:
This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I'll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.
After you've written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.
As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.
You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.
Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.
How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?
Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you've already broken down one of the main barriers of selling...
TRUST!
Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:
Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
Some great "How To" advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html
And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml
3. Viral Marketing:
Viral Marketing is defined as “Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do”; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they “infect” the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.
If you UNLEASH a 'Viral Marketing' campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.
Generating free traffic with 'Viral Marketing' is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your 'Viral Marketing' message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.
About the author:
Andy Murray is a marketer and publisher writing informative reports to help grow your online business. Get his latest offering "Unleash Your Viral Marketing Potential" for FREE by simply following this link: http://www.zerohourmarketing.com/Viral-Marketing-Report.htm
Internet Marketing Basics: What worked years ago still works today!
by: Jack Humphrey
Copyright 2005 Jack Humphrey
Internet marketing can seem mystifying not only for beginners, but for moderately skilled internet marketers. With all the courses, forums, blogs, reports, seminars and teleconferences available to help people learn how to get traffic to their sites, it is one of the most overwhelmingly dense subjects on the internet.
Unfortunately, and this is perfectly true, most of the advice or "expert" tips are outdated or completely false. Since anyone can publish on the internet, you have a mixed bag of good information followed with much more bad information.
The mysticism of internet marketing is created largely by this glut of some good and mostly bad information. It makes the whole topic SEEM like rocket science when, in fact, much of what was true about internet marketing years ago is true today.
Most people think that since search engine marketing changes every five minutes, that ALL internet marketing tactics must have changed as much in the same amount of time. Not true.
The basics, like trading links, article syndication, testimonials, forum signatures, joint ventures, affiliate programs - most work as well today as they did years ago. That is, if you know how to value the work above for what it will truly do for your website traffic.
Funny thing is, no one places much value on the above tactics anymore because there is always some "new" tactic around the corner that claims the death of everything that came before it. And most people blindly follow that advice as if it were true.
Most of the time, this is to the detriment of their internet marketing efforts. The basics are what work all the time and what have always worked on the internet.
You can always experiment with new things, as long as you have not forgotten to do the basics. The basics proven to drive traffic, page rank, link popularity, and branding to your business.
Conservative, relevant reciprocal linking
Article syndication
Participation in your field and among your market (forums)
Blogging
Offline advertising
Non-reciprocal linking tactics
Press releases
...and many other proven methods.
Everything else is just a big experiment until proven to work over time. "Over time" being the operative words. Lots of flash in the pan crack pot schemes work for awhile. But most never stand the test of time.
Links from a widely syndicated article will never fade away, yet I see people chasing down fly-by-night linking pyramid schemes as if they truly believe something like that is a smart thing to base their internet business on!
Tens of thousands have walked away from their dreams, gone back to their depressing, predictable, slave-labor jobs never knowing how close they were to actually succeeding.
Good people have left this business proclaiming it an utter lie that any average person can make it with an internet business and an internet marketing plan.
I guess there is truth in that statement. Average people do in fact quit this business before they ever get started because average people fall for tricks and schemes that above average people avoid on their way to success.
If you have read this far, you are probably in the above average category. Why? Because average people would have take one look at the list of things I mentioned that are the bread and butter of internet marketing and saw nothing but hard work. And they'd be right!
Above average people don't shy away from work though. I don't know a single soul (and my rolodex has some of the biggest names in internet marketing in it) who got where they are today without a lot of hard work.
You can succeed in internet marketing if you are not afraid to work, and not constantly tempted by those who say you can succeed without it!
Focus on the basics of internet marketing and stay with them as you try new strategies. We all experiment. But successful internet marketers never leave their bread and butter tactics behind unless they cease to be effective.
About the author:
To learn bread and butter internet marketing tactics along with cutting-edge new internet marketing tactics, check out Jack Humphrey's all new Power Linking 2005. http://www.power-linking-profits.com
The 3 Best Website Traffic Sources
by: Jim Edwards
Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards
Not a day goes by that any serious website owner doesn't wonder how to get more traffic to their site.
This intense desire to generate more clicks makes virtually any online entrepreneur easy prey to many of the traffic schemes and scams that pervade the Internet like conmen on a carnival midway.
Promises of fast traffic and big bucks often separate even the most savvy business person from their money because they want to believe the promises made by these traffic hucksters.
However, rather than thinking "complicated equals better" in the traffic game, the best website traffic sources rate extremely easy to separate from the useless garbage traffic.
Fact: "Good Traffic" equals "Targeted Traffic!"
That means the visitors come as a result of desire to find out more on a specific, niche topic, not as a result of "exit" traffic or membership in a "safe" list where members simply pitch each other in an incestuous spam fest.
Good traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted to their interests and getting directed to a website containing information they want and expect as a result of clicking the link.
Bottom line, when you get right down to it, the best, most dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that people click.
So, next time you're considering spending money on a traffic source, understand that unless it involves a targeted link that a targeted visitor can click to get to your website, think twice before opening up your wallet.
To my knowledge, only three ways exist to get a link to your site: buy it, "voodoo" it, or grow it.
** Buy Links**
Buying links actually rates the fastest way to get traffic to your website.
You simply sign up for Google AdWords at Google.com or you open an account with Overture.com.
You then run ads with a link on those sites and any time someone clicks the link, you pay for the click through a relatively straightforward bidding process based on the popularity of the keyword.
You can also buy links in ezines, newsletters, and on other people's website either on a per-click basis, for a period of time (a week or month), or in exchange for paying them a commission if a sale gets made as a result of a click on the link.
** Linking "VoodDoo" **
Linking "voodoo" refers to attempting to manipulate the search engines into displaying links to your website.
You can find a large number of automated software programs online at any given time that will claim to help you get more search engine traffic.
Depending on the intensity of competition in a specific market and the fact that search engines change their rules frequently, pursuing search engine links this way can quickly turn into the online equivalent of Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole.
** Grow Links **
I personally prefer this method to get links to my websites: growing them.
The best type of link to get involves one person telling another person, either explicitly or implicitly, they should click the link and visit the site at the other end.
One way to do this is simply to exchange links with another site which targets the same audience as your site.
You can manage this process manually or use one of the many software packages that will mange the process for you.
A search on Google.com for "reciprocal link manager software" yields a good start.
The easiest way to grow a link is through using articles other people post on their websites which link back to your website.
The reason articles work so well for "growing" links involves the numerous ways in which articles get distributed online, each of which can create dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different links back to your website by publishing a single article.
In fact, the following represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the places you can grow links by publishing articles online.
~ Blogs - Your articles can not only appear on your own blog, but get posted by others on their blogs with surprising ease.
The links in these articles can point directly back to your website.
~ Article Directories - Article directories such as IdeaMarketers.com abound online.
They not only provide an easy way to display your articles to allow others to pick them up for posting on their websites, but also in and of themselves attract readers searching for content.
~ OPS (Other People's Sites) - Popular websites like WebProNews.com attract repeat visitors by offering targeted content to their readers.
Since they can't produce all the content themselves, they publish articles created by others. Links from these sites can bring a steady stream of targeted visitors by giving you targeted exposure.
~ Ezines - By getting your articles published in other people's ezines, you can get a link on the most valuable real estate online, a targeted prospect's email "inbox."
Many ezine publishers run articles written by others to their targeted readers, and your link in the resource box can bring you a veritable avalanche of targeted site visitors when hundreds, even thousands of people receive your article at the same time.
Whether you choose to buy them, "voodoo" them, or grow them, getting targeted links to your site posted on the Internet represents the absolute best way to get steady traffic to your site.
Though not as fast as buying them or as exciting as trying to manipulate the search engines, growing links with articles gives you a long-term, dependable presence online.
About the author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and co-author of an amazing program that teaches you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
Super-Affiliate's! What Are They... How Do I Find Them and Why They're Your... TICKET to Success!
by: Cory Threlfall
Copyright 2004 Cory Threlfall
Super-Affiliate's!
What are they?
Do you see this term often online and end up confused to what it means and the purpose they serve online?
It sounded really mysterious to me when I first came across the term which peeked my curiosity and led me to research the term further to find out exactly what the term meant and more importantly what there roll was in the Internet marketing world.
The information I discovered was Astonishing!
What I'm about to reveal to you in this article will blow your mind and hopefully take away the mystery and answer the questions you once had about what a 'Super-Affiliate' is and why they ARE your...
..."Ticket To Online Success!"
Let's first take away the mystery behind what a 'Super-Affiliate' is so that you'll have a clear picture inside your head of how they'll benefit your online business for years to come.
A 'Super-Affiliate' is simply either or both a High Traffic website and/or a eZine/Newsletter owner with a HUGE targeted opt-in mailing list that are able to sell more in a given day then you could in a month.
As you will learn, the internet is nothing more then a numbers game and the super-affiliate's are simply the one's who have already put in the time and have the highest numbers when it comes to 'Website Traffic' and targeted 'Opt-In' mailing lists.
Are you starting to see the BIG picture yet?
Now, lets move on and break this down a little with some rough numbers so you'll be able to have better idea of what to look for when it comes to locating an 'Super-Affiliate' via search engines and/or eZine/Newsletter directories.
Let's first start with the Search Engines.
When your searching the web for super-affiliate's with high traffic website's this is the general guide line I use to gauge there importance.
But, in order for me to do a proper traffic analysis of there website I need to use a special webmaster toolbar offered through Alexa.com.
This toolbar is essential and a must have when it comes to locating super-affiliate's and the reason why is because it reveals the 'Traffic Ranking' for that particular website you are viewing making it easier for you to tell the difference between the super-affiliate's and the other website's that are just getting by.
Here's the link to where you can download your own free Alexa toolbar if you choose:
- http://download.alexa.com/
Now... for the numbers.
When I'm searching for an super-affiliate related to my Product, Service and/or any of the affiliate programs I am promoting via the search engines and I happen to come across a website that has a traffic ranking of 50,000 or lower using the Alexa toolbar to gauge the TR then these are the website's where the super-affiliate's reside and are the one's I will want to contact with a business proposition.
As a general rule using website analysis, the lower the TR, the BETTER.
Why?
Because it means that particular website is receiving Lots... and Lots of traffic which is just what you're looking for.
Now... that's the general idea behind locating super-affiliate's through website analysis and the search engines.
This next part I'm going to show you where to locate the super-affiliate's with HUGE targeted mailing lists.
This is where you stand to benefit the most and could in turn make a substantial amount of money within the next 24 hours of your business proposition if accepted by the list owner.
The best places to locate an 'Super-Affiliate' with a HUGE mailing list are through eZine/Newsletter directories. I've listed a few of the Top directories below to save you the hassle of having to search for them yourself.
- Ezine Universe
http://www.ezine-universe.com
- Ezine Hub
http://www.ezinehub.com
- Go-Ezines
http://www.go-ezines.com
- Netter Web
http://www.netterweb.com
- Ezine Search
http://www.ezinesearch.com
These directories databases are searchable and are full of thousands of ezine/newsletters with list sizes that range from 1000 subscribers to 250,000 subscribers and up.
It's pretty easy to figure out who the super-affiliate's are going to be here.
The Bigger the list size, the BETTER.
But... as a general rule I would have to say that any ezine/newsletter owner with a list size of 75,000 or more subscribers I would consider an 'Super-Affiliate'.
Remember, this is just a general guide line.
Don't discard the list owners with smaller lists. The more eZine/Newsletter owners you contact the greater your chances are of SUCCESS!
Now that you know what a super-affiliate is and how to find them Both on the Web and through ezine/newsletter directories your probably wondering how...
... "They're Your TICKET To Online Success!"
Well, its actually quite simple.
If you own your own Product and/or offer a Service, and this will even work if your an affiliate to someone else's program, all you have to do is simply locate and approach related website and/or ezine/newsletter owners with a JV(Joint Venture) and/or business proposition offering them a reasonable share(percentage) of the profits if they were to accept your business proposal.
That's It!
And the best part about this approach is that you don't even have to spend a penny on advertising and the traffic you'll receive will be 'Laser Targeted' making your chances of SUCCESS that much Greater.
I really hope this article opened your eye's up and cleared up any unanswered questions you once had about what a 'Super-Affiliate' was, what there roll is in the Internet marketing world and more importantly... How you can locate them via the Web.
About the author:
Cory Threlfall is the Editor and Publisher of a Internet marketing newsletter called the 'Internet Wonders eZine'. http://www.internetwondersezine.com; He is also an owner of a very popular virtual mall called CBmall... The Net's ##1 Infoproduct Site. http://compactURL.com/wqvg
Aim At The Bullseye And Your Online Home Business Will Prosper
by: Kirk Bannerman
By Kirk Bannerman
Traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything.
You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits
per hour driven to your website!". This type of website traffic
is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very
low conversion ratio. It's basically "throw it up against the
wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give
the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results
with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic.
I speak from experience because in the early days of developing
my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing
on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the
importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the
big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned.
Exchanging links has been an important part of generating website
traffic for quite some time, but the vast majority of people
looking to trade links don't understand that just wildly swapping
links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go.
For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing
Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that
challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask
Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more
complicated than just marching to the tune Google played.
Many website owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole
purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search
engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that
links pointing to your website can help your search engine
ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper
than that.
In my opinion, the targeted traffic that relevant links pointing
to your site will bring can be as important as the traffic that
comes to your website from people using search engines. This is
where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to
exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly
relevant to your own, the traffic you receive from those links
will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might
receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with
your theme.
Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted
traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for
visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a
search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after
performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds
your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra,
online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc)
the impression is often not favorable and may actually drive
your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your
website itself is offering.
Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic
by having good content on your website and exchanging links with
highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Remember,
traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything.
About the author:
Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and
coaches others seeking to start their own home based business.
Visit his website at
Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.
How to Drive a Stampede of Laser Targeted Traffic Using Postcards
by: Rob Taylor
Copyright 2004 Rob Taylor
How would you like to make $4 for EVERY visitor who hits your site? How about $8? Would you be interested?
This kind of money sounds insane doesn’t it, especially when you consider that most websites are lucky if they can make a $1 out of a visitor. And the chances are that you would label me a liar and a scam artist for even making such an outrageous claim.
Well those figures come from my own marketing. You can see the proof by visiting http://www.megastep.com/art-postcards.htm
“How did I do it?” you ask.
The answer is very simple. I used good old fashioned direct mail, and more specifically I sent out postcards to lists of buyers, people who have previously bought a product similar to what I was offering. Direct mail golden rule #1… Never, ever rent names of enquirers. That’s suicide, because they are unqualified and generally tyre-kickers.
So as the cost of pay per click marketing goes up, and joint ventures become harder and harder to get, and the free traffic generating methods start dying, and all those gateway page generation software tools keep getting your site banned from the search engines. With banner impressions sending you trickle traffic, and more and more emails never arrive because of the spam filters, it’s time to look at direct mail.
And yes of course it’s going to cost you money to send a mail shot. But if you’ve tweaked and tested your website to convert the maximum amount of visitors, if you have setup up your automated backend sales process. Believe me, direct mail is one of the best ways of driving laser targeted visitors to your site, people who already have a proven track record of BUYING products similar to what you offer. Yes I’ve repeated myself, but I want you to “get” that little piece of advice.
So as your email open rates dwindle to dust, and you find it harder and harder to generate quality website traffic. Remember the lowly postcard, because it’s what the big guys are using to make obscene amounts of cash from their websites.
About the author:
Rob Taylor has been writing & publishing information products online since 1996. He is the publisher of Ted Nicholas & Stuart Goldsmith’s classic direct mail home study course The Golden Mailbox. Details at http://www.megastep.com/gm
How To Add Fresh Content To Your Website
by: Jeff Schuman
Copyright 2004 Jeff Schuman
I've read over and over that when it comes to building a website and getting a lot of traffic to it "Content Is King." If you do a search for any topic you will find the websites that come up in the Top 10 all have a lot of content on their websites.
When somone does a search they are looking for information and the search engines job is to provide it to them. For your website to increase in popularity you have to constantly be adding fresh content. This will increase your ranking for the keywords on your site and ultimately increase your traffic and repeat traffic.
Here are a few simple things you can do to add fresh content.
1. Do you publish and ezine? If so add a file to your index for each issue and archive it online. This will bring all kinds of keyword rich content to your website on a constant basis.
2. Start and article page. Add new articles to it. If you write put your articles on your website. Subscribe to a few ezines that are industry related. If you come across an article you like add it to your page.
3. Add Free Syndicated Content Feeds to your article page. This is really easy to do. All you do is copy a few lines of code into the HTML of your web page and you have a constant stream of new articles for your readers. Here are 2 of my favorite sources:
http://www.submityourarticle.com/syndicate/
http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm
4. Add Pay Per Click Advertising to your site. Most people think of PPC advertising as a way to promote their site. I have found it very easy to build new web pages around different keywords relating to the the theme of my site and actually get paid for the click. One of my favorite pay per click advertising sources is SearchFeed. This is very easy to work with and provides a nice income boost every month as well.
http://www.team-schuman.com/searchfeed
Here is an example of a page I built around the SearchFeed advertising model. Notice that I have made the look of their box compliment my own page. Also a key here is that as the advertisers with SearchFeed change so does the content on my site and I never have to do anything except add some easy code one time.
http://www.team-schuman.com/make-money/homebasedbusiness
I have an article on the page and I change that periodically as well.
5. Start a Link Exchange Program. This is a little harder to set up and is time consuming, but I have found it to be worth the effort. In a future article I will go into detail on how to properly do link exchanges. For now just let me say that linking is a great way to constantly be adding new content to your site as you link with new websites that compliment yours.
One company who does a great job if you don’t want to spend much time linking is LinksManager. They manage reciprocal links, and help increase your website traffic through linking with other like-minded quality sites. Check them out here:
http://www.linksmanager.com/
6. Think outside the box. It is worthwhile to continue to think of new and easy ways to keep adding fresh content to your website. Go to Google and do a search for “Fresh Content For My Website” without the Quotation marks. Currently there are Over 1.9 million results that come up. Everything from cut and paste charts, to RSS feeds and a whole lot more.
In conclusion "Content Really Is King. I have found my position with the search engines improve dramatically when I really started building more web pages and adding more fresh content.
It is time consuming at first, but the payoff in the long run is worth the effort when the search engines reward your effort and your traffic and income grow proportionally as well.
About the author:
Jeff Schuman is the creator of several websites. His Sites-Plus.Com
website is a small business website that contains the best of everything
you need to start and run your own small business. Visit it here today:
http://www.sites-plus.com
5 Free Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic
by: Suzanne Morrison
Copyright 2004 Suzanne Morrison
I don't know about you, but when I first entered the world of internet marketing I thought I could just submit my newly finished website to a few search engines, then sit back as the visitors flocked to my site.
I imagined that people would arrive on my website, as if by magic, purchase goods, and perhaps come back again for more.
A week or so later I came down to earth with a big bump.
I realised that it would take a bit of time and effort to see the results that I was dreaming about!
Since my reality check, I have learned all about the weird and wonderful ways of internet marketing.
In this article I will tell you about my top 5 free ways of increasing website traffic.
All these methods are completely free and if you spend some time on them you will find that they work consistently.
(1)Writing Articles
Writing an article on a subject related to your website and getting that article published has two major benefits:
- People who are interested in your article will read it and often click on the URL in your resource box find out more. This gets you another free targeted visitor. Targeted, because that reader wants to find out more on the subject of your article, which is hopefully related to the subject of your website.
- Every publisher of your article must also publish your "resource box". Adding a resource box with your URL to all of your articles will increase the number of links leading back to your website, which in turn helps to increase your search engine position
For a list of directories to submit your article to, see Article Submission Directories
(2)Forum Networking
There are many discussion forums on the internet, on every topic you could possibly imagine.
Most discussion boards allow posters to attach a "Signature" with their post containing additional information about themselves, such as their name, URL and sometimes even an advertisement.
By visiting a few forums regularly and participating in the discussions, asking and answering questions, you can build up trust with other forum members, whilst at the same time getting free exposure for your website.
Just try to make a useful contribution to the forum - be sure to read the forum rules and don't spam!
(3)Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking has two main benefits for you.
Firstly, the more links that you exchange, the more chance there is that someone will follow a link from another site and land on your website.
Secondly, your website will be perceived more importantly by search engines.
The more links you have from other sites, the greater your chance of getter ranked more highly by all the search engines.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you get more out of your link exchanges.
- Do link with sites that will be of interest to your visitors.
- Don't link with pages that have unorganised link directories with hundreds of links on each page. This won't benefit you with increased traffic or search engine rankings.
- Do link with sites that have a clearly labelled "Link Directory" from their main page. You aren't likely to get much traffic from a hidden or hard to find link directory.
- Don't use link farms or FFA pages. You are unlikely to get extra traffic using these methods and the search engines may penalise you.
- Do use link directories to help you find link partners. You can find some Link Exchange Resources here
- Do stay organised. Use link exchange software, or a spreadsheet to keep track of the link exchanges you have requested and the contact details of the webmasters.
(4) Email Signatures
This is a very simple, but often forgotten way of increasing your website visitors.
Most of us are sending lots of emails a day, but many of us just sign them with just our name, or perhaps nothing at all.
Instead, why not end your emails with a short signature containing your name, a bit about your website along with the URL?
Keep the signature short (4 lines), to the point and avoid hype or SHOUTING.
You may be surprised at the extra visitors you receive through doing this. It's amazing how curiosity will lead the recipients of your email to click on your link!
(5)Using Traffic Exchanges
Finally, this is one easy way to guarantee instant hits to your website. You can build up credits for free by surfing or building up a downline to surf for you.
The downside of this method is that the visitors you receive from traffic exchanges are not as targeted as the visitors that you will receive via the other methods that I have described.
The reason for this is that people surf traffic exchanges for one reason - to earn as many credits as possible in as short a space of time as possible!
This gives you a challenge - how do you attract the attention of someone who is looking at your web page for 20 seconds or less?
Here are two tips -
- Know your market - spend some time surfing on the exchange that you are advertising on and pay attention to the types of web pages being advertised. Make sure that the pages you advertise are going to interest your target market.
- Use a short, simple attention grabbing page that can be read in a few seconds - there is no point advertising a huge page of text that takes 5 minutes to read. The chances are, your visitor will get bored and click on the "next" button without giving your page a fair chance.
Regularly invest some time in each of these 5 traffic generating methods and you will see your web statistics moving in the upwards direction before you know it.
About the author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of How to Start an Internet Business To learn more about how to promote your website download your free 30 Days to Success Ebook
4 Ways In Which You Can Achieve Critical Mass
by: Jack Humphrey
Copyright 2004 Jack Humphrey
Critical Mass Website Promotion is the elite goal rarely attained by website marketers in any industry. Reaching critical mass and getting targeted website traffic on autopilot (meaning you don't have to promote your site for 6 months and the traffic NEVER declines) is the Holy Grail of internet marketing.
When you hit critical mass in your market, things change drastically for you and your business. Your marketing efforts go down in direct proportion to your customer support and sales going up. It sounds awesome. It IS awesome. But only a tiny fraction of websites on the net every achieve critical mass. Here's a nutshell version of what it takes.
1. Work Hard
Internet marketing is no game to be manipulated by using software and quick fixes to a very large problem, which is long-term, steady traffic coming to your site.
There is no magic pill, silver bullet, or guru secret that will help you to achieve critical mass in your market. Hard work and intense study of the internet and how people surf, what they want, and how you get in front of them while they are surfing is the only answer.
The internet marketing game is for professionals and you MUST make yourself a professional marketer of your "shop" just as you would in the real world.
2. Understand Your Market
Understanding exactly who you are selling your products or services to is the crucial first step in achieving critical mass.
The worst thing you could ever do is put the hard work in and achieve critical mass in the wrong market for your products and services!
Know your market. Know your best, ideal customer inside and out. Get your links in front of them, ideally, everywhere they surf for related information to your site.
3. Be Vigilant
Over the years I have watched people listen to what I have to say about website promotion and then take one of two paths:
1) They work their tails off and do what I tell them, with great results and rewards for their efforts (more sales, more traffic, more branding and recognition).
2) They buy my book, take a half-hearted shot at the easiest things in the book, get bored, tired, or impatient, and then they go back to chasing down quick fixes.
I have watched people who had the answers they needed in their hands, and drop them for more glamorous-sounding, fast solutions. Which we all know don't work.
I will say this again - THERE IS NO WAY TO TO QUICKLY OR INSTANTLY ACHIEVE CRITICAL MASS IN YOUR MARKET!
You must work like anyone in business who is in it to succeed works. If you do not know everything about your business and how to market it, your competition will eat you alive because they WILL know everything, I guarantee it.
Just like in the real world, the one who works harder, smarter, and is vigilant about his or her business is going to come out on top every time.
You owe it to yourself and your family to learn your craft and do it better than most people in your market if you want to succeed.
4. Achieve Critical Mass
In order to hit critical mass, you must be everywhere, or nearly everywhere your best customers surf.
This means linking back to your site from reciprocal links, articles, press releases, joint ventures, forum participation, and good search engine positioning for your best keywords.
In order to have literally thousands of links pointing to your site in high-profitle areas where human beings actually go and read/surf, it takes pure time and effort.
You must submit your articles to the best free content directories. Over and over until you have published everywhere you can that is relevant to your market.
You must secure deals with high-profitle sites in your market to swap QUALITY links. I am talking about links that people will click on, not just links that only search engines will see.
You must be everywhere that is a good place to be on the net in your market. This takes time. This takes hard work. This is what it takes to have a viable, long term website traffic solution for your business.
Reaching critical mass, or even sitting down and deciding a plan of action to pursue critical mass in your market takes maturity and a final realization that you can have anything you want in the world if you want to work for it. The day you stop chasing quick fixes to drive spurts of unqualified, un-targeted traffic to your site is the first step in achieving your goals as a professional internet marketer.
About the author:
Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking 2: Evolution. He is an internet marketing consultant and copy writer for major online clients.
http://power-linking-profits.com
Getting A Solid Internet Marketing Foundation
by: Willie Crawford
Copyright 2004 Willie Crawford
As we look at building our online businesses, many of us acknowledge, early-on, that we don't know it all. Those who don't, are almost certain to fail because they often attempt to apply techniques that simply don't work online - to their online businesses. The quickest way to online success is to model those who are already successful at what you want to do. It' s that simple.
Of all of the chores involved in building your business, marketing is usually the most critical. Poor marketing is also the reason so many businesses fail. You need to learn to properly market your business or hire someone else to do it for you. I'll give you a few recommended resources to help jumpstart your education in a minute.
A second extremely important skill that goes hand-in-hand with marketing is generating publicity. You can have the greatest product in the world, but if no one knows about it, it may as well not exist. If no one knows about you, then you won't make any sales!
Let's look at generating publicity first...
Publicity can take many forms, and they often overlaps what many would define as marketing. For today, I want you to focus on the most effective, and often cheapest, publicity. In fact, this great publicity is often free. What we're talking about here is publicity generated by getting the media and others talking about you and your business. We're talking about the publicity typically generated through tools such as press releases and doing media interviews.
Why is the above type of publicity so powerful? It's so powerful because people believe what others say about you MORE than they believe what you say about yourself. So when you can get magazines, newspapers, television and radio personalities, and even online ezines talking about you, those hearing this buzz believe it more and are therefore more likely to go check you out.
A second reason this type of publicity is so powerful is because you can literally generate millions of dollars in free publicity if you know what you are doing. You may not be able to afford a full-page ad in a major magazine or newspaper. However, let the right person know about your story and that same publication will be all to happy to tell the world about you... and give them your website url and/or your toll-free phone number.
Learning to get media attention is not hard. To make it even easier, I've arranged for my friend, Annie Jennings, who runs a top PR agency, to help you a little. Her site is at:
http://www.anniejenningspr.com/teleseminars.htm
I gave you the above url because it is the page where she tells you of upcoming telesemianrs she's hosting on various promotion and sales-related topics. These teleseminars are all free.
While at Annie's site, sign up for other goodies she offers including courses in generating press releases, creating a platform, getting on top radio shows, etc. She'll give you all types of freebies like audiotapes and coffee cups. When I first met her, and she sent me an intro package, it felt like Christmas :-)
So we'll let Annie turn you into a "media darling." Then you can focus on learning marketing. This is where most online business people should probably spend 80% of their time - not on all of the busywork that you can get someone else to do. The highest and best use of your time is probably in marketing your business, not making webpage updates, writing or even creating products. You can get freelancers to do this for you very inexpensively at places like Elance.com
Marketing is nothing more than communicating the benefits of your products or services effectively to your ideal customer. It all hinges upon effective communications, and your communications can be greatly improved if you understand how and why we interact the way we do with each other. To get a firm grasp on that topic I recommend that you read the book, "Influence, The Psychology of Persuassion," by Dr. Robert Cialdini.
You'll never be the same after you've read and digest this book. If you're like me you'll find yourself reading it over and over! You can find this book at online bookstores.
Another solid book on marketing is Jay Abraham's "Mr. X" book. This 376 page book distills several decades of the marketing know-how of Jay Abraham. The full title of the book is "Money-Making Secrets of Marketing Genius Jay Abraham And Other Marketing Wizards - A No-Nonsense Guide To Great Wealth and a Personal Fortune." This book is so good that you could devote six month just to studying the one book, and you'd understand more about marketing than 95% of your competitors.
This book is marketed by the Abraham Marketing Group, but Internet marketers working with the group run specials from time to time. Just watch your email for one of these specials.
A course that I recommend that isn't just on marketing but on developing the proper mindset is by Dr. Robert Anthony. It's called "Know How To Be Rich." In order to run a really successful business, you need to properly train your mind. Many people actually need to give themselves permission to be successful. Dr. Anthony's course was a big "A-ha" for me and many of my clients.
You can find it at: http://TheInternetLifestyle.com
You'll notice that none of the resources just recommended were specifically Internet-marketing-only resources. That's because internet marketing is just an offshoot of marketing, and most of the principles are the same. Most Internet marketers who are struggling, don't have a good grasp of the over-riding basic marketing principles. That's what the above resources will provide.
Two Internet marketing resources I will recommend are a private membership site I've set up, and a course on how to generate website traffic. You can find my site at:
http://TheRealSecrets.com The webpage does a great job of explaining why you need to be a member :-)
Without website traffic, your website basically has the same results as a billboard on a highway that no one travels. It produces no results because no one sees it. So you do need to learn how to generate traffic. For that I recommend the very indepth, crash course offered by John Reese's Traffic Secrets. I've personally gone through the 13 CD's and DVD ROM's, and 3 manuals - TWICE.
You can check out this course at:
http://TrafficSecretsByJohnReese.com
It's a little expensive, but well worth it if you USE what he teaches. If you aren't going to use it, then you should save your money.
If you work your way through the above resources you'll be well on your way to building a massively successful online business. None of these resources are something you give a quick glance and then the magic happens. They all require effort. Put in the effort now and you'll have a very solid foundation upon which to build your Internet marketing business. By understand basic marketing, and then how the internet differs, you'll possess some very powerful, rarely mastered knowledge.
About the author:
Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at:
http://ProfitMagician.com
All Hits Are Not Created Equal
by: Jim Edwards
After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and credit card processors,
every website owner eventually comes to the startling realization that they need one
more thing to survive - website traffic!
Without website traffic it's the same as building an expensive billboard and, instead
of placing it alongside a busy highway, you hide it in your basement where nobody can
see it.
Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run out and start blowing chunks
of money and time trying to get "hits" to their sites, but they fail to realize that
all "hits" are not created equal.
In their quest to get eyeballs to their websites, most online operators don't realize
there's a big difference between driving "general" traffic to your website and driving
"targeted" traffic.
Just getting any traffic is the same technique TV advertisers use. They flash ads on
the screen in front of people who can't afford or don't need the advertised product.
Since general advertising can't hit specific targets, they hit everyone and hope that
someone in their target audience is actually watching at that moment. Spam, banner
ads, "safe-lists" and similar traffic techniques fall into this "general" category.
"Targeted" traffic is made up of people who are genuinely interested in what you have
to say or sell online. These people either share the same interests or have an
immediate need or problem they are trying to solve.
"Targeted" traffic is best because the people hitting your website have a much higher
likelihood of actually making a purchase.
Targeted traffic comes from people following recommended links on other sites, typing
in relevant keywords into the search engines, or even reading articles you've written
on a particular subject and then clicking over to your site for more information.
If you don't already know where to find the best sources of targeted traffic for your
website, you will need to experiment with lots of different sources to find the ones
that bring visitors who give you the most "bang for your buck."
The fastest way to determine which avenues provide the most targeted traffic is by
using an "ad tracker". An "ad tracker" is a simple program, residing on your web
server, that tracks how many visitors your site gets from a particular source and how
many of them purchased.
Though it sounds simple, most businesses don't do this! Most businesses can't tell you
their visitor to buyer conversion percentage and, therefore, don't know exactly how
much they can invest in traffic generation and remain profitable.
Whether you pay for your website traffic with cash (pay-per-click search engines,
ezine ads), or you pay for it with the sweat of your brow (article distribution, free
search engines), you must identify your best and most profitable sources of targeted
traffic that convert into buyers, subscribers, or leads.
Failure to identify and track where your buyers come from and then calculate how much
they really cost you ultimately translates into failure for your online business.
About the author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
Focus On Your Target Market To Achieve Home Business Success
by: Kirk Bannerman
To achieve success in a home based business it is of critical
importance to maintain a laser beam focus on your target market
and to direct your marketing activities to that specific group.
Website traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything.
You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits
per hour driven to your website!". This type of website traffic
is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very
low conversion ratio. It's basically "throw it up against the
wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give
the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results
with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic.
I speak from experience because in the early days of developing
my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing
on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the
importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the
big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned.
Exchanging links has been an important part of generating website
traffic for quite some time, but the vast majority of people
looking to trade links don't understand that just wildly swapping
links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go.
For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing
Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that
challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask
Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more
complicated than just marching to the tune Google plays.
Many website owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole
purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search
engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that
links pointing to your website can help your search engine
ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper
than that.
In my opinion, the targeted traffic that relevant links pointing
to your site will bring can be as important as the traffic that
comes to your website from people using search engines. This is
where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to
exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly
relevant to your own, the traffic you receive from those links
will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might
receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with
your theme.
Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted
traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for
visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a
search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after
performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds
your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra,
online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc)
the impression is often not favorable and may actually drive
your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your
website itself is offering.
Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic
by having good content on your website and exchanging links with
highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Always keep
in mind that...traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is
everything.
About the author:
Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business
and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based
business. For more information visit his website at http://www.home-based-business-team.com
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