February 2012 – TP Javeton WebNet

Setting the foundation for traffic

Anyone who owns a website knows the importance of website traffic. An individual may have a terrific idea for a website with an excellent product or service, superb design, great content and excellent functionality; but if s/he does not use the right techniques, that site may not attract the all important highly targeted website traffic required to keep it visible and relevant.

Getting a consistent flow of traffic to your website has very little to do with the site itself and a lot to do with how the webmaster or website owner advertises and promotes it. With hundreds of competing sites, you must employ the most effective Web marketing techniques that will actually deliver results.

There are different Web marketing techniques a webmaster can use; and all these methods and strategies aim at increasing your website traffic because s/he must find a way for web surfers to find his/her site. So, if you are such a website owner and want to drive traffic to your website, you have to put yourself in the shoes of your prospective visitors and future clients and see the internet through their eyes.

Make the search engines love your site

Where do they usually go whenever they are looking up something on the web? The answer is a search engine. In fact, of the two most popular websites on the web today, one is a search engines and the other is a social network portal. Thus, you should focus your Web marketing efforts on the search engines, unless you have some expertise in the area of social media marketing.

People will usually search for something using a search engine and click on the top sites – sometimes the top 3 to 5 sites – found on the search engine results page (SERP). Therefore, you must use the right Web marketing techniques to get a high search engine ranking. To gain a high ranking in the SERPs, you can use several Web marketing strategies.

Search engine optimization is a set of methods that are aimed at improving the visibility of your site in the SERPs. Since the method of indexing sites utilized by search engine is looking at the site’s popularity (one-way links), content relevancy, meta description and – in some cases – keyword density, your site’s content must have favorable popularity, content, meta-tags and a keyword density that will make it “search engine friendly”.

Use the article submission strategy

Content relevancy is one of the most important internet marketing techniques itself. If you provide excellent content on your website that is fresh (not duplicated), geared towards achieving a high search engine ranking as well as provide useful information to your visitors, then you can expect a reasonably high search engine ranking. However, this is not as easy as it sounds. Countless other sites may be using the same internet marketing technique as you are. Thus, you must continuously find new ways of attracting more website traffic.

Aside from the traditional marketing techniques such as print ads, billboards, brochures, testimonials, flyers etc. you must also use other effective Web marketing methods to gain additional website traffic. One of the most popular internet marketing techniques today is submitting articles. Writing and submitting articles is an extremely powerful method for promoting your websites, products, and services.

By writing short articles on the topic related to your website, you can offer these articles for other website owners or newsletter publishers to use by submitting them to a number of article directories.

Article directories: attractive to humans and bots

These directories get crawled by search engine “bots” on a regular basis because of the high value of content they provide. If you have not yet been picked up by the search engines this is the easiest way to get them to find you. You also get exposure to those who are looking for articles in the directories for use on their sites.

When they make use of your articles on their websites or in their newsletters, you will get the credit as the author along with a link back to your website. Not only will you get visitors, but you will benefit from the hyperlinks that are created. This internet marketing technique is now being used by thousands of site owners. It has gained popularity because of its relatively high success rate in attracting a consistent flow of website traffic.

To run your own business

Having a hundred ideas in your head at one time is something that many people would be envious of. In fact, if you mention to others that you are running your own business, they might remark with wonder and encouragement at your ability.

However, one thing that isn’t discussed as often as it should be is how business owners keep their heads screwed on straight. How do they cope with all the ideas that are in their heads, and not become overwhelmed by the enormity of it all? There are a few common traits among those businesses that have achieved a certain level of success.

Know that you can’t do it all

Having lots of ideas is one thing – trying to do them all yourself is another. Although hiring others to complete work for you is a real challenge – especially when you are starting out and have limited money – it is, however, often one of the key elements why the business owner still has his/her sanity.

When we were kids growing up, our parents or other adults might have suggested we “roll with the punches”. This probably made no sense to you as a child, but as we grow up, the wisdom of this adage was quickly realized. Life, in all its glory and unexpectedness, delivers curve balls to us every day. And as such, we have two choices – be flexible and respond, or strike out.

Successful businesses have learned that the economy, people, and business in general, is dynamic and organic – it changes all the time. In fact, the most “organized” business owners have developed an attitude (method?) that helps them cope with these circumstances. When things don’t go the way they planned, they quickly assess the situation, focus on doing those things they can control, and for the areas of the business that they cannot control, choose to accept the fact and move on.

Know what you want to achieve

Every successful business has “made it” because they knew what they wanted to achieve. They had a compelling reason to keep on going through hard times. This doesn’t mean that they had it easy, nor does it mean that they had a truly defined focus for the business. Once reality kicks in, sometimes even the best laid plans go out the window. But it was the compelling reason that helped these successful business owners push through and find a way to achieve their dreams.

This compelling reason can be anything that drives you – something you are passionate about. For example, it could be providing a better life for your family. It could be the desire to build a business that you can leave as a legacy after you die, for the benefit of your family and community. Whatever the reason, it must be strong enough to help provide you with the fuel you will need when powering through the rough times that every business owner has.

Being a business owner – an entrepreneur – is a hard task. When starting off, it isn’t uncommon to see yourself doing 50-80 hours of work each week in the business, and you are still barely breaking even. Sometimes, despite the efforts you have made, you lose money; but, after a while, things will change; the sales will start to increase; and customers will start coming back to you again and again.

Hard work & sacrifice. Not luck!

Others might call this luck, but it isn’t! It is the outward representation and reward for all the hard work and internal ‘fine-tuning’ that you have been going through up until that point. All the trials, tribulations, set-backs, disappointments and foiled ideas are all necessary for you to be ready for the Success when it comes.

So, if you have a clear vision and reason for your business; have a flexible plan and attitude; and an iron-will and dogged determination to achieve despite frustration and disappointments, success will be yours. After all, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. There is a very valid reason why it isn’t ‘crowded at the top’. The question is – Are you prepared to go through all that it takes in order to get there?