Category: Traffic

  • Proven Traffic Building Methods


    As the internet age advances, more and more businesses are finding new life online. The potential benefits of such a venture are great as the internet allows for access to millions of possible customers across the globe. The startup costs tend to be lower as many entrepreneurs run their online businesses from home. Unlike a physical store or office, online businesses are usually open 24hrs a day, everyday. That’s the good news.

    The bad news is that the success rate for startup online businesses is about 10% as 9 out of 10 online businesses simply don’t work. Getting traffic to your site can be the most difficult of tasks. There you are eager and ready, your website looks great, your merchandise or service is ready and the future seems bright. So how do you get people to come to your site? The following paragraphs feature a number of methods that will help steer you in the right direction.

    Search engine optimization

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method used to allow for your website to be ranked higher as a result of a search for specific keywords or phrases by a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. Businesses will target certain keywords that are relevant to their content and place them on the homepage and/or other pages on their site. As an example we can look at the online retailer, jewelrypayless.com. They optimize words such as “silver jewelry” or “men’s ring”, etc.  When Google receives a request for one of these key words jewelrypayless.com will come up in the search results.

    It is, however, not as simple as that. Your site may show up on page 100 buried deep within the search result listings. In order to get listed higher more work has to be done, as described in this article. Also, the act of optimizing a site requires some knowledge of HTML which is the basic language with which websites are built. You can use an HTML editor such Dreamweaver or Frontpage to add keywords to the pages which you are optimizing.

    Linking strategy

    Websites often reserve an area of their site dedicated to links. The page usually consists of categorized links pointing to other recommended sites. Usually, websites will exchange links for mutual benefit. The more links you have pointing to your site, the better. Links to your site(inbound) show the search engines that your site has value. The best way to go about this process is to establish good content on your site and begin targeting websites you would link to exchange links with. You can buy software to help you do this or you can manually send out link exchange invitations via email.

    Pay per click

    The fastest way to get traffic is through pay-per-click advertising. Essentially, every time a web surfer clicks on an ad of your creation, you will pay. The price can range from 25 cents to $2 per click depending on the popularity of the keyword or phrases you’ve chosen. Basically, your ad will pop up in an area designated for paid ads once the keyword has been searched. It is important that you understand the correct keywords for your business in order to avoid paying unnecessary fees for irrelevant keywords.

    The most effective and popular of the pay per click ad sponsors are Google and Overture. You can also use shopping malls such as Nextag.com, Bizrate.com or Shopping.com to advertise via pay-per-click. Make sure to set your budget and monitor the results carefully making adjustments as you go along. Pay-per-click can be unreasonably expensive if not managed carefully.

    Affiliates

    Affiliates are companies, individuals and organizations that you have established business relationships with in order to increase your exposure and sales revenue. Affiliates send traffic to your site via a link representing your business on their site. If the prospective customer should buy from you the affiliate gets a commission from the transaction.

    In order to use affiliates you are required to register with an affiliate program and begin recruiting affiliates to work for you. Offering a handsome commission can attract affiliates to sign up. Having a professional website that will be easy for them integrate with their own site can also peak the interests of potential affiliates. Always treat your affiliates well, paying them on time and communicating with them on a regular basis.

    Offline Advertising

    An often neglected part of marketing online businesses, offline advertising, can be an effective means by which to bring in new customers and create “word of mouth” interest in your site. Ads in magazines, newspapers, tv, radio and local publications are some of the ways through which you can promote your business.

    Passing out flyers or sending out postcards can also result in new business, especially if you are offering a discount in the form of an exclusive coupon code. Be creative in trying to promote your business on a grass roots level. Read books such as “Guerilla Marketing” by Jay Levinson to gain insight on how to go about marketing in a cost effective manner.

    In conclusion, succeeding online can be difficult but rewarding. If you use these methods to help you in your research and application of a business and marketing strategy, along with sacrificing time and putting forth a strong effort there is a good chance that you will be successful with your online business.

  • A Secret Way Of Getting Traffic


     

    If you are reading this article, more likely than not you own a website that you would like to see become a success. To achieve that level, you need traffic to your site. But where does traffic come from?

    One of the better ways to get traffic for your site is to submit your site to the many directories that exist online. Online directories are similar to your phone book yellow pages: These directories are categorized (education, entertainment, health, etc.), and when you submit your website, you suggest a category for your website. Often, you will even be able to submit to a sub-category within a major category. For example, suppose your website is about aromatherapy.

    In your submission request, you would suggest “Health” as your main category, “Alternative Medicine” as your sub-category, and “Aromatherapy” as a further sub-category.

    Some of the leading online directories are Yahoo!, MSN Small Business, and the DMOZ directory. Unlike search engines, however, listings in online directories are usually not free. As of this writing, you can submit for free to the Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com), but there is no guarantee on how quickly your website will be reviewed for listing.

    If you need your site reviewed faster, you can pay Yahoo! $299 US for “expedited” service and they will review your site within seven days. However, this fee is a yearly recurring fee. Your website is subject to a yearly review, and is guaranteed neither initial inclusion or to remain listed year after year.

    The MSN service is $49 US, and it functions more like a search engine submit service. Their submission service incorporates inclusion in their own small business directory. DMOZ, on the other hand, is free, but because it is operated by volunteers, it could be a while before your site is included. Your best options are to submit to DMOZ and pay for the MSN and Yahoo! services.

     

    But why should you spend money? Can’t you just optimize your site for the search engines? You can, but not everyone goes to a search engine for what they are looking for. For example, if someone is searching for gourmet dog treats, they may not use a search engine. Instead, they might go to one of the online directories and look at the listings, much like someone would use the yellow pages in their phone book. Your investment in gaining inclusion in the online directories will pay off for you in a multitude of ways:

    1. You will increase traffic to your site. Your site will be included in the online directories, as well as the search engines, and this will help you gain traffic as people search directory listings and find your website.

    2. You will increase the number of backlinks to your site. If the directory pages are listed in search engines, the link they provide for your site will be listed in the search engines. This benefits you by creating more ways for people to find your site. Ultimately, this will provide more traffic for you.

    3. Submitting to directories is a quick way to gain links. Optimizing your site for the search engines is very difficult and time-consuming. It can take a lot of time to learn how to write for the search engines. In the meantime, any links you can get will help you with the search engines, and submitting to directories will get you links.

    4. Submitting to directories is relatively inexpensive, and a good investment. As stated earlier, you can submit to Yahoo! and MSN for less than $350. DMOZ is free. If you run a search for online directories, you will find many more where you could submit inexpensively, or even for free.

    In short, submitting to online directories is one of the best ways for you to build traffic to your website. In the end, you need traffic to survive online. So get started!

     

  • A Few Tips To Boost Your Website Traffic


    Activity and creativity begets success

    Doing business on the Internet is not much different from doing business anywhere else. If you are active and creative you will get success. If you have these two qualities it would be wise to use them to boost your website traffic. Getting traffic is not as easy as you might think.

    Although millions of people use the Internet, there are also millions of offerings out there. If you want to get a share of the visitors you will really have to work hard. If you are just starting out there are a number of techniques you can use to boost traffic, as well as to improve the search engine ranking of your site.

    Traffic is drawn to interesting websites!

    This doesn’t mean that we subscribe to the “build it and they will come” philosophy. However if your website has many pages of information, then each one of those pages will be packed with words and phrases that people will find when they make searches.

    On the other hand if you have only published a “brochure site”, a website that is a mirror image of an offline introductory brochure about your company, then there will not be much “spider food” on your site. That is, there will not be much for search engines to put in their data base, and you will not get much traffic from search engine queries.

    Another consequence in building an interesting site is that other sites will link to you, viewing your site as an important resource. In fact, this is what Google had in mind when it set up its current ranking system. A site that is informative and filled with useful information will be noticed and other sites will link to it. Each of these links is viewed by Google as a “vote” for that site. Make your site interesting, and people will link to it without you even knowing about it.

    In addition, never underestimate the importance of word-of-mouth. If your site is interesting people will tell their friends and they will check out your site. A content rich site is the first secret of boosting traffic.

    Publish articles to other websites

    This is one of the most effective ways to boost traffic. If your site is full of useful material, then other people will also want to publish it on their websites. Webmasters are hungry for content to beef up their sites and their newsletters.

    Here are a few places where you can offer your content (but make sure that you put your url and contact information on each article, this is how you actually get the traffic).

    Improve your search engine ranking

    While good content is an essential part of any traffic building strategy, it also helps to take steps to improve your ranking in search engines. If your content is not optimized – both on-page and off-page – it will not get the exposure that it deserves.

    You can improve your search engine ranking by placing your important key search terms in the title tag, the description tag, in your site’s headlines, and in link text on your web pages. These are the on-page factors of website optimization. If you do this successfully your site’s search engine ranking for a particular keyword or keyword phrase will improve.

    It is also important to work on off-page factors that are related to search engine positioning. Your ranking is partly determined by how many other websites link to you. If you have published your material elsewhere, then you will get a good amount of important links. If not, you may have to launch a reciprocal links campaign or place your site in paid directories in order to increase the number of incoming links to your website.

    Creativity combined with activity is a good recipe for traffic building. Build your site as best you can, and then spread the word about it. Use these three tips and you are sure to succeed.

  • Tagging Your Site For Traffic


    Tagging: A viable, time-saving resource

    Are you familiar with the latest craze sweeping the web? More and more savvy web users are turning to a new way of searching to find quality information that does not rely on traditional search engine algorithm. Fed up with sifting through pages and pages of irrelevant search engine results to find what they want, web users have switched to tagging as a viable, time-saving alternative to researching for distinct information. This new tagging trend is luring legions of Internet surfers.

    Tagging is basically assigning keywords or tags to web content such as photos, web pages or blog posts. When a web user talks about tagging, he is simply referring to how he summarizes what his web page, picture or blog is all about.

    With tagging, a user determines what the content is about and tag or labels it. This tag, maybe one or more words, provides a short description of the content or the category it conforms to. It is somewhat similar to bookmarking a web page on a user’s own computer sans the systematic categorizing methods like folders.

    Also, instead of the entry being saved on his personal computer, it is saved on publicly available sites or social bookmarking sites that anyone can use to tag web content. Web surfers tag the content they find significant and these appear on the bookmarking sites. Other Internet users interested in the same subjects can then find real content or resources other users found useful.

    The significance of tagging

    Tagging helps web page owners to know what users are searching for. They then create web content that is relevant and easy to find. In the process, these contents will gain in popularity as well.

    If a web page operator made a web page for an in-demand tag that everybody is searching for, he will definitely get highly targeted traffic. Other users who found the content of that good quality web page will bookmark the page making it rise in popularity. As it becomes more popular, more and more users will bookmark it paving the way for more traffic.

    By tagging content, it gets to be evaluated by users who decide if the content is useful. If it is useful, free traffic will follow. Another thing with tagging is that a web owner can select several tags for each page in his site. This means a chance to rank high for many tags in the highly-trafficked bookmarking sites that use tags to organize information.

    The long and short of tagging

    In a nutshell, tagging gives a web owner another avenue for getting his site noticed by buyers without having to resort to advertising. It can also lead to other possibilities. More traffic can stimulate increase in sales, produce adSense income, and earn affiliate commissions. Other users can also subscribe to the web owner’s list. Web users know for a fact that in the web, it is all about traffic. Tagging can help generate a steady flow of traffic which ultimately leads to a solid business.

     

    So, have you initiated tagging?

  • Get Your Website Noticed with These 5 Tips


    If you own a website then you are certainly concerned with getting it noticed and increasing your traffic. However, you might not have a large budget for advertising or marketing and simply don’t know what to do to get your website noticed without spending a lot of money. Well, the following 5 tips will help your website attract attention without spending any money!

    Submit to directories

    Submitting your website to directories is generally free and all you have to do is provide your website’s URL, a brief description, and then your site will be listed in the directory for people to browse. In addition, not only will people be able to browse the listings, but your site will also have more one way links pointing back to your site that will increase your rankings in the search engines.

    Submit to search engines

    If you want to get your site noticed then you want to make it easy on web surfers to find your site. So, submit your site to the search engines to have it indexed. Then , when people search the web for certain keywords they just might find your site and drop by to take a look.

     

    Reciprocal links

    Reciprocal links are another good idea if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings. Simply trade links with other websites and you host their link on your site and they host your link on their site. This does not take much effort or time and once you have the links you will basically have free advertising.

    Include your URL everywhere

    Your URL needs to be on all types of communication you use. For example, make sure your URL is included on your stationary, business cards, in all of your e-mails, and the like. When your URL is posted everywhere you will surely increase your site’s traffic.

    Email lists

    You can create an email list from all the visitors that have visited your website and periodically send them updates advertising different services or specials. Make it easy to unsubscribe, too. Before you know it you will have more people visiting your site and others recommending your site as well.

  • Boosting Traffic To Your Website For Increased Sales

    Traffic boosting tips and techniques

    1. Design your web site to be a targeted resource center. Choose one subject and build on it. You’ll gain repeat visitors that are interested in that topic.

    2. Offer something that is really free. If people go to your site and what you said was free really isn’t, you’ll lose their trust and they won’t buy anything.

    3. Add a chat room or message board to your web site. People want to interact with other people that have they same interests as them.

    4. Entice people to link to your web site by giving them something free in return. This’ll increase your ranking in some search engines.

    5. Trigger your reader’s emotions in your ad copy. Example, if you sell a book on gambling tips, tell them the feelings they’ll get when they win money.

    6. Make sure your site looks good in all browsers. You could be losing sales because it looks distorted in some web browsers

    7. Increase your sales by e-mailing full page ads to your e-zine subscribers. Remember to tell people before they subscribe or they may consider it spam.

    8. Ask people questions in your ad copy that make them think about their problems. For example: Do you want to be free of your debts?

    9. Magnify the size of your prospects problem in your ad; show how your product can solve it. The bigger the problem, the more sales you’ll have.

    10. Invest a percentage of your profits right back into your business. Spend it on marketing, product improvement, customer service, advertising, etc.

    11. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a “thank you” email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You could follow-up every few months.

    12. You could upsell to your customers. When they’re at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order.

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