Saturday, February 27, 2010

Where To Get The Traffic You Want

More sites make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. It is far better to stick to a specific service or product than it is to offer limited options to customers. If you are selling hiking gear, be the best damn hiking gear site on the net and nothing else. This same problem arises when sites target traffic generation strategies.

The key to cost effective marketing is to get worthwhile web site traffic. At first blush, getting as much traffic as possible, regardless of how, sounds like a smart move. It is not. Doing so wastes your money, distracts you from what you should be doing and diverts your time from doing just that. If you are paying for traffic, you must find credible traffic sources.

Credible traffic is simply traffic from sources and locations that are relevant to your site. If you have looked into generating traffic, you have probably seen offers of 10,000 hits for $5. Yes, you will get 10,000 hits. Of course, the traffic is coming off of free lottery sites or the visitors are being paid to visit your site. This traffic is not credible and will not convert into revenues.

The best place to find credible web site traffic is Google and Overture. These are pay-per-click search engines that list your ads directly on their search results. This means you can specify the keyword phrases you want to be listed under, to wit, targeting your advertising to your market. You can also create filters that limit the ad placements to searches from certain geographic locations, such as the United States or Europe. This further targets your traffic by excluding clicks from some country which you can’t possibly do business with.

You can also get credible traffic from web sites and traffic vendors. The sites handle it differently, but you can often buy ad space on their sites in the form of a banner. There are some credible services out there, but there are a lot more dubious ones. Personally, I do not use any of them, but it is your money.

Getting focus your marketing is important if you want a good return on investment. You can get credible web site traffic from a lot of sources, but Google and Overture are the best.

Tags:
marketing, hits, traffic, visitors, google, overture, adwords, search engines

Autosurfing vs. Manual Traffic Exchanges!

Article Body:
First of all lets describe what an autosurf program is and how it works. On this article we are referring mostly to paid autosurfing not to the free programs. When you join one of these companies you pay some money to receive traffic in your websites. You also receive as profits a percentage of the money that you invest on the program. Then you surf a set amount of websites each day.

Autosurfing has gained a bad name lately. The industry leader was 12dailypro.com and they got in trouble with their payment processor StormPay. They were unable to pay users for a while. StormPay considered that some fraudulent activities were going on and suddenly froze the accounts of all users.

Thats when autosurf programs hit the news nationwide and many people considered them to be disguised pyramid schemes. In the other hand, some traffic exchange programs seem to provide a legitimate service to the users and a good opportunity to make some extra income.

Bellow I will explain the difference between a paid autosurf program and a paid manual traffic exchange program. If you join an autosurf program you will have to pay an up-front fee which you choose and you will have to surf a set amount of websites usually every day.

Your profits will be a percentage of your investment as described above. For example the program rules may be as follows. You may invest any amount between $10 - $6,000. You will receive 5% daily and you need to surf 10 websites per day.

The website owner provides you with a link where you can click and autosurf the websites every day. When you click the link the website runs on your browser without any intervention on your part. You dont have to do anything. Just watch the websites one after the other. There is a timer who moves the websites on your browser every 15 - 30 seconds. So, it takes you only a few minutes each day to complete your assignment.

Other people that join the program do the same thing. They watch your advertisement and get paid for it. Notice that you dont need a website to invest in many of these programs but you do need to make and investment if you want to generate profits and you need to watch the set daily amount of websites.

This is a nice idea. The drawback is that users do not actually need to watch the websites while they are running on the browser. They can set the timer and walk away for a few minutes. Thats why many individuals believe that these programs are ineffective and scamy.

Paid traffic exchange programs are quiet different. They are similar to the autosurf programs described above, but the users need to click a button whenever the timer runs out of time to have a new website appear on their browsers. This ensures that a real visitor is viewing your site.

The industry is moving fast toward this kind of system which is good for website owners. Some program owners even go to extremes and have the users insert a code when the timer runs out of time.

In my opinion paid traffic exchange companies are providing a legitimate service to the users. You can receive a percentage of your investment every day as profits while getting more exposure for your websites. It is a win-win situation for everyone.

The idea is to not get this as a full time income. I use to think about it as some nice extra cash and the possibility to get more traffic to my websites. In fact the goal of these programs is to help advertisers increase the exposure for their websites.

Another industry which have similar goal but uses a different system is the paid to read e-mails and paid to click links industry. In this industry the program owners receive money from the advertisers and pay the users to read ads via e-mails or to click links and visit the advertisers websites.

Anyway, as long as real visitors are seeing my pages I am going to be happy with the program. Keep in mind that this advertising techniques may not be as effective as others but still they are a good way to diversify your marketing strategies.

Some people love traffic exchange programs while other people see them as a waste of time. Everyone is different. What works well for some marketers doesnt work for others. I try to diversify my marketing strategies as much as possible because I dont know what could work for me and what doesnt until I try it.

If you dont want to invest any money but you want to receive more traffic in your websites, you have the option to join free traffic exchange programs. Once you join these programs you dont have to pay anything. You visit other members websites with the condition that they visit yours. The rate is usually 2 - 1 meaning that for every two websites that you visit and stay for 15 - 30 seconds you will receive one visitor to your website.

There are many companies that offer free traffic exchange programs. Remember that this is different from autosurfing. The websites still run automatically on your browser but members have to enter a special code or click a link when the timer runs out.

The drawback of this technique is that while you can receive substantial quantities of visitors to your website, the traffic that you will generate is dirty. This means that those visitors may not be interested in your offer.

This technique works better for websites which promote a general attention-catching product or service. That doesnt mean that it may not work for you. The only way to know for sure is to give it a try and see for yourself the results.

Tags:
advertise, advertising, advertisement

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Are you having a hard time getting traffic to your new website?

The biggest question site owners are asking these days is "how do I get traffic?" It is definitely much harder with the growth spurt of the Internet, however it's not impossible!

There are TONS of ways to build up your traffic. Here are some of the most common methods.

1. Learn Search Engine Optimization - this is probably the most important way that you want to get traffic and probably the hardest too. Search engine traffic is highly targetted traffic of people who are searching the web for a specific item. If they get to your site after searching for it, you're almost guaranteed a sale or at least a "bookmark for later". lot of ebooks on the subject

2. Trade links with other sites - It's important to get your site name out there.
So trade links with several other sites, even your competitors! People really do look at those links pages and they will find their way to your site from another site.

3. Post on message boards - When you post on highly trafficked message boards, BE SURE to put your site link in your signature! This is a highly effective form of marketing, especially if the message board you are posting at is relative to your site content.

4. Use email signatures - Make it easy for your customers to contact you! When they write to you and ask for more information, be sure that you are using a signature with your site URL and name inside of it. That way if they want to retrieve it later, it's easier for them than having to memorize your URL and open a web browser.

5. Join Yahoo Groups - This is pretty much the same as message boards. Join groups that pertain to your site's content and advertise (but don't spam!!) your site there.

6. Post on free classifieds sites - Sites like Craig's List or other free advertising classifieds sites will accept your site for free! Just do a Google search for "free classifieds" and you'll see a ton of sites come up where you can promote your site!

7. Buy ad space - If your monthly budget allows, you can buy some ad space for your site. Find another site that pertains to your site's content and ask them what their advertising prices are.

8. Hold auctions - Ebay gets TONS of traffic a day, while you're not allowed to post your site URL within your auction listings, you are allowed to put it in your "about me" page. So think about listing some of your products as auctions and advertise your URL.

9. Offline advertising - Get custom t-shirts, bumper stickers, car decals, etc made for your site URL. Then whenever you are out in public, you are passively advertising yourself!

10. Submit your site to directories - If your site is a site about "fishing" for
instance, do a Google search for "fishing directories" and see how many directories are out there that pertain to your subject matter. Most of these directories will allow free submissions.

11. Write articles - Writing articles that pertain to your site is another excellent way to get your site out there. Just write a short, informative article of 5-6 paragraphs and submit it to any site that accepts article submissions and make sure that your article includes a link back to your site in your "author biography".

12. Submit press releases - Even if your site is a small work from home site
(i.e. "Susie's Candles") it IS newsworthy! Let's say your candle site released a new candle called "Vanilla Cream". Submit a press release about it, I'm serious!! A good place to start is called http://www.prweb.com Or you can do a Google search for "submit press release" and a zillion other sites will come up.

13. Have great interactive content - People will bookmark your site if you have interactive and dynamic content. Have polls, message boards, interactive games, news items, guest books, item of the day....whatever! Just make the site relevant and have good SUBSTANCE in your site content. Don't overload it with silly animated graphics, sounds, etc. That just makes it look like you had nothing else to fill your site up with but this annoying stuff. And Flash intros are only good if you are two
years old and need to see flashing lights and colors. Most of all they are slow loading, and people generally click away if they see Flash.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

4 Cheaper Ways to Get Visitors to Your Website

This introduction to getting more traffic to your website without spending a lot of money is what any business on the internet strives towards and we will cover the basics, which will be followed by a more focused look at other ways to get traffic to your site in subsequent articles.

Anonymous to many there are a few ways of attracting visitors to your site that do not require risking a lot of cash. But consider the fact it's not that simple and takes more work on your part.
So, if you prefer to work to get traffic to your website, instead of paying for it, then here are a few simple ways to accomplish that:

1. Submit to article directories is perhaps one of the most valuable ways of driving traffic to your website. By writing and submitting articles with a theme associated to your website, you are almost guaranteed of getting traffic to your website for an extended period of time. As long as your articles stays in the directories that you suggest to, people can find it and the odds of receiving traffic to your website is substantial. Some of the submission sites where you can submit to are goarticles.com, ezinearticles.com, dime.com, articlecity.com and Marketingtooltime.com.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a procedure that you apply on your web site pages to rank higher in the search engines. Search engine optimization is not hard to learn and there are several software applications that do a good job of SEO.
Search engines first look at your meta tags to determine what your site is about. Here are a few key factors when preparing meta tags:

As you continue to read this article, pay special attention to how parts 1 and 2 relate to one another.

a) Your domain name should have your keyword in it.

b) Title tag for each page of your site should include your keyword.

c) Your keyword should be on the first paragraph of your page.

d) The image alt tags should include your keyword.

e) The directory and file names of each page of your site should also have your keyword.

3.Create a blog that links back to your website.
Blog Posts at Blogger.com are readily indexed by Google and other search engines. By updating your blog you are feeding the search engines. and each time you put new content out, the search engines will spot it and th spiders will come.
Putting your keywords in the content of your pages will help you rank higher in the search engines.
By placing a link in your blog back to your site the search engines will follow the link and your site will get indexed and updated more often .
Blogging is painless and it adds a lot of your web pages to the search engine index that and without these pages you will not be found on a keyword search,
There are several places to get unlimited blog accounts started with some that are hosted free such as Blogger.com, Another popular blog application is Wordpress.com that is hosted on your website.

4. Posting in forums relevant to your theme will give you the opportunity to place your links, to your products and services in the signature line, so you will get visitors from the forum members and search engine, that follow your link.
Make sure the signatures you publish in forums are memorable to magnetize readers and make them click on your related link and come to your website.

These 4 marketing tactics are simple and cheaper ways of getting visitors to your website. By implementing the above strategies on a regular basis would warrant a flow of traffic not only for the brief term but also for the long haul.

Basic Techniques to Generate Traffic from Search Engines

Traffic -- And lots of it! It is the dream of every netrepreneur. After all, without steady stream of visitors -- or should I say “potential customers” to your web site, how will you earn your e-fortune?

The first place most e-business start-ups go when they need a quick traffic fix is the search engines. And rightfully so! After all, a top ranking position in one of the major search engines is an effective way to increase the traffic to your web site without spending your hard-earned advertising dollars!

Statistics have repeatedly shown that anywhere from 20% to 80% of your visitors will find your web site via a search engine. However, you should also know that statistics show that most web surfers never search beyond the top 30 results they receive. With that in mind, it is clear that a top position a top position should be the goal of any savvy site owner.

But top spots are no longer achieved by crossing your fingers and blindly submitting your web site to 900+ search engines and directories using a free submission service. Competition for top spots is getting fierce, so it is important that you learn the “right” techniques if you want to ensure that your web site is well ranked... and it is very important that you do so while this great advertising medium is still FREE!

As I said before; for high traffic generation to your website, it is very important that your web site ranks in top spots in search engines. You may ask “What are the search engine looking for when they rank my web site?” Well, although each search engine uses different set of algorithms to rank web sites, but generally speaking, however, here are some of the main factors currently being considered by the search engines.

1. Link Popularity
Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, and the web pages search promotion of Yahoo! use a ranking system that involves measuring and ranking the number of links that are directed towards a particular web site. This is an extremely powerful traffic generation tools because:

Reason # 1
Building a well thought-out linking strategy is a powerful way to attract large volumes of high targeted traffic! By putting your web site on every major web “intersection” where your target market meets, you will ensure that your web site receives a steady flow of qualified potential customers.

Reason # 2
Links are equivalent to recommendations! They established credibility even before the visitor reaches your web site, dramatically increasing the likelihood that they will buy.

Think about it... David arrives at his favorite web site and notices that they have posted a link to your web site. He knows and trusts his favorite web site and therefore assumes that, because they have a linked to you, your business must be credible too. He clicks through the link to your web site and is immediately open to offers you present him with. Why? Because your credibility was established before he even arrived at your homepage!

Reason # 3
Since many search engines now factor link popularity into their ranking decisions, your linking strategies are all that much more important! If you want to be ranked as high as possible in search engines, you now need a factor in your link popularity – and, as you already know, earnings a top spot in the major search engines is key to increasing your web site traffic.

Obviously, developing a linking strategy that generates a high volume of targeted traffic to your web site is not an overnight process. It will take you anywhere from two weeks to six months to secure quality links you need. However, I promise you that it is worth the effort! Once you have done the initial footwork, the links that are established will remain on these web sites for years to come. Your perseverance will pay big dividends in the form of a continuous flow of targeted traffic generation.

2. Your Domain Name
A domain name plays a vital role in traffic generation to any web site. Domain names rich in keywords will rank higher in search engines because search engines love URL’s that are saturated with keywords! Brainstorm keywords and key phrases for your web site and then use them to create a catchy URL... or load the domain name with your best keywords to get ranked higher in the search engines.

3. Key Word Density
Keywords definitely refer to the number of times your keyword appears throughout your site. Your keyword density is a factor that is heavily weighted by search engines, so it’s very important to make strategic use of your keywords.

So, these are the golden facts and tactics through which you can drive high traffic to your web site. I should also mention that you do not expect to enter a couple of your top keywords into the search engines and instantly start making money through your web site--- that is very rare. But yes, you can really make high traffic through search engines without crossing the line into “keyword stuffing” and with a little time.

Blog And Ping = Your Way To Traffic

If you have a website then you are certainly interested in having it do as well as it possibly can in the search engine rankings. However, did you know that you do have some control over getting good rankings and increasing your traffic? That is right; you can take your website’s success into your own hands and increase your traffic and income by blogging and pinging. Don’t know what blogging and pinging are? Read on to find out!

Blogging

A blog is just the short way of saying web log, which can be compared to an online journal or diary. However, blogs don’t have to be personal information. They can include news, thoughts, opinions, challenges, history, and anything the blogger wants. The most important aspect of a blog is that it is updated on a schedule and a regular basis with fresh new content. Some bloggers add new content once a week while others blog daily or multiple times per day. This is where increased search engine rankings come into play. Since there is always fresh new content the site is given heavier weight than if no new content were provided. This results in higher search engine rankings and increased traffic.

Pinging

A ping is simply a program that sends out a message to another server or computer in order to get a response. So, for instance, if you update your blog you want to ping the search engines so your pages are indexed and your site ranked higher.

Why Blog and Ping?

You probably know that if your website does not show up in the search engines you are unlikely to get a ton of a traffic, and if you have a website you want traffic. So, the best thing to do is write a regular blog, ping the search engines, and your site will get indexed significantly faster than it would otherwise. By putting in a little bit of extra work you are getting your site indexed with the search engines and inevitably more traffic.

There is a lot of free blog software out on the Internet that you can simply link to your site and start blogging. Including RSS feeds, which are the pings, means the search engines are going to know you are out there and as a result start indexing your site. So, if you want to increase your traffic start blogging and pinging and you will see a difference in traffic in a hurry.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

All Hits Are Not Created Equal

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.

Amazing Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Website-And Make Sales

Article Body:
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.

3 Secrets To Increasing Traffic In The New Year

Now that 2010 has arrived, it is the habit of many people to make a resolution for the New Year. While many people focus on self-improvement, some opt to make resolutions about their business. Usually this involves a resolution to increase their revenue for their online business.

But did you know that it is actually quite easy to increase your online revenue?

The trick is to drive more traffic to your Internet business(es). As you know by now, more traffic generally means more money.

No matter what type of site you have, your success hinges on getting as much traffic as possible. But like many online business owners, you have probably exhausted many sources for increasing traffic.

Recently I have found three incredible ways to drive more traffic to your site. The good news is that all these methods are not being done by many webmasters.

So if you want to increase traffic for 2006, be sure to use each of the following three traffic-building mechanisms:

1. Data Feeds

Do you like the idea of creating hundreds, even thousand of pages of legitimate content?

With a data feed, this is possible.

Many online businesses utilize data feeds as a way to help their affiliates. If you are not familiar with this concept, a data feed is file that contains a list of products, descriptions and prices for individual items that are sold by a company.

With a data feed, you can create a specific content page for each product. So if an affiliate program has thousands of products, then you can create thousands of pages of quality content. As you probably know, the more content usually leads to more traffic.

Data feeds are great for getting natural search engine traffic because they list specific products that people are looking

for. If you can find a data feed that is related to your specific website, then you can easily generate more natural traffic for your online business.

2. Viral eBooks

Another tool that can dramatically increase your website traffic is a viral ebook or report. Most of the time, a viral ebook is a PDF that people send to their contacts, which contains your marketing message. It is called viral because every person that receives the ebook is given a reason to pass along your material.

Before starting a viral marketing campaign, it is important to create a reason why people will want to pass along your marketing message. Some of the best reasons can include simple greed or a desire to provide entertaining information to their friends. If you can develop a hook that will take advantage of either of these, then it will be easy to create a successful viral marketing campaign.

What I usually do is create a special 5 to 10 page report on a specific topic. Then I find an affiliate program that is related to the topic. Then I create a mechanism where people can easily brand this ebook with their own affiliate link.

This type of viral ebook is valuable because you can place a mini advertisement or sponsorship on every copy. In addition,

you can let the reader know that he or she can make money by offering this viral ebook. As a result, there is a chance that every person that reads the book will click over to your site.

3. Blogs

By now, you have probably heard about the power of blogs. If you haven’t created one, then you should use the New Year to take advantage of this traffic pulling tool

With blogs, you are providing your audience with fresh new content about your topic. People love to read them, because most

blogs contain new information in an entertaining and easy-to-read format.

The best part about blogs is how much they are valued by search engines. The majority of search engines consider any information on a blog to be important current news, so they pay special attention to articles listed there. As a result, you can use blogs to drive a larger portion of traffic to your Internet business.

For 2010 you should make a resolution to get more traffic to your site. By implementing these three tools into your marketing mix, you will discover that your web traffic (and income) will dramatically increase.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Tips to Increase Ranking and Website Traffic

It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.

• Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
• Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
• Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
• Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
• Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
• Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
• Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
• Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
• Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
• Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
• Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
• When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy.
• When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
• Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.

Tools to monitor your website

You can’t just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites. There are many useful tools to help you find out what exactly is happening.

1. A tool which you can use to test your own website links or other websites for broken links:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

2. With this tool you can check search engines for the number of back links to your URL i.e. other web pages linking to your site:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/backlinks/

3. It sometimes becomes important to know where the servers of your hosting company are physically located. Because, some search engines like Google have the ability to filter search results based on their physical location called geotargeting. This could be used to determine why your site is showing in only a certain country. This link can also be used to research the country location of a particular competitor’s website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/website-country/

4. In order to track the location of the visitor or a customer to your website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/geovisitors/

5. In order to check the Yahoo! web ranking of your’s or your competitor’s website use :
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/webrank/

6. Here is a link to check the web ranking of a website using a Mac or Apple computer:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/pagerank-mac/

7. You need a Google AdSense account for using this. This link provides you with charts and reports which will help you analyze traffic, clicks, and results from your AdSense advertising
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-charts/

8. If you have an AdSense account, you can analyze your website address or another website address to see what Google ads will be displayed when the customer selects certain website names or keywords:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-sandbox/

9. This link will take you to a cooperative advertising network where you can join to display and
share your ads with other website owners:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/


10. You can add the Search Functionality on your website which uses Google. This works only if your site is listed in the Google Index.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/

11. Here are some links to free website counters which you can use on your website to track your traffic and hits:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/counter/
http://www.amazingcounters.com
http://www.cyber-counter.com/signup.php
http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html
http://www.free-counters.net/

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Wise Spending Advice When Advertising

Are you chasing search engine traffic and thinking about your options? Just about anybody in an internet business these days would like to boost traffic to their website no matter what their niche, service or product is.

The purpose of this article is to point out wise ways to advertise to boost traffic to your website. You are probably aware of the ways but may never explored putting them into practice. By making you aware your options hopefully you can move one step forward in your marketing campaign.

Obviously search engines have the probable answer to drive a steady flow of the right targeted traffic to your website. Find below 3 essential ways to consider when it comes to driving traffic to your website.

1. By placing search engine optimized pages that are keyword targeted on the internet to draw the attention of search engines that will direct traffic to your main website,

2. By getting an advertising account with Google and starting a pay per click campaigns using your suite of selected keywords that target your product, service, or niche.
There are other pay Per Click advertisers besides Google on the web that are cheaper, but you may receive less traffic from them.

3.By finding, or writing unique content for your websites main page that focuses on highly targeted keywords, carefully inserted, that may likely trigger a search engines query leading to your site. Your content must also be interesting to keep the attention span of your visitors for a return visit and possible sale.

If you are running your online business on limited funds you may want to consider options 1 and 3 as your solution.
Pay Per Click advertising can get spendy at times and to do the job properly you need to do keyword research using special software to analyze the competition and find the keyword phrases that have high click through rate.

Your best option might be using Private Label Content on your website. With Private Label Content you can do whatever you choose with the content from rewriting to suit your needs and even claiming yourself as the author.

Private Label Content is written by professional writers with expertise in there field or niche and are usually keyword rich on a topic.

The best place to find Private Label Content is by searching the internet for Private Label Membership sites that use professional writers and ghost writers to furnish the material, This kind of content is well written for your niche and because membership sites usually put a limit on the amount of members that can join, so your assured the content is not spread to the millions on the internet. Private Label Content can be used for your blogs, newsletters and website.
With PLR content you will never run out of fresh content for your website and this will be the fuel that feeds search engines and brings visitors to your website.

Hopefully I have given you some insight and ways to advertise wisely on the internet to drive targeted traffic to your website for more sales.

Keywords:
traffic building,website traffic,building traffic

You Never Really Appreciate What You Get For Free Online

Article Body:
It’s true; you never really appreciate what you get for free online.

Sure, you download the stuff; then more often than not file it and forget it.

Different story though when you shell out hard cash; then you value your download, you savour the content, you delight in your new found discovery, you anticipate the wisdom it is about to impart.

Then nine times out of ten…

1. You discover you already know all this stuff, or
2. You realize it is total hogwash, or
3. You have to shell out again for an upsell to make it work

Now you compare it with similar free stuff you downloaded earlier and are surprised to learn there is intrinsic value attached; value you failed to spot first time around – if you even bothered to look.

Free stuff can be good if it follows these criteria…

? It emanates from a genuine source of expertise in its genre
? It does not set out to sell you something you neither need nor want
? It contains content of genuine value

Free stuff can make you money when you dispense it yourself if…

? Your offer is presented in good faith
? Your offer does not attempt to persuade the recipient to make a complementary purchase
? Your offer provides a genuine solution with no strings attached

Above all resist the temptation to infest your offer with a proliferation of thinly disguised affiliate links; they will just hack off the beneficiary.

Free stuff will build you a priceless resource if…

All you ask in return for your free stuff is an email address where you can relay a message with the download link.

Treasure your flow of freely given email addresses; compile them daily into a priceless asset; your ever-growing voluntary optin list.

Now you can think about upselling…

Jim Green is an entrepreneur and bestselling author with an ever-growing string of niche non-fiction titles to his credit. http://free-stuff-xl.com


Keywords:
free stuff, online, download, upsell, free, stuff

Get It To Convert - You Work Hard For Traffic

Anyone can build an ecommerce site. Getting traffic is going to be the first hurdle, but doing so will only matter if you can convert it.

You Work Hard For Traffic – Get It To Convert

Getting your traffic to convert first requires that you understand a few parameters. To have a clue regarding how you are doing, you need to understand server statistics and conversion ratios.

I am continually amazed at the number of sites that do not look at their server statistics. Your server stats are incredibly important because they tell you how many people are coming to your site, where they are coming from, how they found you, how many are turning into customers and, if not, what pages they are leaving from. Without this information, you are just guessing at how well your convert traffic. Don’t!

Once you start looking at server stats, you need to determine your conversion ratio. The conversion ratio is the number of sales you get per visitor to the site. Importantly, it is not the number of sales per hit. A visitor may generate multiple hits, so just focus on visitor statistics. Some stats programs refer to visitors as “sessions.” Regardless, conversion ratios vary by product or service. Some may be as low as 1 in 25 visitors while others will be much higher. If you convert at anything over 1 in 500, the site probably needs some serious tweaks unless you are in an extremely competitive or general market.

Making your convert is all about providing a convenient solution for your prospects. You should review your site from this perspective. Is it easy to find and buy a product or do you have to click through four or five pages? Make it as simple as possible.

Advertising links can cause poor sales. Many people make the mistake of having their advertising link to their home page. If your advertising refers to a specific service or product on your site, the advertising should click through directly to that page. Never make your prospects hunt for what they are looking for on the site. Many of them will not do it.

As strange as it may sound, the load time of your site can kill your sales. Remember, 40 percent of Internet users are still on dial-up modems. While your site might load quickly when you look at it on your cable, T1 or DSL connection, how does it do on a 56k modem? Don’t guess. Go find one and try to load your site. If you have a lot of graphics, you are going to be in for a shock!

Even if your site loads quickly, most ecommerce sites have time glitches on the order page. This glitch occurs when the customer fills out the order information and clicks the processing button. Sites can grind to a halt as they convert to the secure credit card processing system. This is such a prevalent problem that a majority of ecommerce sites will lose up to 40 percent of their sales on the order page. Make sure your site loads quickly, particularly the order page.

Improving your conversion rates is all about understanding how your site performs. If you can focus on your subject and get the site to load quickly, you should see dramatic improvement.

Keywords:
conversions, convert, traffic, visitors, sessions, hits, ratio, improve, prospects, sales, advertising

Your Words Is Key To Increased Website Traffic

You have to have a way with words in order to increase the traffic on your website. Sometimes, the most intelligent people in the world can have a problem communicating with others. When those intelligent people or great businesspersons develop a website that would blow your mind with great inspirations and benefits, they may not know exactly how to get across their message to their target audience. Learning to communicate with the right words to get your point across clearly and without rambling is an important skill that takes some time to acquire. You can take the time to learn communication skills or you can hire a consultant to help you get your point across to others. Sometimes the simplest things are right in front of you.

When writing to produce more website traffic, you will want to make your website easy for others to read. It is better to write in laymen terms than in long scientific or technical mumbo jumbo. You want people to be able to read the pages on your website without getting a headache and without having to refer to a dictionary. Visitors should not have to learn how to translate your website in order to understand what you are trying to say. A hard to read or hard to understand website will be abandoned quickly.

When writing, be sure all content is relevant to your website. Only write the information that readers are looking for and that is relevant to your website and products. When you begin writing your first paragraph, try starting with paragraph with your conclusion. By getting to the point right off the bat, this could grab a reader’s attention and keep them reading. Keep your paragraphs and sentences short and to the point. Readers do not enjoy long, wordy web pages that take too much time to read through. Avoid writing in a passive voice. Readers want action words and a strong voice to tell them what to do. Keep your writing in a steady flow. Always read your writing aloud and listen to the flow. In addition, reading aloud can help catch those nasty little typos that will drive people away from your site. Proofread your writing before posting it to your website.

Understand that your website will be accessible to viewers all over the world. Although visitors from other countries may be able to view your website, they may not understand the language or the content. If your website is not for worldwide viewing, then you should specifically list the regions that can best view your website. You can add the intended region(s) in the page description or keywords. This way, if someone in Canada is looking for a veterinarian, he or she aren’t frustrated by looking through all the veterinarian web sites that only cater to pet owners in Paris, France.

Even some regional topics hold value to worldwide viewers. Perhaps a person in Italy will be visiting your hometown and would need to speak with a veterinarian about traveling with their pet. You may wish to provide general information on your website that will appeal to visitors outside your specified region.

Most of the websites on the Internet are in English, but that does not mean that English is a first language throughout the world, it just means it is easy to translate. Never use slang when writing on your website. Slang is not an internationally understood language and can be difficult when translating.

Also, take into consideration money and number conversions. If you are listing a price for services on your website, be sure to list the currency you will accept or will be using (USD, pounds, yen, etc.) The same goes if you are listing measurements or sizes. Always list the conversions or provide a link to a website for conversions. When in doubt, hire a professional translator.

Your goal is to increase the traffic to your website to benefit you or your business the most. By using the World Wide Web, you will be able to reach an audience of millions, all to your benefit. However, reaching all of these people, in the far reaches of the world requires good communication skills. You must be able to explain who you are and what you can do for the people. Tell them why they need your services above all the others. Be concise and to the point.


Keywords:
internet marketing,online business, traffic,online advertising,ecommerce,marketing,seo,