Increase Your Targeted Website Traffic

TRAFFIC GENERATION ~ The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow

by: Ron Hutton

If you're feeling a bit of confusion and frustration about how to get visitors to your website and generate more sales, I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way until I stopped listening to every "big time" marketer that came along with the latest traffic generating trick.

You've got dozens of gurus vying for your attention and every one of them has the solution to all of your problems. Right? The proliferation of messages that promise a traffic explosion using new techniques can become overwhelming.

Time out.

Take a deep breath.

Sit back in your chair.

Relax.

Now, if you will focus your energy on a very short list of traffic generation strategies that actually DO work, and commit to continually improving your skills in these few areas, you will be amazed at what you can achieve... WILL achieve.

In part 1 of this article series, we discussed the fact that...

There are only 3 ways to get traffic to your website:
1) Buy it.
2) Borrow it.
3) Steal it.

Since 3 is not an option we're going to consider, that leaves us with "buy it" and "borrow it".

We also talked about the "Holy Grail" of web traffic. What is it? FREE TRAFFIC! I want it. You want it. Every disillusioned internet marketer wants it.

Here's the truth...

It's a myth.

It doesn't exist.

There is no such thing as free website traffic.

We'll resume our discussion where we left off...

In parts 1 and 2 of this series we discussed what your first two priorities should be for buying website traffic (PPC search engines and ezine advertising). Next, let's talk about borrowing traffic.

There are 2 traffic borrowing strategies that we'll talk about here.
1) Search engines.
2) Writing and submitting articles.

There's no disguising the fact that the print books, ebooks and reports written on these two strategies number in the hundreds and even thousands. Therefore, I'll make no attempt to provide comprehensive treatment on either of them.

However, they're both important and worthy of at least a primer. So, let's start with search engines.

If you want to make money with your website today, this week or this year, what is the absolute worst investment of your time?

Search engine optimization.

I know that some marketers don't want to hear this, but it's a fact for some of the reasons stated above and plenty of others. The mathematical (im)probabilities of achieving a top ranking for a search phrase that will result in meaningful traffic that includes buyers is� let's just say the odds aren't in your favor.

There are strategies that work with search engines to drive traffic to websites, but one thing they absolutely do not include is any attempt to optimize a sales page or for that matter an entire website that's designed to convert visitors into customers. The strategies that work with search engines offer them what they crave most, which is content. Perhaps in the future we can discuss this in some detail.

The next big time waster that's closely related to search engine optimization is submitting your website to the search engines. If your site won't be listed in the top 2, 3 or 4 pages of a search engine, nobody's going to see it anyways. This debate rages back and forth even with SEO experts who make their full time living doing nothing but consulting on SEO. Submit? Don't submit?

Following is an excerpt from Jill Whalen's High Ranking ezine. Jill does this stuff full time and she's well respected. I'm including this because it's enlightening. Here we go...

*** BEGIN EXCERPT ***

READER QUESTION: Is manually submitting each site better?

JW: You don't actually need to submit your site at all to search engines -- neither manually nor in an automated fashion. They all have spiders that "crawl" the Web and find all pages that exist, as long as there is a link to them from a page they already know about.

READER QUESTION: Once submitted ...do you keep submitting ...if so how often? (So you don't get kicked out.)

JW: Never.

READER QUESTION: The Microsoft submit supposedly submits to hundreds of search engines and directories

JW: It's a waste of time and bandwidth.

READER QUESTION: Is this good or bad (the number of SE's submitted to)

JW: It's neither, just useless.

READER QUESTION: I heard the more the better ...but there are some pretty cheesy search engines out there

JW: "The more the better" is incorrect. There are only 4 major search databases that matter: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves. Their databases power all of the other engines that make a difference.

*** END EXCERPT ***

Interesting, huh? So, let's move on.

Writing and Submitting Articles:

I KNOW that there are talented writers online who have not capitalized on their writing skills yet.

If you're in this group, you need to write and submit articles.

IF YOU'RE NOT IN THIS GROUP, you need to write and submit articles.

You see, nobody is out there grading you. Google does not moralize over your ability (or lack thereof) to write a coherent article. Google will, however, spider the links back to your IBSoftShop if you include it in your article's resource box. The more you do this, the better you'll get.

Writing and submitting articles is a long term approach to generating traffic that you should start right now. Set time aside weekly to consistently get your name and your site's URL out there in various article directories. Can you spare one hour a week? If yes, do this.

I just published an article on this topic titled "How to Vote for Your 0wn Website in the Search Engines." You can read it here: http://www.gothrive.com/articles/vote-for-your-own-website.html

Next, can I save you some time?

Here's a short list of activities and "programs" that will consume your time with very little if any result:

- Start Page Networks
- Exit Traffic Exchanges
- Safelists
- FFA Pages
- Lurking in Forums

There are others too, but who really benefits from a start page network, exit traffic exchange, safelist or FFA page? The person who owns and runs it. They benefit because they get to market to you and you get to market to other people who want nothing other than free traffic. Remember free traffic? Forget it.

You could spend the next year whiling away the hours on free traffic schemes or you could find PPC traffic that will turn your $10 investment into $49.85 in profit and then duplicate this success 10 times, 50 times or 100 times. Which will you choose?

Pay Per Click Advertising

by: Anita van Wyk

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of
search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign
versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of
other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor
your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in
search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier - and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on
search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position - which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are
bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some
computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit
you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For
example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50
cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be
paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. The good news
is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is
both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other
popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find
that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when
you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about
consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.

This article may be freely reprinted as long as all links and author information remain. 
About the author:
** Find more powerful articles at: http://www.small-biz-web-solution.com. An affordable web-hosting, web-building and web-marketing solution for any small business/ individual. Free Trial available.

What Should You Know About Search�Engines and Pay-Per-Click?

by: Chet Childers

Here�s a fact for you, 85 to 95% of websites are found through a search engine.� You may have the most incredible website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking.� Can you imagine a billboard in the Sahara desert?� Who sees it?��

So, how will searchers find your website? What types of search engines could they use?

Search engines fall into two categories.� The first is referred to as natural, organic or standard.� The second is called pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement.
�
Natural, organic and standard are interchangeable terms describing a search engine that bases its search rankings on a ranking algorithm.� The algorithms involve a number of criteria and parameters, all relating to the content of the website, the website�s size, the number of incoming links to the website, and the content�s relevancy.� You will hear terms such as keyword relevancy and keyword density to describe various components of the algorithms.�
�
For the standard search engines, you, your webmaster or hired search engine optimization specialist could spend considerable time optimizing your website to achieve top rankings. The goal is for your website to appear on the first or second page of the search engines� results when your target user searches keywords or keyword phrases.

The good news is rankings on standard search engines are free.� The downside is the tremendous amount of time and effort required to achieve exceptional search engine rankings. ��Let�s confess to each other that top rankings on standard search engines can be tough and timely to achieve!
�
The interchangeable terms pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement describe a search engine that bases its search rankings on a "bid for position" basis.� Simply stated, you "bid" a price to be in a specific�position of the search rankings for a particular search keyword or keyword phrase.� For example, the #1 position on the search phrase "pay per click" recently required a bid of $3.55 per click, whereas the 15th position required only a bid of 55 cents.� As a result, your differential website advertising costs between position #1 and #15 can be considerable.
�
With pay-per-click search engines, your ability to bid high can dramatically impact your website's search engine ranking when the search results display website domain names or URL's for the search keyword or keyword phrase.� The benefit is your website gains visibility with the searcher, but you are not charged the pay-per-click "bid" until a searcher actually clicks on your website domain name or URL displayed in the search engine results. The selection of your website in the search engine results is called a click-through.
�
In general, click-through rates range from 1% to 5% of the number of impressions.� What is all of this?� A click is when a searcher selects or "clicks" your pay-per-click ad.� An impression is one display of your pay-per-click ad on the search engine results.� So, the click-through rate is a measure of the total number of ad clicks versus the total number of impressions in a period of time:
�
����Click-Through Rate % = Total Number of Ad Clicks / Total Number of Ad Impressions * 100
�
Let's do the math for our #1 position bid of $3.55 per click.� In September, 2004 there were 21,535 searches for "pay per click."� First, let�s assume a 1% click-through rate. The top bidder spent $764.49 (21,535 * 1% * $3.55).� Now, at a 5% click-through rate the top bidder spent $3,822.45 (21,535 * 5% * $3.55).� Budgeting and controlling marketing expenses with such a broad range of potential costs could be tough.� Plus, such costs could be the tip of the iceberg. We still must consider derivatives of the keyword or keyword phrase. So, was being #1 worthwhile?� That depends on your website�s cost per visitor, conversion rate and profit margin of your product or service.
�
From what we�ve covered so far, you should realize you can achieve a top or high ranking through the pay-per-click search engine. But, a high ranking will cost money and these costs can be volatile. Meanwhile, the standard search engine remains free.�

However, pay-per-click offers one significant advantage.� It enables you to achieve website visibility with a high ranking instantaneously or overnight.� If you want to draw traffic to your website fast for any reason, pay-per-click can make that happen. Remember, maximizing the standard search engine process takes time!�
�
Let�s summarize the pros and cons of pay-per-click marketing:�

* Improves your website�s ranking and traffic quickly.
* Tests the marketability of your product or service swiftly.
* Determines the ability of your web site to convert visitors to a call to action or make a�purchase promptly.
* Identifies which keyword phrases will provide the best conversion rate rapidly.
* Provides complete control of the search engine campaign, both position and cost.

Many individuals criticize pay-per-click because of the costs involved. But, have you really thought about the cost issue?� Unless you or someone in your organization has expertise in search engine optimization, you�ll probably pay several thousand dollars in fees to a search engine optimization specialist to improve and optimize your website to achieve higher rankings in the standard search engines.� So, my question to you is.� Are the standard search engine rankings really free?

At the end of the standard versus pay-per-click search engine debate, it�s like the old saying, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Or, it�s like the old commercial, "You can pay me now or you can pay me later." The reality of the debate is you must evaluate your specific website situation and utilize the search engine approach that maximizes your website promotion goals and investment.

Website visitors for your business - Building strong website traffic.

by: Peter Jordaan

SWDHATHMYY8F 

It is worth looking at some values and strengths of a few technical and promotional elements of your website that will help you to lay a foundation in building profitable online success. Once you have decided on your market and have chosen a relevant domain name for your online business, you need simple and effective tools and methods to put and keep your business on a profitable track. Ideally you will want to make use of easy-to-use methods that keeps visitors coming to your website. Lets look at a few practical ideas.

When a visitor comes to your website you have to get their follow-up information by collecting their email address. It is important to �enable� your web site to automatically deliver quality content such as a newsletter to visitors and allow you to follow up with extra information when necessary. Top marketers agree that this forms a large percentage of their online success. How do you do this? You create forms on your web pages, giving visitors the chance to subscribe to your opt-in list, newsletter or report. This allows you to introduce your service and offer something valuable in order to build relationship. Email follow-up through autoresponders is totally free and an absolute necessity for implementing. All you need to do is integrate the autoresponder into your web site via a form so that you can pre-load it with your newsletters. You may say that you�re not a writer, but what do you know about your industry? Write it down and put it into an informative newsletter. Subscribers can now begin to see you as an expert on the subject and look to you for the solutions that your business is already offering.

Once your newsletter is up and running, you can use these very same tips and ideas you share with your subscribers and also write a weekly article about your product or service, and then submit it to ezines online. This is very easy to do and will have great response for your business. There are tens of thousands of ezine publishers online that needs good content, and will give you valuable exposure for your business. You will have many sites linking to your site and people will be able to read what your business is about and visit your website. Then they will also be able to subscribe to your newsletter which provides even more information about your product or service. Each article has got a resource box at the bottom which allows visitors to visit your web site. Write your 4 to 6 line resource box by viewing some samples online and making up your own. Finding details of ezine publishers can quite easily be done through looking up in search engines.

Let�s go a step further and look at newspaper classifieds. By using little snippets of ideas from your newsletters and articles, you can come up with short eye catching promotional messages to use in newspaper classifieds. There are newspaper companies that offer state wide and nation wide advertising in their papers, often covering readership in excess of 2 to 3 million. By placing 10-15 word tiny classified ads all over the globe can dramatically increase your website traffic. A big mistake people make when doing this is to try and make sales directly from their ads instead of just generating leads for later follow-up. You would want to get your leads to your web site first from where they can subscribe to your automated content.

Lastly lets consider the eye opener an affiliate program can have for your business. With the right product or service it is by far the hottest way of building your business and customer base. Submit your program to affiliate directories across the web. You�ll have affiliates making sales for you and not paying a cent in advertising until you�ve made the sale! Your advertising will be covered by your affiliates, and you can concentrate on providing customer service and continue follow-up with your increasing customer base through newsletter delivery and other product offers. By becoming familiar with how important it is to stay relevant in implementing these factors will benefit your business and you will find that you�ll be achieving better results.


About the author:
Peter Jordaan is the owner of a hosting company and shares
information regarding values of hosting a successful online
business. In his free onsite e-course he covers more relevant
information about these qualities. You can visit his
site by going to http://wirelessbusinessmedia.com



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Marketing Magic: More Money in Less Time

by Christopher Enders
http://www.double-payment.com

Which is more precious: time or money? If you could have an ample supply of either, but not both, which would you choose?
It's a tough question. If you choose money, you may not have the time to enjoy it. If you choose time, how will you get along
financially?

Since the dawn of the Internet, people have been looking for ways to have BOTH lots of time on their hands and lots money in their
wallets. It seems like very few of us have broken that secret code that allows us to make a great living without giving up all
of our precious spare time.

Like a great magician, a great marketer never reveals the real tricks of the trade...those methods he or she uses to make a great living without sitting at the computer for 16 hours a day. Of course they want to keep their techniques a secret; they'd like to keep all the money to themselves, right? Just like magicians like David Copperfield want a monopoly on magic, Internet millionaires want a monopoly on success.

So what about the rest of us? What are we supposed to do? Every day we're bombarded with business opportunities that either rip
us off or simply don't work. But we continue to work at it, trying to find that one golden key to easy street.

If you have found something that works for you, more power to you. If, like the rest of us, you're still struggling to make
your big break, keep looking. Success is out there for people who take the time to sniff it out.

Believe it or not, there are money-making systems out there that you really cannot lose with. Even if you fail at the system, you still make money. Best of all, these systems can be worked without huge time or financial commitments. True success systems
are complete and turn-key. They bring you website traffic (even if you don't have a site yet), residual income, and lasting
success without backbreaking work.

Income systems really do exist that allow you to: 1) make a full-time income in one hour per day, and 2) completely eliminate the cost of online advertising and promotions. And, did you know that virtually all successful Internet marketers use the same powerful billing technique?

There really is no complicated Internet success bible. If you can harness the power of a few very powerful, yet closely guarded
techniques, you can succeed in almost any Internet business. Dig deep, travel far, and do some serious homework, and you'll find the goldmine you're looking for.



About the author:
Author Christopher Enders is founder of
http://www.double-payment.comand provides marketing advice and copywriting. Learn the closely-guarded secrets of the Internet
success gurus to make a full-time income in just a few hours a week!


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