vineri, 23 iulie 2010
sâmbătă, 3 iulie 2010
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?
joi, 1 iulie 2010
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.
marți, 22 iunie 2010
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.
vineri, 14 mai 2010
Website visitors for your business - Building strong website traffic.
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
Circulated by Article Emporium
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
Circulated by Article Emporium
miercuri, 21 aprilie 2010
luni, 19 aprilie 2010
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!
Circulated by Article Emporium
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!
Circulated by Article Emporium
luni, 5 aprilie 2010
miercuri, 31 martie 2010
Get More Website Traffic
by: Andrew Daigle |
If you�re an online marketer and own a website, you know the key to making sales is getting more traffic to your website. You also know all web site traffic is not created equal. You not only need lots of web traffic, you need lots of targeted traffic. That�s the key and once you have it, your sales will increase exponentially. The best way to get targeted website traffic is to use Pay-per-Click (PPC) services such as Google AdWords, or Yahoo or a host of other pay services. You also need to know what you�re doing or you could find yourself spending lots of money, getting poor results and losing money very quickly. Also, when you�re first starting out, you have a limited budget, and starting with PPC campaigns may not even be an option for you at this point in time. That�s where free traffic exchanges come in. Free traffic exchanges can be a great way to get traffic to your website. You should also know there�s really no such thing as free because you must spend your time surfing through other websites to earn credits. Free traffic exchanges are a great way to get lots of visitors to your site however, so spending an hour a day surfing, is not a lot to ask if you�re making sales from your efforts. And isn�t this why your in this business to begin with? Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a many reasons. The best reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered. Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search engines love traffic exchanges. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher page rank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn�t always better. Some free traffic exchanges may do very well for one marketer, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program in the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the best product or service on the internet, if everyone promoted the same thing, your chances of someone purchasing through your website or links, are slim to none. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don't fall into this trap. It's one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it's another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it's time to move on to something else. We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That's why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn't working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn't promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange. One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren�t doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they�re the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again. As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you're trying to promote something everyone else is, I don't care what traffic exchange service you're using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you're doing all you can to make sales. If you're going to use multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, you should get yourself a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X. Getting free traffic to your website can be a lot of work. If you don�t have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords or Yahoo, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need, for Free! About the author: Andrew Daigle is owner and creator of TrumpTraffic.com, a Free Traffic Exchange http://www.trumptraffic.com, DXInOne Free Training Site and Forum http://www.dxout.comand Google AdWords Training http://www.adwording.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
Generating Traffic On A Budget
by: Wayne McDonald |
Most webmasters keep their prized web traffic generating systems to themselves or charge an arm and a leg. I am one of the guys in the trenches. Before I share with you the simplest and easiest methods to generate website traffic I will begin with a little background information. I have several websites and in the past ten years I have worked with gurus that promised to deliver traffic to my sites. In fact I have paid from $200 to over $2,000 for traffic to my sites. I had one person that charged a reasonable fee and my traffic went from 500 visitors to 8,000 visitors. Three years later his fee wasn�t that reasonable, but I decided to go ahead and try another website. After three months and two thousand dollars I saw no results. As many people know the search engines create algorithms so nobody can beat the system. The gurus figure a way around this and charge lots of money to drive traffic to your site. Then the dance continues and the search engines create new algorithms. Next thing you know you are going back to the guru or searching for someone new. Many of us have been sold a bill of goods about generating traffic to our websites and the lure of getting on the top ten. I can tell you from personal experience that I have been in the top ten and it wasn�t that big of an impact. The hook the gurus use to charge a higher fee is the number of keywords you need to get in the top ten. After a while you�ll realize that ONE keyword may have over one hundred variations. Working with gurus creates a roller coaster of traffic to your website. Your traffic and sales are dependent on the gurus and the search engines algorithms. When you stop working with the gurus, or their magic isn�t working, your website traffic and sales hit bottom. Yes there are rewards working with gurus, but you better have a hot site that sells. Start with methods that cost less and allow your traffic to build. Check your status reports to learn more about your visitors and the keywords they used to find you. A good hosting provider will offer this with your hosting package. A wise marketer once told me that it was best to get off the roller coaster and put my money into methods that build steady website traffic. As an owner of a website, you learn how to update your own pages so you are not dependent on someone to update your website. The same goes for generating website traffic. When you take the time and invest in building traffic on a regular basis, then you will be free from the gurus and the search engines algorithms. The simplest and time proven techniques that take very little time are your best answers. One method I know you have heard over and over is submitting articles. Let me give you the WHY submitting articles is important. When you are found in the search engines you are just another listing on all those pages. When submitting articles, I get a loyal audience that reads my articles each week. In fact, when they visit another website and see other articles I have written on other topics, it builds more credibility, rapport, link popularity and traffic. Generating website traffic is using a combination of methods. Submitting to the search engines is still important, but it is only a part of your overall traffic building strategy. With most search engines it may take one to three months to see results. Now here is the INSIDE INFORMATION most gurus won�t tell you. I am using a traffic generating system that is available to anyone at no cost. In fact it is simple to implement and takes only ten minutes of your time to set-up. This system is instant and you will see an immediate increase in your traffic and it you can verify your results with your own status reports. About the author: Wayne McDonald is the TRAFFIC KING! Get your FREE Special Report "Generating Traffic On A Budget" at http://increase-your-website-traffic.holisticwebdirectory.comand for web hosting solutions visit http://webhosting.holisticwebdirectory.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
Focus On Your Target Market To Achieve Home Business Success
by: Kirk Bannerman |
| To achieve success in a home based business it is of critical importance to maintain a laser beam focus on your target market and to direct your marketing activities to that specific group. Website traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything. You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits per hour driven to your website!". This type of website traffic is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very low conversion ratio. It's basically "throw it up against the wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic. I speak from experience because in the early days of developing my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned. Exchanging links has been an important part of generating website traffic for quite some time, but the vast majority of people looking to trade links don't understand that just wildly swapping links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go. For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more complicated than just marching to the tune Google plays. Many website owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that links pointing to your website can help your search engine ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper than that. In my opinion, the targeted traffic that relevant links pointing to your site will bring can be as important as the traffic that comes to your website from people using search engines. This is where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly relevant to your own, the traffic you receive from those links will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with your theme. Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra, online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc) the impression is often not favorable and may actually drive your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your website itself is offering. Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic by having good content on your website and exchanging links with highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Always keep in mind that...traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything. About the author: Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. For more information visit his website at http://www.home-based-business-team.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
Developing a Profitable Web Business Concept
by: Michael Lawrence |
The first step to starting a profitable online business of your own is developing a topic for your website. You want to select from a list of topics that interest you since you are going to have to write original content for your website. Too many "green" webmasters make the mistake of choosing a website topic that they think will make them a lot of money instead of one that interests them. They spend their time thinking about how to monetize their site before they actually have any visitors. What is the end result? A website that feels like a commercial. You have to remember that people are not using the internet to find your sales pitch they are using it to find information. What does this tell you? If you want to be a successful web business owner then your website should provide your users with valuable information resources related to your target keywords. Ask yourself, am I more likely to buy a product from a trusted information source whose website I find useful and visit frequently or a website loaded up with banners and links to every way man has invented to make money? Build your user's trust by providing valuable original content on your website. If you choose a topic that interest's you and that you are passionate about, the content will be much easier to develop. When developing your site concept choose 4-5 broad topics at first until you identify which one has the most profit potential through keyword analysis techniques. The top benefit of writing your own website content is that the search engines love it! If you want to get free targeted traffic to your website (of course you do, right?) having original, information filled website content makes the search engines very happy. As you continue to add valuable original content to your website you will start to notice other websites linking back to you. This will bring both free targeted traffic and higher link popularity with the search engines depending on the quality of the sites that are linking to your site. Search engine's see backlinks to a site as an indicator of how "popular" a site is. If you have a large number of websites linking back to your content you must be important, right? There is a lot to learn on this subject that goes beyond the scope of this article. Visitors to your website will already be pre-sold since the backlinks you will receive should be from "related websites�, or from �internet searches� performed on keywords related to your website content. Incorporate links to the products and services you are promoting within your website content and you have a powerful sales tool. This strategy will not "explode" your income overnight but will provide you a steady stream of pre-sold, targeted visitors from the search engines within 3-6 months. About the author: Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for http://www.cobrasurf.comproviding free website traffic and free website promotion. He also publishes a web promotion related blog which can be found at http://cobrasurf.blogspot.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
Consultants - Writing Articles for the Internet Blankets the World with your Expertise and Style
by: Lynella Grant |
A Consultant could be an Expert about Absolutely Anything Calling yourself a �consultant� demands further clarification. A consultant who� What specific problems do you handle? And who needs what you know? Everyone? (Never true) Businesses selling to seniors? (A precisely defined niche) Success depends on how clearly you can define yourself and what you offer. How easily can potential clients understand it? You provide clients more than your expert knowledge and problem-solving skills. Your delivery style (tricks) are every bit as valuable as your knowledge base. We all relate to some businesses (personally and professionally) more effectively than to others. Great match-ups require something akin to a mating call to help a consultant find and connect with ideal clients. Every consultant is unique in important ways. Your challenge is to express those significant intangibles � so they set you apart from others using the same job title. Do clients understand what you can do for them? How you�re different from the competition? Why they�d prefer you? Article Marketing is Your Ideal Stage Whether you�re selling a service, speaking or training, nothing persuades like offering a sample. Writing articles that highlight your style and expertise does that for you. A meaty, 600 to 800 word article is long enough to deliver a tangible taste. Once it�s widely posted, the message can be read by thousands. Some readers will search for what else you�ve said, or click over to your website. Writing repeated in-depth articles further establishes your niche, point of view, and expertise. They�re building your name recognition and readership in short order. Your stock-in-trade is information, so packaging it into articles makes you a content creator. The Internet voraciously demands a steady diet of new material. Websites, ezines (and now blogs) efficiently deliver ideas to targeted readers. But sad to say, too many articles consist of rehashed, low-grade material. Stand out with fresh, professional-quality information. Being a cut above builds respect and trust � a must for doing business down the road. Local Search can Further Define Your Market Unlike a plumber or day care center, most consultants needn�t be confined to the local arena. Your Internet exposure connects you to a national or global audience, if that�s your goal. But if your target market is closer to home, articles still help to position you. Recent research by The Kelsey Group show that 70% use the Internet to make local buying decisions. And nowadays, 36% of search engine queries request local search results. That means the person includes a geographic term in their search engine query. For example, a query with: �employee benefit consultant� + Denver only lists the small pool of appropriate Denver providers. Every consultant needs to make sure their information appears in local search queries, http://www.yellowpagesage.com/localsearch.html . The trend toward local search is growing quickly. Businesses can easily be left out�which makes them unfindable by online searchers. Who can afford to miss 70% of their client base? Having your own website isn�t necessary � but still helpful for a variety of reasons. Potential Clients will Check You Out Online Surveys reveal that over half of respondents consider search engines a better source of buying information than Yellow Pages, newspapers or magazines. When someone enters your name or company into Google (in quotes), what comes up? It helps if your name is unusual. If not, follow up with �search within results� for a qualifier term (like your specialty, �employee benefits�) to find your cites. In just a few moments, searchers get a picture of your professional standing and scope of recognition. They�re likely to be swayed by what they see. Who mentions you, and what are they saying? What kinds of links come to your website? If you�ve been publishing articles, they�ll also show up � enhancing your credibility and incoming links. In my own case, a Google search for my name showed about 100 cites before I started article promotions. Now that�s well over 3,000. So many cites boosted my website traffic and Page Rank as well. If you haven�t gone �ego surfing� on Google for mentions of your name, you should. Because the public will. Make sure there�s plenty of stuff for them to find that does you proud. About the author: --Dr. Lynella Grant Consultant and Author - Promote yourself, business, website, or book with online articles http://www.promotewitharticles.comFree how-to. Or let me write and submit your articles online for you. No learning curves Circulated by Article Emporium |
A New Way To Create Digital Product Fast
by: Mark Tse |
| During last few months, there is a new kind of Hot product rights available for internet marketers. It is called "Private Label Rights", or "Source Code Rights". So what is "Private Label Rights"? Although there are small variations between products, the basic requirement to define a "Private Label Rights" product is - by owning the rights, you are able to rebrand the product using your name and market the product as YOUR OWN creation. Actually this is not a new thing. Famous Writers hire ghostwriters to write for them. Software and Script Company hire programmers to write programs and scripts. And this time you pay someone to get the rights of using other's creation as yours, it is just similar. Then why owning "Private Label Rights" can be profitable? Let me compare this new rights with a very similar rights - "Resale Rights". By owning resale rights, you are able to resell the product as many as you can, and collect all money from every sale you make. However, you are not able to change the name of the product creator, so your customers know it is not your creation, and may become the original product creator's customers and purchase other products from him/her directly. This means you may lose profit by losing a customer and having a new competitor. On the other hand, by owning a "Private Label Rights" product, you are the product creator in customer's eyes. This make you more respectful and more professional. Your customers will be more likely to purchase from you. But is there any disadvantage of owning a "Private Label Rights" product? Yes there is one thing you must know when owning a "Private Label Rights" product. The rights may not be exclusive. That is, you may not be the only one rights owner. The actual product creator may sell the rights to many people including you. Therefore, to make your final product becomes unique, I recommend you do extra customization to your product, for example, change the product name, design a new cover, add extra words and features, etc. Final Words: Creating an original product not just requires solid knowledge and good writing skills, it is also time consuming and expensive. "Private Label Rights" is sure an excellent way for small business owners and home business people to have their own product fast and easy. And if you are using them correctly, it is highly possible to make you more money, increase your reputation, website traffic and sales. Are you interested to own some "Private Label Rights" products in less than 10 minutes? Here is a low cost collection for you: http://www.marktse.com/source-code-files/ About the author: This article is written by Mark Tse. Mark shares free tips, articles and downloads about Internet Marketing. You can visit his Internet Marketing Blog and read his latest posts here: http://www.marktse.com/blog/ Circulated by Article Emporium |
Amazing Secrets Of A Free Traffic Generation MASTER
by: Willie Crawford |
Without traffic to your website, you're not going to make any money in your online business (unless you're able to tap into someone else's traffic). For many websites... especially new sites, one of the fastest, surest ways to drive traffic to the site is pay per click search engines. The RISK in using pay per clicks is that you don't know how well that traffic is going to convert before you've paid for it. You can adjust your webpages and your pay per click listing fairly quickly, but today I want to share with you two of my MAJOR free traffic generation methods. The most powerful weapon I've used in my marketing arsenal lately is actually... blogging. A blog is simply an on-line diary or weblog. Since they are usually updated frequently, the search engines love them and visit them often. The way that I use my blogs is that when I make a post, I include a link to a site or webpage that I want spidered by the search engines. Google actually visits my blogs daily, and takes snapshots of everything there, and follows links from the pages, and takes snapshots of those pages! So, I make minor changes to pages that I want to get ranked higher, and then I "help" Google to find those updated pages. It's a simple, ethical, and very powerful method. I'm fairly new at blogging, but I'm quickly getting the hang of it. Most of what I know about blogging I learned from a course by my friend Paul Short. The course is called RSS Exposed. I recommend you get a copy of Paul's course today and set aside 2 hours to digest it. Get it at: http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=109478 Paul is like me... he's very busy, and doesn't have time for fluff. So his course is under 100 pages, and it's all "stuff" that you can read and then immediately implement. Does this stuff work thought. My friend Stephen Pierce taught me that NOTHING is more powerful than concrete PROOF. So let's look at how I rank for a few keywords that I'm focusing on right now. I'll show you with a few of the more than 100 niches that I have top 10.... often top 3 rankings for. I know that showing you these examples may attract the attention of potential and existing competitors, so I won't show you the most lucrative ones :-) Readers who know me, know that my real online success started with a simple soul food or southern cookbook! That one cookbook still generates a very nice six-figure income! This season of the year, I know that people are on-line searching for holiday recipes and also gift-giving ideas. My logs show me how my market finds me... keywords and sources. They show that for the cookbook, most find my site through Google, with MSN being a distant second. Here's how I ranked for a few cooking related terms (as of November 21st, 2004): Soul Food Recipes - #2 out of 1,220,000 Soul Food - #3 out of 8,840,000 Soul Food Cookbook - #2 out of 273,000 Deep Fried Turkey Recipe - #3 out of 257,000 Deep Fried Turkey Recipes - #4 out of 302,000 Sweet Potato Pie - #2 out of 614,000 Sweet Potato Pie Recipe #2 out of 394,000 Fried Chicken Recipe - #2 out of 861,000 Fried Chicken Recipes - #2 out of 1,160,000 Southern Fried Chicken - #2 out of 436,000 Deep Fried Turkey - #14 out of 330,000 Pound Cake Recipe - #2 out of 547,000 Macaroni And Cheese Recipe - #1 out of 207,000 Collard Green Recipe - #4 out of 21,200 Southern Recipes - # 15 out of 4,970,000 ... I guess I need to work on that last listing :-) One of my other markets is "Internet Marketing," and those looking to start or improve upon an online or home-based business. How do I rank there? Here are a few of the thousands of terms that bring me in free search engine traffic (again based upon my website logs): Internet Marketing 101 - # 1 out of 5,550,000 Internet Marketing Course - #2 out of 10,600,000 Free Internet Marketing Course - #2 out of 11,800,000 Free Internet Marketing Lessons - #2 out of 2,810,000 Homebased Business - #9 out of 1,930,000 Homebased Business Course - #1 out of 522,000 Free Homebased Business Course - #1 out of 483,000 For those of you without your own product, let's see how I do with products I have reprint rights to. One is a web copywriting course by Bob Serling called Power Copywriting For The Internet. When someone is searching for that course they search on very specific terms... but... since their search is so specific, a higher percentage of them will buy when they get to my website. This is a more niche market, but some of my rankings are: Internet Copywriter + Bob Serling - #1 out of 985 Web Copywriting + Bob Serling - # 7 out of 918 Web Copywriting Course + Bob Serling - #5 out of 16,400 Power Copywriting For The Internet - #2 out of 128,000 Another product that I have reprint rights to is an excellent course on how to increase your website, and advertising, conversion rates. It's called, "Small Changes - Big Profits." Here's my ranking on keywords customers have recently used to find (and buy) this product: Increase Website Conversion - #6 out of 2,480,000 How to Increase Website Conversion - # 6 our of 2,490,000 Note that when you enter that last phrases, Google tells you that "how to" is a very common phrase and therefore not included in the search. However, notice that Google found an additional 10,000 pages when I gave it that expression. Ok, so I'm confused too :-) My second most powerful weapon right now is that I write lots of ezine articles... like this one. Since 1998, I would estimate that I've written over 300. Those articles are a very powerful way of getting one-way links to my site. Those articles are a powerful way for people with specific problems or interest to find my sites. Here's a simple example of how powerful articles can be. I know for a fact that the majority of people in network marketing aren't doing that great. I also know why. The proof that I know what they are doing wrong, and how to correct it, is provided by the fact that I was recently the #2 producing representative in a major network marketing company for 2 consecutive months. The only reason I wasn't #2 longer is that I've only been with the company a little over 4 month, and that in my fourth month, I was the #1 top producing rep in the entire company! Recognizing what many network marketers are doing wrong... especially those that market over the internet, I wrote an article on the topic. This article targeted those who wanted to know why their network marketing is failing. So if you go to Google and enter... "Network Marketing Failing" without the quotation marks, you'll see that the returns for webpages featuring my article take up the entire first page. If a person were to type in the statement "My Network Marketing Is Failing" my page ranks #1 out of 312,000. Do people search on these terms? Not as many as search on more competitive terms, but why not go after easier terms... why not go after "the low-hanging fruit." People do visit my sites after reading the hundreds of articles that I've written, and they do make purchases and join my network marketing team. That's proof that writing and properly using articles is a very powerful traffic generation technique. I have lots of resources on how to properly do this inside my private membership site. If you're not a member, you should join today. Inside the site you'll find lots more solid, usable information like you just gotten in this article. I've just shared with you two of my most powerful free traffic generation methods. I actually know HUNDREDS but only use a handful. I believe that it's better to get really good at using a few rather than tinkering with (but never mastering) many. You need to do your research and find the techniques that work best for you. If you'd like a really comprehensive course on website traffic and sales generation methods, I recommend John Reese's Traffic Secrets Course. Check out John's course to learn a ton of ways to outflank your competition at: http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=110203 It's 14 DVD's, so realize that it will throw a LOT of information at you. Make sure that you pick just a few techniques he covers, and then put them into immediate action rather than letting the sheer volume of information overwhelm you. As I've demonstrated, being a master at generating free, responsive traffic doesn't have to be complicated or even difficult :-) About the author: Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at: http://ProfitMagician.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
All Hits Are Not Created Equal
by: Jim Edwards |
| After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and credit card processors, every website owner eventually comes to the startling realization that they need one more thing to survive - website traffic! Without website traffic it's the same as building an expensive billboard and, instead of placing it alongside a busy highway, you hide it in your basement where nobody can see it. Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run out and start blowing chunks of money and time trying to get "hits" to their sites, but they fail to realize that all "hits" are not created equal. In their quest to get eyeballs to their websites, most online operators don't realize there's a big difference between driving "general" traffic to your website and driving "targeted" traffic. Just getting any traffic is the same technique TV advertisers use. They flash ads on the screen in front of people who can't afford or don't need the advertised product. Since general advertising can't hit specific targets, they hit everyone and hope that someone in their target audience is actually watching at that moment. Spam, banner ads, "safe-lists" and similar traffic techniques fall into this "general" category. "Targeted" traffic is made up of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say or sell online. These people either share the same interests or have an immediate need or problem they are trying to solve. "Targeted" traffic is best because the people hitting your website have a much higher likelihood of actually making a purchase. Targeted traffic comes from people following recommended links on other sites, typing in relevant keywords into the search engines, or even reading articles you've written on a particular subject and then clicking over to your site for more information. If you don't already know where to find the best sources of targeted traffic for your website, you will need to experiment with lots of different sources to find the ones that bring visitors who give you the most "bang for your buck." The fastest way to determine which avenues provide the most targeted traffic is by using an "ad tracker". An "ad tracker" is a simple program, residing on your web server, that tracks how many visitors your site gets from a particular source and how many of them purchased. Though it sounds simple, most businesses don't do this! Most businesses can't tell you their visitor to buyer conversion percentage and, therefore, don't know exactly how much they can invest in traffic generation and remain profitable. Whether you pay for your website traffic with cash (pay-per-click search engines, ezine ads), or you pay for it with the sweat of your brow (article distribution, free search engines), you must identify your best and most profitable sources of targeted traffic that convert into buyers, subscribers, or leads. Failure to identify and track where your buyers come from and then calculate how much they really cost you ultimately translates into failure for your online business. About the author: Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links... Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
Aim At The Bullseye And Your Online Home Business Will Prosper
by: Kirk Bannerman |
Traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything. You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits per hour driven to your website!". This type of website traffic is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very low conversion ratio. It's basically "throw it up against the wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic. I speak from experience because in the early days of developing my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned. Exchanging links has been an important part of generating website traffic for quite some time, but the vast majority of people looking to trade links don't understand that just wildly swapping links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go. For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more complicated than just marching to the tune Google played. Many website owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that links pointing to your website can help your search engine ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper than that. In my opinion, the targeted traffic that relevant links pointing to your site will bring can be as important as the traffic that comes to your website from people using search engines. This is where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly relevant to your own, the traffic you receive from those links will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with your theme. Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra, online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc) the impression is often not favorable and may actually drive your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your website itself is offering. Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic by having good content on your website and exchanging links with highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Remember, traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything. About the author: Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details. Circulated by Article Emporium |
7 Great Email Habits for the Beginning Internet Entrepreneur
by: Michael Turner |
| If you are just starting out as an Internet entrepreneur then you have a lot to learn about doing business online. One such thing you need to concentrate on is your e-mailing habits. E-mail is your way of communicating with people and potential customers, so developing good e-mail habits early on is very important. Habit #1 Respond Quickly Always respond as quickly as possible to an e-mail. Don�t respond so quickly that you do not answer the questions or write properly, but respond as fast as you possibly can. One to two days maximum. Habit #2 Grammar and Spelling As a beginning Internet entrepreneur you cannot risk losing customers because you can�t write properly or spell. Fortunately, spellchecker and grammar check will help you with this. Be sure to use it with every e-mail. Habit #3 Appropriate Subject and Format Make sure the subject heading is filled in and gives the reader some clue as to the content of the e-mail. Then, make sure the format of the e-mail is similar to that of a real business letter. Lastly, don�t forget to keep it short and sweet. When you write a long drawn out e-mail you will lose people�s attention. Habit #4 Address Recipient Always address the recipient of the e-mail. You don�t have to start out with Dear Recipient, but their name should definitely be addressed. This gives a more professional look to your e-mail, which is just what you are trying to accomplish as a new Internet entrepreneur. Habit #5 Provide Contact Information Always provide your contact information in your e-mail following your signature. This way individuals will be able to visit your website, call you, fax or e-mail you without having to ask you for this information or do any extra research. Make it easy. Habit #6 Cases Don�t use all upper case or all lower case. Type correctly, just like you would write. You would never send a business letter in all caps or all lowercase, so don�t send e-mails this way either. Some people will interpret this as either screaming or whispering, respectively, and some might think it is just unprofessional. Avoid this and type correctly. Habit #7 Previous Messages When you respond to someone and are answering their questions be sure to include the previous e-mail so they may see exactly what you are replying to. Frequently, people send e-mails and when you reply without the previous e-mail attached they have no idea what you are responding to. The best thing is to copy parts of the previous e-mail and paste it in your e-mail with your response. Or be very specific when answering questions, such as restating them, for the convenience of your reader. If not, you will waste your time and theirs and not be perceived as a professional. About the author: Michael Turner reveals his foolproof way to increase website traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it free right now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/ Circulated by Article Emporium |
5 Free Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic
by: Suzanne Morrison
I don't know about you, but when I first entered the world of internet marketing I thought I could just submit my newly finished website to a few search engines, then sit back as the visitors flocked to my site.
I imagined that people would arrive on my website, as if by magic, purchase goods, and perhaps come back again for more.
A week or so later I came down to earth with a big bump.
I realised that it would take a bit of time and effort to see the results that I was dreaming about!
Since my reality check, I have learned all about the weird and wonderful ways of internet marketing.
In this article I will tell you about my top 5 free ways of increasing website traffic.
All these methods are completely free and if you spend some time on them you will find that they work consistently.
(1)Writing Articles
Writing an article on a subject related to your website and getting that article published has two major benefits:
- People who are interested in your article will read it and often click on the URL in your resource box find out more. This gets you another free targeted visitor. Targeted, because that reader wants to find out more on the subject of your article, which is hopefully related to the subject of your website.
- Every publisher of your article must also publish your "resource box". Adding a resource box with your URL to all of your articles will increase the number of links leading back to your website, which in turn helps to increase your search engine position
For a list of directories to submit your article to, see Article Submission Directories
(2)Forum Networking
There are many discussion forums on the internet, on every topic you could possibly imagine.
Most discussion boards allow posters to attach a "Signature" with their post containing additional information about themselves, such as their name, URL and sometimes even an advertisement.
By visiting a few forums regularly and participating in the discussions, asking and answering questions, you can build up trust with other forum members, whilst at the same time getting free exposure for your website.
Just try to make a useful contribution to the forum - be sure to read the forum rules and don't spam!
(3)Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking has two main benefits for you.
Firstly, the more links that you exchange, the more chance there is that someone will follow a link from another site and land on your website.
Secondly, your website will be perceived more importantly by search engines.
The more links you have from other sites, the greater your chance of getter ranked more highly by all the search engines.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you get more out of your link exchanges.
- Do link with sites that will be of interest to your visitors.
- Don't link with pages that have unorganised link directories with hundreds of links on each page. This won't benefit you with increased traffic or search engine rankings.
- Do link with sites that have a clearly labelled "Link Directory" from their main page. You aren't likely to get much traffic from a hidden or hard to find link directory.
- Don't use link farms or FFA pages. You are unlikely to get extra traffic using these methods and the search engines may penalise you.
- Do use link directories to help you find link partners. You can find some Link Exchange Resources here
- Do stay organised. Use link exchange software, or a spreadsheet to keep track of the link exchanges you have requested and the contact details of the webmasters.
(4) Email Signatures
This is a very simple, but often forgotten way of increasing your website visitors.
Most of us are sending lots of emails a day, but many of us just sign them with just our name, or perhaps nothing at all.
Instead, why not end your emails with a short signature containing your name, a bit about your website along with the URL?
Keep the signature short (4 lines), to the point and avoid hype or SHOUTING.
You may be surprised at the extra visitors you receive through doing this. It's amazing how curiosity will lead the recipients of your email to click on your link!
(5)Using Traffic Exchanges
Finally, this is one easy way to guarantee instant hits to your website. You can build up credits for free by surfing or building up a downline to surf for you.
The downside of this method is that the visitors you receive from traffic exchanges are not as targeted as the visitors that you will receive via the other methods that I have described.
The reason for this is that people surf traffic exchanges for one reason - to earn as many credits as possible in as short a space of time as possible!
This gives you a challenge - how do you attract the attention of someone who is looking at your web page for 20 seconds or less?
Here are two tips -
- Know your market - spend some time surfing on the exchange that you are advertising on and pay attention to the types of web pages being advertised. Make sure that the pages you advertise are going to interest your target market.
- Use a short, simple attention grabbing page that can be read in a few seconds - there is no point advertising a huge page of text that takes 5 minutes to read. The chances are, your visitor will get bored and click on the "next" button without giving your page a fair chance.
Regularly invest some time in each of these 5 traffic generating methods and you will see your web statistics moving in the upwards direction before you know it.
About the author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of How to Start an Internet Business To learn more about how to promote your website download your free 30 Days to Success Ebook
Circulated by Article Emporium
I don't know about you, but when I first entered the world of internet marketing I thought I could just submit my newly finished website to a few search engines, then sit back as the visitors flocked to my site.
I imagined that people would arrive on my website, as if by magic, purchase goods, and perhaps come back again for more.
A week or so later I came down to earth with a big bump.
I realised that it would take a bit of time and effort to see the results that I was dreaming about!
Since my reality check, I have learned all about the weird and wonderful ways of internet marketing.
In this article I will tell you about my top 5 free ways of increasing website traffic.
All these methods are completely free and if you spend some time on them you will find that they work consistently.
(1)Writing Articles
Writing an article on a subject related to your website and getting that article published has two major benefits:
- People who are interested in your article will read it and often click on the URL in your resource box find out more. This gets you another free targeted visitor. Targeted, because that reader wants to find out more on the subject of your article, which is hopefully related to the subject of your website.
- Every publisher of your article must also publish your "resource box". Adding a resource box with your URL to all of your articles will increase the number of links leading back to your website, which in turn helps to increase your search engine position
For a list of directories to submit your article to, see Article Submission Directories
(2)Forum Networking
There are many discussion forums on the internet, on every topic you could possibly imagine.
Most discussion boards allow posters to attach a "Signature" with their post containing additional information about themselves, such as their name, URL and sometimes even an advertisement.
By visiting a few forums regularly and participating in the discussions, asking and answering questions, you can build up trust with other forum members, whilst at the same time getting free exposure for your website.
Just try to make a useful contribution to the forum - be sure to read the forum rules and don't spam!
(3)Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking has two main benefits for you.
Firstly, the more links that you exchange, the more chance there is that someone will follow a link from another site and land on your website.
Secondly, your website will be perceived more importantly by search engines.
The more links you have from other sites, the greater your chance of getter ranked more highly by all the search engines.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you get more out of your link exchanges.
- Do link with sites that will be of interest to your visitors.
- Don't link with pages that have unorganised link directories with hundreds of links on each page. This won't benefit you with increased traffic or search engine rankings.
- Do link with sites that have a clearly labelled "Link Directory" from their main page. You aren't likely to get much traffic from a hidden or hard to find link directory.
- Don't use link farms or FFA pages. You are unlikely to get extra traffic using these methods and the search engines may penalise you.
- Do use link directories to help you find link partners. You can find some Link Exchange Resources here
- Do stay organised. Use link exchange software, or a spreadsheet to keep track of the link exchanges you have requested and the contact details of the webmasters.
(4) Email Signatures
This is a very simple, but often forgotten way of increasing your website visitors.
Most of us are sending lots of emails a day, but many of us just sign them with just our name, or perhaps nothing at all.
Instead, why not end your emails with a short signature containing your name, a bit about your website along with the URL?
Keep the signature short (4 lines), to the point and avoid hype or SHOUTING.
You may be surprised at the extra visitors you receive through doing this. It's amazing how curiosity will lead the recipients of your email to click on your link!
(5)Using Traffic Exchanges
Finally, this is one easy way to guarantee instant hits to your website. You can build up credits for free by surfing or building up a downline to surf for you.
The downside of this method is that the visitors you receive from traffic exchanges are not as targeted as the visitors that you will receive via the other methods that I have described.
The reason for this is that people surf traffic exchanges for one reason - to earn as many credits as possible in as short a space of time as possible!
This gives you a challenge - how do you attract the attention of someone who is looking at your web page for 20 seconds or less?
Here are two tips -
- Know your market - spend some time surfing on the exchange that you are advertising on and pay attention to the types of web pages being advertised. Make sure that the pages you advertise are going to interest your target market.
- Use a short, simple attention grabbing page that can be read in a few seconds - there is no point advertising a huge page of text that takes 5 minutes to read. The chances are, your visitor will get bored and click on the "next" button without giving your page a fair chance.
Regularly invest some time in each of these 5 traffic generating methods and you will see your web statistics moving in the upwards direction before you know it.
About the author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of How to Start an Internet Business To learn more about how to promote your website download your free 30 Days to Success Ebook
Circulated by Article Emporium
4 Ways In Which You Can Achieve Critical Mass
by: Jack Humphrey
Critical Mass Website Promotion is the elite goal rarely attained by website marketers in any industry. Reaching critical mass and getting targeted website traffic on autopilot (meaning you don't have to promote your site for 6 months and the traffic NEVER declines) is the Holy Grail of internet marketing.
When you hit critical mass in your market, things change drastically for you and your business. Your marketing efforts go down in direct proportion to your customer support and sales going up. It sounds awesome. It IS awesome. But only a tiny fraction of websites on the net every achieve critical mass. Here's a nutshell version of what it takes.
1. Work Hard
Internet marketing is no game to be manipulated by using software and quick fixes to a very large problem, which is long-term, steady traffic coming to your site.
There is no magic pill, silver bullet, or guru secret that will help you to achieve critical mass in your market. Hard work and intense study of the internet and how people surf, what they want, and how you get in front of them while they are surfing is the only answer.
The internet marketing game is for professionals and you MUST make yourself a professional marketer of your "shop" just as you would in the real world.
2. Understand Your Market
Understanding exactly who you are selling your products or services to is the crucial first step in achieving critical mass.
The worst thing you could ever do is put the hard work in and achieve critical mass in the wrong market for your products and services!
Know your market. Know your best, ideal customer inside and out. Get your links in front of them, ideally, everywhere they surf for related information to your site.
3. Be Vigilant
Over the years I have watched people listen to what I have to say about website promotion and then take one of two paths:
1) They work their tails off and do what I tell them, with great results and rewards for their efforts (more sales, more traffic, more branding and recognition).
2) They buy my book, take a half-hearted shot at the easiest things in the book, get bored, tired, or impatient, and then they go back to chasing down quick fixes.
I have watched people who had the answers they needed in their hands, and drop them for more glamorous-sounding, fast solutions. Which we all know don't work.
I will say this again - THERE IS NO WAY TO TO QUICKLY OR INSTANTLY ACHIEVE CRITICAL MASS IN YOUR MARKET!
You must work like anyone in business who is in it to succeed works. If you do not know everything about your business and how to market it, your competition will eat you alive because they WILL know everything, I guarantee it.
Just like in the real world, the one who works harder, smarter, and is vigilant about his or her business is going to come out on top every time.
You owe it to yourself and your family to learn your craft and do it better than most people in your market if you want to succeed.
4. Achieve Critical Mass
In order to hit critical mass, you must be everywhere, or nearly everywhere your best customers surf.
This means linking back to your site from reciprocal links, articles, press releases, joint ventures, forum participation, and good search engine positioning for your best keywords.
In order to have literally thousands of links pointing to your site in high-profitle areas where human beings actually go and read/surf, it takes pure time and effort.
You must submit your articles to the best free content directories. Over and over until you have published everywhere you can that is relevant to your market.
You must secure deals with high-profitle sites in your market to swap QUALITY links. I am talking about links that people will click on, not just links that only search engines will see.
You must be everywhere that is a good place to be on the net in your market. This takes time. This takes hard work. This is what it takes to have a viable, long term website traffic solution for your business.
Reaching critical mass, or even sitting down and deciding a plan of action to pursue critical mass in your market takes maturity and a final realization that you can have anything you want in the world if you want to work for it. The day you stop chasing quick fixes to drive spurts of unqualified, un-targeted traffic to your site is the first step in achieving your goals as a professional internet marketer.
About the author:
Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking 2: Evolution. He is an internet marketing consultant and copy writer for major online clients.
http://power-linking-profits.com
Circulated by Article Emporium
Critical Mass Website Promotion is the elite goal rarely attained by website marketers in any industry. Reaching critical mass and getting targeted website traffic on autopilot (meaning you don't have to promote your site for 6 months and the traffic NEVER declines) is the Holy Grail of internet marketing.
When you hit critical mass in your market, things change drastically for you and your business. Your marketing efforts go down in direct proportion to your customer support and sales going up. It sounds awesome. It IS awesome. But only a tiny fraction of websites on the net every achieve critical mass. Here's a nutshell version of what it takes.
1. Work Hard
Internet marketing is no game to be manipulated by using software and quick fixes to a very large problem, which is long-term, steady traffic coming to your site.
There is no magic pill, silver bullet, or guru secret that will help you to achieve critical mass in your market. Hard work and intense study of the internet and how people surf, what they want, and how you get in front of them while they are surfing is the only answer.
The internet marketing game is for professionals and you MUST make yourself a professional marketer of your "shop" just as you would in the real world.
2. Understand Your Market
Understanding exactly who you are selling your products or services to is the crucial first step in achieving critical mass.
The worst thing you could ever do is put the hard work in and achieve critical mass in the wrong market for your products and services!
Know your market. Know your best, ideal customer inside and out. Get your links in front of them, ideally, everywhere they surf for related information to your site.
3. Be Vigilant
Over the years I have watched people listen to what I have to say about website promotion and then take one of two paths:
1) They work their tails off and do what I tell them, with great results and rewards for their efforts (more sales, more traffic, more branding and recognition).
2) They buy my book, take a half-hearted shot at the easiest things in the book, get bored, tired, or impatient, and then they go back to chasing down quick fixes.
I have watched people who had the answers they needed in their hands, and drop them for more glamorous-sounding, fast solutions. Which we all know don't work.
I will say this again - THERE IS NO WAY TO TO QUICKLY OR INSTANTLY ACHIEVE CRITICAL MASS IN YOUR MARKET!
You must work like anyone in business who is in it to succeed works. If you do not know everything about your business and how to market it, your competition will eat you alive because they WILL know everything, I guarantee it.
Just like in the real world, the one who works harder, smarter, and is vigilant about his or her business is going to come out on top every time.
You owe it to yourself and your family to learn your craft and do it better than most people in your market if you want to succeed.
4. Achieve Critical Mass
In order to hit critical mass, you must be everywhere, or nearly everywhere your best customers surf.
This means linking back to your site from reciprocal links, articles, press releases, joint ventures, forum participation, and good search engine positioning for your best keywords.
In order to have literally thousands of links pointing to your site in high-profitle areas where human beings actually go and read/surf, it takes pure time and effort.
You must submit your articles to the best free content directories. Over and over until you have published everywhere you can that is relevant to your market.
You must secure deals with high-profitle sites in your market to swap QUALITY links. I am talking about links that people will click on, not just links that only search engines will see.
You must be everywhere that is a good place to be on the net in your market. This takes time. This takes hard work. This is what it takes to have a viable, long term website traffic solution for your business.
Reaching critical mass, or even sitting down and deciding a plan of action to pursue critical mass in your market takes maturity and a final realization that you can have anything you want in the world if you want to work for it. The day you stop chasing quick fixes to drive spurts of unqualified, un-targeted traffic to your site is the first step in achieving your goals as a professional internet marketer.
About the author:
Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking 2: Evolution. He is an internet marketing consultant and copy writer for major online clients.
http://power-linking-profits.com
Circulated by Article Emporium
3 Ways To Swarm Your Website With Highly Targeted Traffic For FREE!
by: Andy Murray
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.
1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:
By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you're expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you'll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.
This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.
There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don't recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn't look very professional.
Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are...
The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com
Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you're pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/
Axandra's Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:
This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I'll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.
After you've written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.
As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.
You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.
Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.
How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?
Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you've already broken down one of the main barriers of selling...
TRUST!
Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:
Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
Some great "How To" advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html
And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml
3. Viral Marketing:
Viral Marketing is defined as �Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do�; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they �infect� the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.
If you UNLEASH a 'Viral Marketing' campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.
Generating free traffic with 'Viral Marketing' is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your 'Viral Marketing' message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.
About the author:
Andy Murray is a marketer and publisher writing informative reports to help grow your online business. Get his latest offering "Unleash Your Viral Marketing Potential" for FREE by simply following this link: http://www.zerohourmarketing.com/Viral-Marketing-Report.htm
Circulated by Article Emporium
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.
1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:
By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you're expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you'll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.
This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.
There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don't recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn't look very professional.
Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are...
The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com
Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you're pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/
Axandra's Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:
This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I'll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.
After you've written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.
As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.
You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.
Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.
How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?
Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you've already broken down one of the main barriers of selling...
TRUST!
Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:
Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
Some great "How To" advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html
And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml
3. Viral Marketing:
Viral Marketing is defined as �Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do�; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they �infect� the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.
If you UNLEASH a 'Viral Marketing' campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.
Generating free traffic with 'Viral Marketing' is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your 'Viral Marketing' message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.
About the author:
Andy Murray is a marketer and publisher writing informative reports to help grow your online business. Get his latest offering "Unleash Your Viral Marketing Potential" for FREE by simply following this link: http://www.zerohourmarketing.com/Viral-Marketing-Report.htm
Circulated by Article Emporium
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