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Where’s Your Traffic?
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Okay, so you built a website. When you’re first starting out, that all by itself is a BIG accomplishment. But now you’re probably wondering “Where’s the traffic? When are people going to start coming to my site?”
That is the question most website owners are asking themselves EVERY DAY. Thankfully, getting the word out about your business doesn’t have to be difficult. By Using the internet, you can reach thousands of potential customers every day.
Social networking.
Social networking occurs on forums, membership sites, chat rooms, sites like FaceBook & MySpace, and even on blogs. This form of promotion offers many unique benefits.
Social networking gives you the opportunity to network on your down time. Rather than, or in addition to, attending local networking events, social networking can occur from your couch. Social networking also offers the added benefit of connecting with people more frequently than a monthly business meeting.
The benefits of social networking include not only spreading the word about your business, it also offers business owners a valuable way to connect with other like minded individuals to form partnerships, mentorships, and of course customer relationships.
How do you start social networking?
Network where your prospects and customers hang out online. For example, if you’re in the health and fitness industry then you might want to join a fitness forum.
Network where your industry hangs out online. For example, if you’re in the health and fitness industry you might join a membership site for fitness trainers.
Find a few sites that have a fair amount of members and register. Create your profile and be sure to include your website address in your signature. That’s how you’re going to promote it. Spend a little bit of time each week participating in the community. Offer valuable insight and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Article marketing.
Article marketing is an easy way to begin to generate traffic. The concept is pretty straight forward, you write articles (or hire someone to write them) submit them to an article directory like ezinearticles.com. Within the body of your article you may sometimes embed text links that lead to your website or sales page and you may include a link in your bio. The article directory publishes your article on their site.
People search for information on your topic, their search brings them to the directory, they read your article and then visit your site
OR
They publish your article on their website, keeping all of the content, links, and your bio 100% in tact. People visit their website, read your article and then click through to visit your website.
Article marketing is free. The only cost is your time and if you outsource your content. Additionally, it is a superior way to promote your business and related website. (For a free ecourse on article marketing, visit http://indiebizchicks.com/wp/free-article-marketing-ecourse/
AdWords.
Advertising is another method to drive traffic to your website and Google’s AdWords is by far and away one of the most commonly used advertising methods. It has reached such widespread appeal and popularity because businesses only pay for results. When you advertise in a magazine for example, you pay a flat fee for the ad. Perhaps the magazine has a subscription base of 100,000 so you can assume that 100,000 people see your ad but you don’t know for sure and there really isn’t a good way to test it.
With Google AdWords, you basically set a budget and only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Clicking on your ad takes them directly to your website – where your sales copy will work its magic. So for example, you only want to spend $50/month on advertising once you’ve tallied enough click throughs and your $50 is spent, your ad will stop running. It is important to note that all keywords are not the same. Some words are more popular than others and therefore ads placed for those keyword searches will cost more than less popular words. For example say someone searches for “cardstock paper” and ad targeted to prospects searching for ‘Cardstock paper” may cost $.25 per click, however someone searching for “laptop computer” may cost $5.00 per click.
The beauty is that the budge is yours to establish and it directly relates to your traffic. As your campaign progresses you can fine tune your ads for the most effective click-through and conversion rates.
Looking for more publicity? Grab this free report that lists 15 buzz building tips at http://www.powerpublicityandpromotions.com/15-tips.html
For Even More Marketing Related Articles & Guides Visit:
(click on picture to be taken to the Members Center)
Ask Crissy: What is SEO? Do I need it? How do I do it?
I recently had a reader ask me what SEO. They also wanted to know if they needed it, and how they were supposed to go about getting it.
SEO stands for Search engine optimization and it is definitely something that every online business owner needs to be familiar with.
It sounds big and scary - but once you get the feel for it, it’s pretty simple to understand the basics…
For today’s purposes, we’re just going to cover the basics. If you’re ready to get more technical than that, you probably aren’t reading this post anyway, because you would have been able to answer the title question yourself : )
SEO is defined by Wikipedia as “the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.” So, what does that mean you might be asking. Here’s how it works.
When someone sits down to their computer and wants to find information on a particular subject they go to a search engine and type in a few words that describes what they are looking for. These words are called keywords.
The sites or pages that appear in the search results are ranked in order of importance according to the search engine they used. How a site owner has optimized their site, or specific pages (among other things, a few of which include the content on the site and the number of other sites linking to that site) for those keywords determines where their site ranks on the list that appears to the person doing the search.
As you know, if you’ve ever done an online search, most people will choose one of the first few sites on the list to find the information they are looking for. So, ultimately you want your site to be listed as one of the top sites that appears for a particular keyword phrase.
You will need to not only determine what keywords fit best with your site, but also what keywords people are using to find the information you are providing. Of course, as stated earlier this is just the basics of SEO. There are more things that play a factor in optimizing your site for search engines and each search engine has their own way of determining a sites page rank, but once you understand why it’s important the rest will be much easier to put into place and comprehend.
Just as a word of caution, search engines should not be your only source of traffic as an online business owner. The ways that the search engines use to determine your page rank are constantly being changed and improved upon. You will need to determine what changes make a difference in your sites rank, but at the same time you can’t possibly expect to be 100 percent perfect for every search engine all the time. It’s just not possible, besides you have more important things, like marketing your business, to tend to that will make your business flourish.
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Looking to make some extra money at home? If you’re good at finding information online, you could start your own internet research biz and make money googling : ) Check out this resource for more info:
Internet Research Business Guide
How are your graphics?
If you do business online, you know how important it is to have a website. Your website is your “store front”; it welcomes new customers from around the world. The graphics you choose play a major role in your website’s success or failure.
First and foremost, professional-looking graphics lead to a professional-looking website. If your graphics are blurry, out of focus, or simply look haphazardly put together, the whole look of your website will take a turn for the worse. When a new customer visits your site, they will assume you are an amateur or that you don’t care enough to do a quality job, and they won’t stick around for long.
To be as effective as possible, the graphics you choose should help to create brand recognition and convey the message you are trying to send to the world. Take Nike, for example. Their famous “swoosh symbol” is featured on their website, as well as pictures of shoes, athletes, and other sports-minded images.
When you visit the Nike site, you know you are in the right place, as the images coincide with Nike’s message of “just do it.” On the other hand, if you went to the Nike site and saw photos of ice cream, cakes, and cookies, you would wonder if you were in the right place. You might not even take the time to read the words on the website, as you might just “click away” and try finding the correct website.
The same theory applies to your website; if the graphics do not convey the message you are trying to send, your visitors will end up confused and click away. The quality of your graphics also affects success of your affiliate programs as well as the number of incoming links you may receive.
By offering an affiliate program, you are asking other people to partner with you and sell your products or services. If the looks of the graphics you choose for your affiliate program do not convey an image that people want to endorse, you will have a hard time recruiting affiliates. If they are going to take the time and effort to promote your product, they deserve to have quality tools to do so. One of the tools they need is quality graphics.
Likewise, when you ask someone to partner with you on a link exchange, they are going to expect a quality graphic. They will be displaying this graphic, with a link to your page, on their website. If you send them an unprofessional-looking graphic, it is going to bring the look of their site down. They will more than likely decline your offer.
As you can see, graphics play a big part in your business. If you do not have experience with graphic software or don’t feel that you are the best one suited for creating your graphics, you should hire a graphic designer. It may cost more up front, but think about how much money you would lose by having a poor image as your graphic. It is well worth the investment to hire a professional.
Scratch My Back?
I’ve been reading a lot about the new Scratch Back Widget and thought I would go ahead and give it a try. (for those that don’t know, a widget is a little gizmo you can install on your blog) You’ll find this new “toy” over on the right column of the blog under the heading “Are You In My Top Spots”
Basically, this widget is supposed to help the blogger earn a bit of money, and help the blog readers increase their web traffic.
If you want to be listed in someone’s top spot, you pay $5. Your link is then there for the world to see (and hopefully, the world will click on that link). Since this is a one-way link, this will also make the search engines take notice. (the search engines like one way links).
I just bought my own top spot on another blog today, too. So I will check my stats and see if I get any traffic from that. I know my friend Nell from Answer Lady Network had been doing this and she saw some dramatic increases in her search engine rankings…
Which of course, is not bad for a $5 ad…
In any case, the jury is still out on this. I haven’t played around with it long enough to know if it is as awesome as people say.
But why don’t you help me try this by buying one of my top spots? Let me know if it brings you traffic!