by: Chris Stirling
Copyright 2005 Chris Stirling

You have built a great website and have started to see your traffic counter spinning up rapidly. This is good news right? Maybe it is, maybe not. You need to look deeper than just the number of visitors to your site. You need to analyze the stats for a number of different reasons. But before you dive deep into the analysis and make full use of this information, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Your web hosting company probably provides you with basic web traffic information. The data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. There are two main stats you will notice; visits and hits.

The visit figures are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

So it would appear on the surface that the more visits you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

The aim when analysing your web site statistics is to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Another excellent stat is the exit page stat. This stat will show you which page your visitors are exiting your website from. This stat can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have what you think is a great entry page and from there you expect visitors to move onto different pages of your site you would expect the exit page stats to show this. But if you have a high exit page statistics from your entry page then you know that visitors are not navigating your entry page. This will tell you you need to adjust your entry page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor – meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase – the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed – or should I say misdirected – to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor’s needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

As you can see keeping a close eye on your website traffic statistics will turn your average website into a visitor friendly site. Happy site visitors means sales!

About the author:
Chris Stirling’s website is geared for people who are interested in finding an online work at home opportunity or starting a low cost or free Home Based Business. If you would like to learn more visit his website at: http://www.stirls.com For his Top Picks Home Business Newsletter visit http://www.stirls.com/bizopps-newsletter.html

by: Ron Hutton
Copyright 2005 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?

About the author:

Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to “GoThrive Online”, for big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. 17 Free Cool Tools… http://www.gothrive.com

by: Ron Hutton
Copyright 2005 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…

Ezine advertising.

I’ll spare you all of the details regarding conversion ratios, etc. since we’ve already covered that in part 1 of this series.

Ezine advertising is very much a viable way to pay for traffic, but don’t use it until you’ve formulated a profitable ad in the PPC search engines. It’s important that you know you have a winning ad before spending money on ezine advertising. Use something that’s proven to get results.

Ezine ads can be purchased at reasonable rates and the cost will vary from one ezine to another depending on the newsletter’s circulation, track record of producing sales and the exposure that you’ll get.

By exposure, what I’m referring to is the type of ad that you buy. Your options typically include solo ads, top sponsor ads, middle sponsor ads, bottom sponsor ads and classified ads. A solo ad is sent in an email with no other distractions. You get all of the attention, and for this reason it’s also the most expensive form of ezine advertising. Top sponsor ads allow you between 5 and 8 lines of copy and are included in regular ezine issues near the very beginning of the newsletter. Middle sponsor and bottom sponsor ads will be similar to top sponsor ads with the exception of the position within the newsletter. And lastly, classified ads are usually shown in groups near the end of a newsletter and are the lowest cost.

My personal opinion is not to advertise in ezines that you haven’t subscribed to. If you’re considering advertising in any particular ezine, subscribe to it and read it for a few weeks before spending any money there. That way you’ll be able to get a feel for the value of the content, the kind of reader that will be interested in the publication and whether or not the advertising opportunity is a good one.

Here are a few sites where you can begin researching ezines that accept advertising:

http://www.gothrive.com/directory-of-ezines-lifetime
http://emailuniverse.com/
http://www.ezineadvertising.com
http://www.ezinehub.com
http://www.ezine-marketing.com
http://www.ezinewizard.com

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

In part 3 of this series, we’ll continue our thoughts on “(2) Borrow it” – traffic that is.

About the author:

Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to “GoThrive Online”, for big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. 17 Free Cool Tools… http://www.gothrive.com

by: Ron Hutton
Copyright 2005 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.

Websites come in a wide variety of flavors, including…
- Minisites designed to sell individual products
- Portal sites designed to sell a broad selection of products
- Content sites designed to provide information

Of the above site species (minisites, portal sites and content sites), which do you think has the best chance of selling a product and putting income in your bank account?

ANSWER: Minisites.

Let’s talk about web traffic.

Imagine 5 different internet users going to Google, MSN, Yahoo or whatever their favorite search engine happened to be, and each individual enters one of the following search queries:

Search #1: hazards

Search #2: household hazards

Search #3: chemical household hazards

Search #4: chemical household hazards for infants

Search #5: protecting infants from chemical household hazards

If you had a website that sold a device that guaranteed the safety of infants by locking cabinets containing hazardous household chemicals, which of the above visitors do you think would be most likely to buy what you’re selling? I know. I hear you. “That’s pretty obvious, Ron.”

We want internet user #5 most. We may also want #3 and #4. Do we want #1 and #2? Maybe… Maybe not. The answer to that is going to depend on what it takes to get them to our site. But before we attempt to answer that question, HERE’S SOMETHING CRITICAL…

My Question to You: “If you were assured that you could get visitor #5 to your website, where would you send them?”

Let’s say that your website had a variety of home safety products available. You sell everything from fire extinguishers to first aid kits to carbon monoxide detectors to child safe locks.

Your site’s home page has just a little bit of information on each of your home safety product lines. Would you send visitor #5 to your home page?

Or…

Since visitor #5 just did a search for “protecting infants from chemical household hazards”, would you have better results by sending them directly and immediately to the web page where they can order your device that guarantees the safety of their child from chemical household hazards?

Please don’t think that I’m trying to insult your intelligence. I’m not. It’s just that I have received correspondence from other direct marketers online concerned about the low sales of their websites only to find out that whenever that person sent traffic to their site, the traffic was going to their home page rather than to a page that spoke directly to the needs and desires of the visitor.

Alrighty then? Traffic time.

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”.

Before we go any further, let’s talk 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.

“Ya but Ron, what if I could be #1 in Google for ‘Internet Marketing’ or ‘Website Tools’?”

If you were able to get there or anywhere close, what would be required? What investment in time and resources would be required to land a prized spot such as this? Would you be able to get there for free? Furthermore, how long would you stay there?

Let’s face it, neither Google, Yahoo, Altavista nor MSN wants any individual to be able to control the results of their search engines. That’s why they spend millions upon millions of dollars every year taking steps to ensure that nobody has the knowledge to control all of the top positions.

Is search engine positioning something to aspire to? Perhaps. Given time. But it will not put any money in your pocket in the short term. That’s pretty well guaranteed.

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

Buy it? Yes, buy it. We’re not talking about fortunes changing hands. There’s no need to take out a second or third mortgage on you home to use this strategy. Traffic can be generated to your site for literally pennies per visitor.

Where will you buy traffic to your website? PPC Search Engines. PPC (”Pay Per Click”) search engines give you the best opportunity to find the most motivated buyers and get them to visit your website. This is what you should be considering for your primary method of generating traffic to your website.

Remember above where we considered searcher #1 – searcher #5? We want searcher number five on our website, right? Right. We can and will find searcher #5 on the PPC search engines if we take the right approach. In a little bit I’ll give you a list of PPC search engines to consider using, but first let’s formulate a game plan.

Here’s the basics of PPC advertising:

1) We have a product to sell.

2) We determine what the product has to offer and why someone might want to buy our product. (hint: focus on benefits, not features)

3) We do some keyword research to see if people are out there actually looking for the solution that our product offers.

4) Assuming that there’s sufficient demand for our product /solution, we make a list of the keywords and keyword phrases that people are actually using to conduct their searches.

5) We write an ad for our product in such a way that it gets the attention of the searcher. This may mean changing ad copy slightly from one keyword phrase to the next. Try to put yourself in the position of the person doing the search.

6) We bid on the keywords that we’re targeting with the ad that we’ve written and…

Wa-la! Traffic.

Is this a viable option? Absolutely. Google Adwords ads can be had for as little as $0.05 per click. Overture traffic can be had for as little as $0.10 per click.

If you’re selling a product for $19.95, how many clicks can you buy and still be profitable? One sale out of 199 clicks and you’re profitable. At this rate you only made a nickel, but that was at a conversion rate of only 0.5%! What if you had a conversion rate of 3%? 3% (3 visitors out of 100 become customers) doesn’t sound like too much does it?

If you did indeed have a 3% conversion rate on a $19.95 product and were able to buy traffic for $0.10 per visitor, here’s how the math works:

100 visitors cost you $10.00

3 visitors became customers and spent a total of $59.85.

Subtract your $10.00 advertising cost from your $59.85 revenue, and you have profited $49.85 (or somewhere close after PayPal or other selling fees).

So now, how much can you afford to spend on traffic?

If you’ve been running the above advertising campaign long enough to feel confident that a 3% conversion ratio is something that you can count on, then do the math backwards.

Your net profit is $49.85 for 100 visitors. Therefore, your “per visitor” value is $0.50 (I’m rounding up very slightly). Knowing this is a huge advantage.

Can you find more visitors to your site for $0.20, $0.30 or even $0.40? Of course you can, and it will still be profitable! Obviously, the less you spend on advertising, the more you keep. But if you could find a source of automatic traffic that you knew was profitable, wouldn’t you buy as much as you could find?

This is exciting stuff! PPC traffic can work for you. Yes, there’s a little bit of a learning curve, but that’s true with anything new that you do.

Here’s a list of PPC Search Engines that you should consider starting with:

Google AdWords (http://www.adwords.google.com)
Overture (http://www.overture.com)
FindWhat (http://www.findwhat.com)
Enhance Interactive (http://www.enhance.com)
GoClick (http://www.goclick.com)
7Search (http://www.7search.com)
Kanoodle (http://www.kanoodle.com)
ePilot (http://www.ePilot.com)
Search123 (http://www.search123.com)
SearchFeed Interactive (http://www.searchfeed.com)
eSpotting (http://www.espotting.com)
Xuppa (http://www.xuppa.com)

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

In part 2 of this series, we’ll continue our thoughts on “(1) Buy it” – traffic that is.

About the author:
Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to “GoThrive Online”, for big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. 17 Free Cool Tools… http://www.gothrive.com

by: Arthur
By © Arthur, The Online Internet Home Business Opportunity

Every home business owner should know that your WEBSITE TRAFFICS will determine the life span of your work at home online business. As suggested by many motivation expert, your best bet to be successful in ANYTHING you do will be to study and learn from those WHO are already successful.

What are these online experts doing to attract the necessary traffics to their work at home online business?

What online strategy are they using and what can you learn from them?

One of the most frequently used online strategy is writing and submitting free articles to ezine. Over the years, as I read over many website marketing strategy, it seems that article writing remains the TOP method that webmaster has been using for many years. The only problem is that there are so many free articles floating around these days that you need to build a solid reputation before you can GAIN any reasonable click through to your site via your free articles.

Reciprocal links is another popular method which you can used to gain traffics to your home business website. Before starting
your reciprocal links strategy, make sure you determine the keywords you want to used for your main index page. During the
link exchange make sure you put your KEYWORDS in your hyper text link. Search Engine will recognize them as your site
keywords. Remember also to include them in your title and the first 80-120 words of the index content page. Please do not
just reciprocal links, SEO experts recommend that you should add at least 60-70 pages of contents in your NEW site so that your site will not just be a LINKS only website which score a LOW RANK in the algorithm of Search Engine.

Finally, have you noticed that successful online master also make used of discussion forum wisely. Discussion forum are a great
online marketing tools that you should not ignore. It can bring IMMEDIATELY an increase in your website TRAFFICS which
can result in increase revenue for you. Forums allows you to create your own signature file which you can write a few lines of your own business information including your URL. Each posting you made will automatically include your signature file. However, you have to show your expert knowledge when answering questions as people who read your postings will associate it with you. Frequent forums that get lots of online traffics so that each posting by you will get the maximum exposure.

In whatever business, the initial learning may be tough, but if you believe in yourself and persist in LEARNING and taking the necessary ACTION to apply what you learn, one day, you too will become an Online Expert and SUCCESS will follow
YOU.

Wishing you success in running a Successful Work At Home Online Business.

About the author:
Copyright @ Arthur
http://www.online-internet-home-business-opportunity.com
Helping to groom potential entrepreneurs into the next Business Star. Most Financially Successful individuals Grow Rich by starting their own business. You too can own your dream business.

By Yevgeniy Dorofyeyev

Overture or now known as Yahoo because of Yahoo’s takeover, was the original inventor of the use of the P4P or Pay for Performance. Overture saw that the internet was fast becoming the easiest and most convenient way to shop, and advertising was going to hit at an all time high because of the many businesses in the arena.

To get a person to go to a site than others, it needs to be very visible. Providing ads that could direct potential consumers and costumers to their site would allow them to have an increase in traffic as well as sales. Yahoo provides a service that can put a site or company’s ad in their sites that can be shown when certain keywords are inputted.

Yahoo offers a chance for any company to increase their traffic by using their services. With more people being aware of your site, there would be more traffic and visitors to your site given the chance to view your pages as well as your products. With even a small percentage of successful sales, with a high traffic volume this could still be a substantial figure for your company.

Getting a consistent substantial flow of website visitors is every company’s goal. Many methods are devised and utilized to ensure that there would be more people to boost the sales and to be aware of the existence of such a product or service. Website visitors are potentially the life blood of your internet based business.

Yahoo/Overture utilizes the same principle as Google’s Adwords. In fact, they are very similar to each other that they use keyword and keyword phrase searches and to determine which ads to show per search. When a person types in a keyword or keyword phrase to search for anything, the search engines gives out the results in a page. Then at the right side of the page, you will see selected ads that have paid for their ads to be viewed with certain keywords and keyword phrases searched.

For example, Lets say you run a car parts retail/wholesale site. You choose keywords that can prompt or trigger your ads to be shown in the page when a keyword is searched. When a search engine user types in Honda Accord, your ad may come up if you have designated that as one of your keywords. You don’t need to fully optimize your site with Search Engine Optimization methods and techniques.

While some labor so hard to make their site one of the high ranking sites per keyword search, you get the chance to be on the top of the list or at least in the first page of a search result increasing your chance to be clicked on. With that, you drive traffic and website visitors to your site a lot faster.

You will have to pony up some cash when using this service though. There are different ways Yahoo/Overture will charge you. It may be in the number of Keywords or Keyword phrases your ad uses or in the many times your ad is clicked on. Others offer many other services like having your ad show up not only in the search engine pages but also with some third party sites.

Third party sites support ads that have the same theme or niche as them. With more areas your ad is shown, you increase the chances of people knowing about your site or product. With more website visitors you increase the sales of your site which makes your investment with your ads a wise one.

With so many competitions in the internet based businesses, it is necessary to take a huge leap forward from the pack by advertising. Yahoo/Overture will be a great place to start. Many have utilized their services and have reaped the rewards of this decision. It’s a marketing strategy that will increase your website visitors as well as increase your sales resulting to profit.

It takes money to make money, while there are some methods that are basically low cost or free, using a marketing service such as what Yahoo/Overture offers will provide results faster and on a larger scale. Many businesses have learned this the hard way, don’t be counted with them.

To your success.
Yevgeniy Dorofyeyev

by: Ollie May Rains

Copyright © Ollie Rains
http://www.OMRains.net

After a few months of advertising my online business opportunities’ website, I have learned a valuable, but true advertising fact. The best way to advertise an affiliate program is through writing articles and submitting them to syndicated sites for others to use, thereby creating links to your own website.

If you are new to website promotion, you may need to know how this works. First, you need to read, and then you write about what you have learned. I have found that there is definitely no shortage of information on the web. Take the information and put into your own words, your thoughts and feelings regarding what you have learned through your reading, and experiences and knowledge of your own. Sit down and write from 350 to 700 words about what you think or have learned in this process. When submitting them to article publishing sites for approval, make sure to add your website links in the author’s note, to link your website to other websites. Then when other website owners need valuable content to post on their website, you have gained the opportunity to put your link on someone else’s website. They go to the article publishing sites to find good content, and if they like yours, you get a free link. Easy, and free. You can join a power linking forum and get a complete list of article syndication sites to submit your articles to, or do a search of your own. You then can either submit your articles manually, or pay an article submission site to submit them for you for approval. Since I want mine free, and have the time, I do my own submissions manually. Please take the time to correct grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure before submitting your articles, and be sure to read each sites rules for submission to insure your articles are considered for publishing. Some of them have some strict rules and guidelines, especially regarding where your links can be placed in the article. Most will only allow links in the author’s note box.

The next thing you need to do is set up a blog. This, too, is free and lots of fun! There, you can even post your very own personal journal. I have chosen to make mine about online business promotion, and post only articles about online businesses. Do a search for free blogs to find the one that is right for you. Post your articles on your blog. It’s easy and fun to do, with copying and pasting from a word document. You can also post your photos on your blog. To build your traffic, make sure you include a link to your main website near the top of your blog. The more content your blog has, the better the search engines love you. If you need more content than you can possibly write in the beginning, you can use articles others have written on the subject you are creating for your blog. Article publishing sites are full of good quality articles on just about any subject you may want to choose. But you must always include the author’s note at the bottom, to give the author credit and the opportunity to have his or her link displayed on your site. After you have given your blog valuable content, you need to “ping” your blogsite, so search engine spiders will find you. This helps to build your traffic to your blog. Then due to your link on your blog to your main webpage site, you increase your main website traffic. I use “Ping-O-Matic” for mine. It gets submitted to many different sites at once, and very simple to do.
Next, you can link your blog to other blogs by joining a bloglinking site. You get lots of free traffic, and other bloggers leave comments on your blogspot, leaving a link, and you can link on their blogs the same way. Free, Free, Free, Traffic!

About the author:
Ollie Rains owns the
work at home directory website located at:
http://www.OMRains.net
Come by and visit us today! Also, be sure to
check out our “top pick” work at home opportunity
at: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-9523
For articles on promoting your online business, visit:
http://www.omrains.blogspot.com

by: Cari Haus
Copyright 2005 Log Cabin Rustics

People are paying pretty significant dollars for website traffic these days. Pay-per-click charges of $1-10 are not uncommon for top search terms. Multiply that by the 300 unique visitors per day that my log furniture website gets, and you are talking at least $300 per day, or $9,000 per month—depending on how many days are in the month.

“There Must Be Some Easier Way”

While pay-per-click may be a good business model for your website, there’s nothing like free traffic to lay the foundation. My log furniture site used to get 100 unique visitors per day before it started fetching in 200, and now 300 on an average basis. The personal goal here is 1,000 unique daily visitors—but 10,000 would also be welcomed!

Following are some of the best ways we have found to grow website traffic:

#1: Website Optimization

A local business magazine recently ran an article calling SEO (search engine optimization) the equivalent of “hocus-pocus”. The author of the article, who apparently worked for an SEO firm, described optimization as a somewhat “shady” activity that’s impossible to get a handle on. I say “Baloney!”

SEO is not pseudo-science. It is a very tangible and real way to increase website traffic. If you haven’t taken care of the basics—e.g. making sure your website has a relevant title, focuses on the right keywords, avoids practices that are disdained by the search engines, etc., you can be sure that, once found, your website will not rank as highly (or get as much traffic) as it otherwise would. Begin your traffic-garnering efforts by making sure your website is up-to-snuff.

#2: Publish Helpful, Relevant Content

Publishing helpful articles on the Net with a link back to my log furniture website seems to result in traffic spikes nearly every time. Notice the emphasis is on “helpful” articles. There is plenty of useless drivel out there by people who are being paid $5 to write an article. Not to insult anyone, but I spend 2-8 hours on the articles I write—depending on how much research is required and how technical the article is—and that costs more than $5.

It doesn’t seem to matter what you write about. My topics so far have included SEO, the simplicity of Amish life, improving your bottom line, and understanding Google operators. The key is to make them relevant, short and helpful.

#3: Add more products to your website

Our experience has been that adding more products to the website helps us to come up in the search engines more often. A person who finds a rustic night stand at our site might notice that we have log bunk beds. Somebody who is shopping for an unfinished pine dresser might not be thinking of rustic furniture at all, stumble across one our products, like the whole site, and end up furnishing their cabin. Each product is like a fishing line cast in the sea. The more well-described bait you have out there—the more “fish” will bite.

#4: Improve your website conversion rate

Five years ago, we used to get one log furniture order for every 100 website visitors. Now it seems like closer to one order for every 300 unique visitors. Part of the reason for this, we believe, is that the web has become more competitive. But we also pay attention to our conversion rate.

We are in the process of making a change right now that might really help. Someone pointed out that when you click on an item to buy it within Miva Merchant’s standard interface, there is no confirmation that the item has been added to your shopping basket. This might lead some customers to believe that the website isn’t working properly. They might not be savvy enough to check the shopping basket. They might even leave the site without ordering (perish the thought!)

These “glitches” can really hurt website sales. We went to the Miva Merchant site for third-party modules and found a script that displays the shopping basket after each item is added. We purchased the script and install, and are watching to see how it affects website sales and conversion rate. Our guess is that this will have a positive impact on sales.

Conclusion

Obviously, there are a lot of other ways to increase website traffic. The four listed above are a great place to start. If you’re not into SEO, find somebody who is. If you are paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars of month for pay-per-click traffic, it may be wise to divert enough of those dollars to ensure that your website is the traffic-snagging, profit-generating machine you intend it to be.

About the author:
Cari Haus is a CPA and entrepreneur who has been offering quality log furniture on her website, http://www.logcabinrustics.com/

by: Raamakant S.
I wakeup this morning and see my lovely wife. She was
sleeping and looking like angel. I thought probably I am
the luckiest guy in the world. I have a gorgeous wife, a
cute doll (my daughter). I have money and time to enjoy
life, and I dont need to worry about my future. Suddenly I
remember those days when I started Internet marketing.

I can’t forget those worst days when I used to work 16
hours a day. I come from my JOB (Just Over Broke) and
started working on my computer till 4.00 o’clock in
morning. I had dark circle under my eyes. I had no time for
friends, family and even for my love. I did every thing I
read and almost exhausted my Credit Card but I couldn’t
make money.

It happens with almost every newbie’s. So the question here
“what is the secret of Success in Internet marketing”? The
answer is your own OPT-IN LIST and Targeted visitors on
your website.

OPT-IN LIST:
Youve probably heard about “The List” many times. This is
the only fact that there is nothing more valuable in your
online business than your email list. EVERYTHING you do
online should grow your list, even if it’s one person at a
time.

Think about it… if you’ve got a list, you can send
valuable content, and then create lots of product offers as
time goes on. But if you DON’T have a list… it doesn’t
matter how many offers you create, because NOBODY will
see them.

A Proven Fact:
A very crucial element of online marketing is a proven fact
that people are likely to do business with those they
trust. The best online ways of building trust with a
prospect is through e-mail marketing. Give your prospect
something valuable and gain there trust.

5 Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic for free.

01. JV Partnership:
Youve probably heard about Joint Ventures before. They are
one of my biggest sources of traffic. Initially its hard to
find JV Partners especially big names because nobody knows
you so start with smaller marketers. Don’t forget to keep a
list of everybody you have had a successful JV with. They
know you and they like to work with you in the future.

02. Write Articles and submit to article directories:
Writing articles and submit to article directories is
another great method to attract tons of visitors. It takes
little time and builds your credibility all over the web.
It improves your sites search engine ranking because of
link back to your site.

03. Forums:
Forums are the best place to drive targeted Visitors to
Your Website. You can also increase your marketing
knowledge, make joint ventures and get quick help by
joining some marketing forums. If you’re serious about
building your online business, it’s must. Be sure to check
out the rules of forum before any posting.

04. Viral Tools:
Viral e-books and reports can drive massive traffic that
you cant imagine. Why? Because it’s VIRAL. Your reader can
customize the book with there affiliate links and giveaway
for free. Thats why it spread like a virus all over the net
and send traffic to your site.

05. Link exchange:
Link exchange is permanent source of traffic infact it
gives you double benefits. You get the traffic from your
link on other peoples site and at the same time it pushes
up the ranking of your site on search engine.

Pay per Click Search engine is also a good way to get
instant and targeted visitors but it’s not free. You need
to do a lot of homework and make a huge list of relevant
keywords before starting or you may burn your hands.

———————————————————–
Download my latest Report “Amazing Traffic Formula”. How to
get a flood of Targeted Visitors to Your Website and build
your own opt-in Subscriber List… At NO COST!!
http://www.umtezine.com/atf/aatf.htm
Free Rebrand and Redistribution Rights Included.
———————————————————–

Some Hype you should avoid:

A. Guaranteed 10000 Visitors for $….

You have seen it every where on net. When you buy a package
you will come to know that you haven’t made a single sale
by the time the package runs out. The reason behind it is
that they show your site in a small pop-up window and
pop-ups are not much effective. The other reason is your
site shown in front of untargeted people who are not
interested in your product.

B. Blast your ad to over 10 million sites….

There was a time when it really worked but its no longer
true. There are so many automatic submitters these days and
there’s very little chance anyone will ever see your ads.

C. Send your ad to 10million email address….

This type of Marketing Are Now Considered SPAM! And if you
are reported for SPAM, you can lose your ISP, website,
e-mail account, and much more!

D. Guaranteed Search engine ranking….

Top placement on search engines is a hard task and requires
lots of money and time. There are millions of websites
across the internet and everyone wants a top search engine
ranking. If you are not in Top 20 for your keyword you’ll
not be getting many visitors.

E. Just Push one Button and get 1000 visitors a day type
Software….

Internet is filled with this hype “Targeted traffic at the
push of a button”. They show your site at autosurf traffic
exchange programs where everybody uses this type of
software to gain credits and nobody actually sees your site.

———————————————————–
Copyright 2005 Raamakant S.

About the author:
Raamakant S. is owner of http://www.umtezine.com
Subscribe to his Ultimate marketing Tips eZine by sending a blank
e-mail mailto:umtezine@getresponse.com — Learn Everything
You’ve Been Wanting to Know about Internet Marketing. REAL
Tips, Tricks and Techniques You Can Use In Your Business and
Consistently Produce MASSIVE Amounts of Profits.

by: Jim Edwards
Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

Not a day goes by that any serious website owner doesn’t wonder how to get more traffic to their site.

This intense desire to generate more clicks makes virtually any online entrepreneur easy prey to many of the traffic schemes and scams that pervade the Internet like conmen on a carnival midway.

Promises of fast traffic and big bucks often separate even the most savvy business person from their money because they want to believe the promises made by these traffic hucksters.

However, rather than thinking “complicated equals better” in the traffic game, the best website traffic sources rate extremely easy to separate from the useless garbage traffic.

Fact: “Good Traffic” equals “Targeted Traffic!”

That means the visitors come as a result of desire to find out more on a specific, niche topic, not as a result of “exit” traffic or membership in a “safe” list where members simply pitch each other in an incestuous spam fest.

Good traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted to their interests and getting directed to a website containing information they want and expect as a result of clicking the link.

Bottom line, when you get right down to it, the best, most dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that people click.

So, next time you’re considering spending money on a traffic source, understand that unless it involves a targeted link that a targeted visitor can click to get to your website, think twice before opening up your wallet.

To my knowledge, only three ways exist to get a link to your site: buy it, “voodoo” it, or grow it.

** Buy Links**

Buying links actually rates the fastest way to get traffic to your website.

You simply sign up for Google AdWords at Google.com or you open an account with Overture.com.

You then run ads with a link on those sites and any time someone clicks the link, you pay for the click through a relatively straightforward bidding process based on the popularity of the keyword.

You can also buy links in ezines, newsletters, and on other people’s website either on a per-click basis, for a period of time (a week or month), or in exchange for paying them a commission if a sale gets made as a result of a click on the link.

** Linking “VoodDoo” **

Linking “voodoo” refers to attempting to manipulate the search engines into displaying links to your website.

You can find a large number of automated software programs online at any given time that will claim to help you get more search engine traffic.

Depending on the intensity of competition in a specific market and the fact that search engines change their rules frequently, pursuing search engine links this way can quickly turn into the online equivalent of Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole.

** Grow Links **

I personally prefer this method to get links to my websites: growing them.

The best type of link to get involves one person telling another person, either explicitly or implicitly, they should click the link and visit the site at the other end.

One way to do this is simply to exchange links with another site which targets the same audience as your site.

You can manage this process manually or use one of the many software packages that will mange the process for you.

A search on Google.com for “reciprocal link manager software” yields a good start.

The easiest way to grow a link is through using articles other people post on their websites which link back to your website.

The reason articles work so well for “growing” links involves the numerous ways in which articles get distributed online, each of which can create dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different links back to your website by publishing a single article.

In fact, the following represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the places you can grow links by publishing articles online.

~ Blogs – Your articles can not only appear on your own blog, but get posted by others on their blogs with surprising ease.

The links in these articles can point directly back to your website.

~ Article Directories – Article directories such as IdeaMarketers.com abound online.

They not only provide an easy way to display your articles to allow others to pick them up for posting on their websites, but also in and of themselves attract readers searching for content.

~ OPS (Other People’s Sites) – Popular websites like WebProNews.com attract repeat visitors by offering targeted content to their readers.

Since they can’t produce all the content themselves, they publish articles created by others. Links from these sites can bring a steady stream of targeted visitors by giving you targeted exposure.

~ Ezines – By getting your articles published in other people’s ezines, you can get a link on the most valuable real estate online, a targeted prospect’s email “inbox.”

Many ezine publishers run articles written by others to their targeted readers, and your link in the resource box can bring you a veritable avalanche of targeted site visitors when hundreds, even thousands of people receive your article at the same time.

Whether you choose to buy them, “voodoo” them, or grow them, getting targeted links to your site posted on the Internet represents the absolute best way to get steady traffic to your site.

Though not as fast as buying them or as exciting as trying to manipulate the search engines, growing links with articles gives you a long-term, dependable presence online.

About the author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and co-author of an amazing program that teaches you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs… without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com