Traffic Generation Strategies: Three Easy Ways To Making Your First Sale
Picture this. You’ve just got your very first website or blog set up. You get really excited and you can’t wait to have people coming in and purchase your products. However, when you check your website statistics the very next day, you found out that no one has visited your site. You didn’t really mind since it was only your first day. But as days and weeks passed, you start to get irritated as to why only a measly number of people have been coming in to your site and confused as to why you’re not getting any money.
Have you considered and implement these easy ways to generate traffic?
1. Article Marketing
Articles are very important because it is like the first impression you’d like to potray to the person who is reading your article. When you create articles, you give people the opportunity to read what you have to offer to them. What happens is when people read your articles and you leave a good impression on them, they will click on your link and head down to your website.
If you’re not so big on content creation or that you’re just plain lazy, the best thing to do is to get someone to write articles for you. Outsource your work to other freelancers available online.
2. Search Engine Optimization
Have you submitted your site to search engines yet?
If you have done so, good for you. However, for search engines to find your site effectively, you have to make your site effective to be found. This is where search engine optimization strategies come in. Search engines look for keywords in your site and matches that to the words the visitors type into search engines.
One strategy is to create META Tags in your HTML. This strategy works because search engine “robots” target the META tags of your website to match up with what your visitors are looking for. To generate META tags, there are a lot of free META Tag generation services. Once you have the HTML code for it, simply copy and paste it onto your website’s HTML.
3. Forum Marketing
Many people do not realise this, but forum marketing is actually a very powerful strategy. What you should do is to search for forums that are related to what you are selling. Join some of these forums and participate in the discussion. However, do not advertise in your forum posts, or you will get banned from it.
To drive traffic to your website, you have to place a link of your website in your signature. Your signature will appear at the bottom of your posts, so every time you post valuable advice or comments, people will read it. They will then notice your website link and head on down to your website to find out more about you. Interesting isn’t it?
These three simple strategies is what you should focus on to generate traffic. Even successful Internet gurus implement these strategies, because they have been proven to get tons of traffic and sales. Do not look so far as to how to get traffic. It is not as complicated as most beginners in Internet marketing make it out to be.
Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code. Unlock the code for unlimited online profits for yourself by visiting his website today at: http://www.SuperFastProfit.com
Traffic Generation Strategy: Making Use of Squidoo
Now I know what you’re thinking, what the heck is Squidoo?
Squidoo is a social networking site similar to MySpace. It is very suprisingly easy and user-friendly that you do not have to be IT savvy at all in order to generate traffic to your website or blog. Just like creating a profile page on MySpace, you create a lens on Squidoo. You can create as many lenses as you want, be it for personal reasons or for business use.
A lens works almost the same as a blog. However, the greater thing about a lens is that it is already automatically integrated with Web 2.0 features such as RSS, Tag and Ping and social bookmarking features such as Del.icio.us and Digg. These social features can create more interaction between you and other lensmasters.
RSS alerts your lens readers that you have updated your lens, Tag and Ping allows you to tag keywords that people use to come to your lens and social bookmarking allows people to share sites with one another through networking.
What this strategy is mainly about is to give your lens a lot of exposure to redirect the traffic you receive on Squidoo to your blog or wesbite. Squidoo is actually one of the Top 700 sites in the world and every Squidoo page you make gets listed into search engines easily. That is why you should make full use of the advantage of obtaining the amount of traffic generated from there.
Get your free account first if you’d like to post your very first lens. Give your lens a keyword focused name relevant to the niche of your lens. On your profile, be sure to include a picture and write a bit about yourself, but do NOT forget the link to your site. The same goes to the introduction section of your lens where you write a bit about your niche and put a URL link of your site in it.
So now when you want to post something on your lens, you have to add modules first. There are different kinds of modules, some of them are ‘Write modules’ that allow you to write articles in it like a blog post. But in a blog, the articles you post are based on chronological order. In a Squidoo lens the articles you write about can be rearranged according to your preference.
Every lens in Squidoo has its own rank on how high it is ranking in the Squidoo charts. To work your way up in Squidoo, you need to generate ‘stars ratings’ by other members, clickthrough rates, lens updates and the people to go to your lens. What you can do in just the Squidoo website itself is to join the forums and do some forum marketing there. Another way is to search for lens groups relevant to your niche and join them for discussions.
Work on your reputation in Squidoo and you’ll be highly respected. What you should strive for is to get into at least the Top 200 lenses in Squidoo and you’ll see traffic generate in both your lens and your site.
Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code. Unlock the code for unlimited online profits for yourself by visiting his website today at: http://www.SuperFastProfit.com
Free Methods of Increasing Website Traffic
With the explosive growth of the internet comes greater flexibility in website marketing. There are many effective ways to drive traffic to your website without emptying your pockets.
If you would like to see thousands of unique visitors a day browsing your website, you will need to promote it properly. But you don’t need the resources of Amazon.com or Yahoo. What you will need is some patience and a little hard work. The time and effort you devote to promoting your site will be rewarded when you see the increase in traffic down the road.
Honestly, you will save time and effort paying for advertising. But if you are ready to work and wait awhile, you will see some serious gains by using only free promotional methods. Not all methods are equally effective so you should try more than one.
One great way of promoting your website and yourself is by participating in online communities such as forums. You can target a specific group that fits your target demographic. You can offer help by participating in any of the threads (topics) that interest you. Most forums allow you to insert a link to one or more of your websites at the bottom of your posting. Some of the better forums have a very high Google PageRank and are spidered almost hourly by the big search engines.
Trading links with other sites is another proven method of increasing your traffic and improving your ranking with search engines. This is a slow process if you want to do it properly. Although there are automatic link exchanging services and web ring builders, the results of using these can be mixed. It can be more beneficial to take your time and look for sites that best suit your niche AND have a higher PageRank (PR). Getting links from a few PR5 or PR6 sites will increase your site’s PR higher than thousands of links from PR0 and PR1 websites.
If you have the time, you can create newsletters with a catalogue of products or useful and informative articles. If people find the information useful, they will signup for your newsletter. You can put links to your site in your newsletter and instantly increase your traffic. You can also use the newsletter to promote affiliate products and services. It is common to distribute newsletters monthly or weekly.
One of the most effective and efficient ways to promote your site for free is to submit articles on a topic directly relevant to the content of your website. Writing a simple article of 500 – 1,000 words on a topic you are familiar with doesn’t take much time. You can submit this article to some article directories. If your article is approved, it should take less than a week before it is published online and the search engines and web surfers can see it. You can include a link to your website in the “About the Author” resource box at the end of the article.
Whatever method you use to promote your website, ensure that you write quality, spell-checked copy so that the readers will form a good opinion about your website. Remember that there are possibly thousands of other websites out there like yours. You only have a small window of opportunity to wow the reader and entice them to visit your site immediately. So take your time, check your facts, and proof read your content several times before publishing it anywhere.
While there are many excellent paid ways of promoting your website and generating quality traffic quickly, there are still many effective ways of doing this for free. Don’t be discouraged by slow results at first or hitting a few closed doors. Persistence really pays off. Learn as much as you can about each of these methods and then measure the results of each so that you can see which promotional methods work best for you.
The author is the developer and operator of numerous sites on the web. Submit your article to a human-edited free article directory at http://www.articopia.com
12 Steps For Better Blogging
If you are blogging to attract new customers and prospects to your business, it is important that you have a successful blueprint to follow.
With that in mind I created my step by step Blogging Blueprint, which you can find below:
1 While writing a blog, think like a visitor, as this helps immensely. If a blogger dons the visitor’s thinking cap, there is more likelihood the words a visitor will use to query search engines will be present in the blog.
2. Add a good layout and catchy adverts to a blog. This helps because the visitor might want to stay longer reading the blog, rather than scooting away to another site.
3. Once the blog is published, it is a good idea to ‘visit’ the blog assuming to be a visitor. Going over links and various pages can give a feeling of how a visitor will react to the blog.
4. Inspect the site regularly, as this can uncover any broken links. Likewise, it is also a good opportunity to do some site maintenance as well. Jotting down points like what can be added to augment site appeal and what else could be added to the FAQ page can be of immense advantage.
5. Use key words that are more likely to be used by visitors to search for your blogs. If there are individuals who want to read about, lets say, power gardening tools, then missing out key words like power or gardening can be a huge mistake. This is because search engines will give the blog a go-by and opt it out of the listings.
Further, the visitor may even chance upon the blog in the listings, but may choose to avoid the site, because the keywords were not highlighted in the large search engine listing.
6. Posting articles about 700 words in length is considered good if taking into account search engine indexing tactics. You can make the post search engine friendly by inserting relevant keywords and links at the right places.
7. You can incorporate specific key words, which are adored by search engines. Integrate keywords into title, meta and alt tags to entice the search engine spider to give the blog a higher page rank.
8. Listening to feedbacks and visitor complaints can be a blessing for you. Despite a lot of effort, a blog might contain obvious technical glitches or perhaps the content might require further elaboration or alterations.
9. Spamming can sometimes be disguised as intelligent comments, which might include further links or invitations to a spammer’s website. Niche blogs might wish to opt out of the custom of inviting comments.
10. If you are into business blogging, picking up good categories like skin care, dry skin care, skin care specials, exclusive skin care products, etc can be particularly rewarding. A good post on niche products can improve keyword density while providing wholesome reading material for visitors.
11. Many bloggers give up after publishing a few blogs. Although there is no right answer to how often you should blog, the secret of profitable blogging is to publish regularly and as frequently as necessary while avoiding both extremes.
12. Use permalinks (permanent links) where servers allow their use. Permalinks allow the use of words as path names, unlike regular links to articles that may contain percentage signs or shorter cryptic pathnames. The secret is to use key words as path names on servers where the use of permalinks is allowed. This makes the site more appealing to those search engines that also look at links for indexing.
Jason Tarasi publishes the “Marketer’s Protection Newsletter”. Subscribe now and DISCOVER the insider secrets you MUST know to protect yourself from fraud, lawsuits and other potential risks that could permanently harm your online business. http://www.marketersprotection.com
How to Write Free Classified Ads That Sell
If you’ve ever visited classified ad sites, and read some of the ads, you really have to wonder if some of these people actually make any money from the ads they post. Certainly, not all of the ads are bad. You should study some of the ads on these sites.
This should be your first step in writing a good ad: Study the ads that pique your interest. This can be ads in the newspaper, in magazines, on Google and Yahoo, and on the free classified ad sites.
You want to study the type of ads you want to write. Create a swipe file. This can be a simple text file of ads you liked, that made you want to click through, or write for more information, or whatever.
The purpose of a good ad is to get you to do something. To act.
If you’ve ever written an ad, then you’ve probably heard of the ad writing formula AIDA, but it’s worth repeating here:
A – Attention
I – Interest
D – Desire
A – Action
Attention applies to your headline. You want to generate attention and get readers to read the rest of your ad. You need to write a good headline. Your headline should be short, to the point, and demand attention.
Here are some examples:
The Secret of Making People Like You
A Little Mistake That Cost A Farmer $3,000 A Year
The shorter your ad, the shorter your headline needs to be. Make every word count.
One thing you should remember here is before writing your ad, choose your audience. Your ad can’t be all things to all people. Your ad must appeal to those who are looking for what you have to offer.
If you have the attention of your reader, the next step is interest. Focus on the main benefit of your product or service.
If you are writing a short ad, then you can only focus on one benefit.
Remember, a benefit is different from a feature. A feature tells you what something will do. A benefit tells the person how it will help him/her.
For example:
If you are selling a product to end baldness, a feature might be that it’s easy to use. A benefit would be that the person would have a full head of hair that makes him look 20 years younger.
Here’s the beginning of an example ad:
Headline: End Male Pattern Baldness Forever?
Interest: Unique formula ends male pattern baldness forever.
Next, you want to create a desire for your product.
Example: In just 15 minutes a day, you can be on your way to a full head of hair.
Finally, you want the reader to take action. Send for free details, write for free details, click through, etc.
Example: Get your free subscription to the “Male Pattern Baldness Newsletter” now.
These are just examples, and I’m sure that they can definitely be refined.
Once you’ve written your ad, it’s time to start posting. You will need some way to track your ad. You can use different email addresses, different links, or some type of tracking software.
It’s important that you track your ads because you want to know which ones are getting results and which ones aren’t.
You can change your ads one element at a time to increase effectiveness.
The point is:
1. Study good ads.
2. Create a swipe file.
3. Know Your Audience.
4. Apply the AIDA formula.
5. Test and Track Your Ads.
Not only will you write better ads, but you’ll also get better results.
Get Jinger Jarrett’s resources on classified ads. Craig’s List Traffic, http://www.askjinger.com/craigslisttraffic/, learn about free classifieds on Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/jingerjarrett Learn how to get 15,000 visitors a month to your site: http://www.killermarketingarsenal.com