Increase Website Traffic

website traffic

2008-08-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

Improve Conversion Rates – Load Times

Your site is getting traffic, but conversion rates are horrible. Everything seems to be working, so what’s wrong? Your site may simply be to slow.

Load Times

Give some thought to the sites you have visited of the past few weeks. Were you willing to wait 20 seconds for a site to load or did you hit the back button? Why would visitors to your site behave any differently? They won’t.

Webmasters, designers and site owners universally access the web through high-speed connections. Because of this, it is easy to forget roughly 45% of surfers use dial-up connections. While your site may appear to load quickly on your high-speed connection, have you tried loading it on a 56k connection? The results can be shocking.

Sites that appear to load quickly on a high-speed connection can take forever on 56k. It is not unheard of to find a “fast site” actually takes 30, 50 or 80 seconds to load on a 56k. Sometimes, the load time is so slow the browser will actually “time out” and fail to show anything. If your site has this problem, 45% of the hits are worthless. Worse, those frustrated surfers are unlikely to try to access your site in the future even if you fix the speed problems.

How fast should a page load on a 56k connection? As fast as possible, but no slower then 25 seconds. If you can get 56k load times below 10 seconds, you can turn a negative into a competitive advantage. Surfers come back to fast sites.

Determining Load Times

The best way to determine the load time for your site is to actually use a 56k connection. While this solution isn’t particularly technical, it will let you see exactly what your prospects are seeing when they visit the site. You will be able to see what loads quickly and what appears slowly. This should let you isolate particular elements in need of optimizing.

Server statistics can also provide you with evidence of slow load times. Are users spending a lot of time on entry pages, but not visiting internal pages? Either you have poor content or a loading problem.

Finally, you can also use diagnostic programs to test load times. Typically, the programs will kick out estimated load times for dial-up, DSL and T1 connections. Make sure you test your home page and internal pages. Diagnostic programs are excellent tools, but don’t get lazy. Make sure you physically watch your site load on a dial-up connection. The experience will prove invaluable to improving your site and conversion rates.

Improving Performance

The steps needed to improve the performance of your site often depend on the nature of the site. A database driven site will have different issue than a graphic intense site. There are, however, universal factors that can be checked:

1. Graphics: Typically, browsers have to make a connection for each image on a page. The more you have, the longer the load time. Limiting the number and size of graphics can help.

2. Tables: If you use tables, try to break them up into smaller modules. Large tables can negatively impact load times.

3. Multimedia: If it flashes, explodes, spins or blinks, consider ditching it. Yes, it looks great, but is it worth 45% of your audience?

4. Size: Scrutinize the size of your pages. The bigger the page, the slower the load times. It shouldn’t be a problem if the page is comprised of text, but large pages with lots of code will load slowly.

Cheer up if you have a speed problem! Yes, you’ve lost a lot of business, but now you can fix it. Most of your competitors will never figure it out. That puts you ahead of the game.

Reciprocal links

2008-08-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

Reciprocal links are one of the most common and most effective forms of website promotion. The basic concept is simple - you link my site, I'll link yours and we'll both get an increase in traffic. But there is more to it than just exchanging links with a random site. The very first problem is to find the right site to do an reciprocal link exchange with. A good partner has content that appeals to the same kind of visitors as your site does, and vice versa of course. For example, a Futurama fan site could have reciprocal links with a Simpsons fan site, a free stuff site with a sweepstakes site and so on. To create successful reciprocal links, the exchanging sites need to be similar yet different enough so that they don't compete with each other.

After you've found a site that fits the above description, there are a few other important things that need to be figured out. First, is the other site interesting? If it's filled with banner ads and typos, you're better off finding another site to exchange reciprocal links with. A good rule of thumb is "If it doesn't interest me, it's not going to interest my visitors".

The second thing is to figure out how much traffic the site gets. Usually you can make a rough estimate just by browsing the site - if it looks and feels professional, it probably gets a pretty good amount of visitors. If it feels like it was a poor site to begin with, and no one has updated it since 1997, it probably doesn't get more visitors a day than you have fingers in your hands.

For the exchange to be useful to both parties involved, sites performing an exchange should have similar amounts of traffic - that way one site doesn't just rip visitors off the other one without giving any in return. Because most webmasters know this rule (some even monitor the amount of traffic they receive/send out), it's unlikely that a low-traffic site can get a link exchange with a high-traffic one. But if your site is really good, your proposal for a link exchange could be accepted even if you get less visitors than the site you're trying to exchange with. The old "content is king"-rule applies here, too :). After you've found a site that seems to be suitable, it's time to contact the webmaster of that site. Tell him that you run a site that has a similar topic and describe your site a bit (remember to give your front page's address). Say that you like his site and have included a link to it in your site (give him the address of the page where the link is), then ask him to return the favor by linking to your site. If you never get a reply or your proposal gets rejected, just forget it and find another site. If you manage to make a deal and get the other webmaster to link to your site, keep your end of the bargain - don't remove your link without contacting the webmaster of the other site first. Because there are some webmasters who agree to exchange reciprocal links, add your link on their site for a few days/weeks and then remove it without noticing you, you should also check the site of your partner every now and then to see if he's keeping his part of the deal. If he is not, contact the guy and kindly ask him to explain why your link has disappeared. If you don't get a satisfactory explanation, remove the link to his site from your site and find another partner.

Online advertising and promotions tips, Internet marketing, Pay per click, search engine optimization

2008-08-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Tips to Promote your link:

You can submit your ads or url to major search engine to get more exposure
Use specific keyword to get visitor
Submit your Url regularly ex. every 1 week submit again.

Submit your ads for free to search engine:

- Submit to Google

- Submit to Yahoo

- Submit to 40 Search engine

- Submit to over 8,000 site

More tips to advertise

Create Signature & active discuss at Forum

Tips:

Forum is very good place to promote your program becouse very active member meet to discuss about anything. You can use forum to promote your site but "Don't Spamming":

Join some forum with Huge member
Create signature at your profile with your linking ads, its will appear at botton for every post you made. for phpbb forum you you can c use code like this: [url=http://your site]Your Text ads here[/url] and for image [url=http://......][img]http://...image][/img][/url]
Post discuss to relate tread ex. for mlm content, post at mlm tread.

Below some forum you can join:

>> forums.digitalpoint.com » Dream Team Money» Got Paid Forum» Income Hunting» Talk Gold» eCurrency Forum» Hoprofit.com» King of Dollars» Talking Autosurfs» ePayTalk» HYIP Board» Listpays Forum» The HYIP Forum» Get Paid Forum» HYIP Cop» Money and Profit» The Pay 2 Review» Global Gold Talk» HYIP Discussion Forum» Money Maker Group » Gold Horizons» HYIP Talk» Paying Forum » Golden Talk» HYIPs R Us» Rolclub

Use Safelist or Mailing list:

Tips:

You can post or send ads to hundreds or thousand member with 1 click at safelist.

Just join as member
Create new email address to join, because you will get tons email
Send your email ads to safelist with their rules

Below our recommended safelist:

- Herculist +30,000 member

- Safelister + 18,000 member

- Themadvlad +11,000 member

- Optinlister +9,000 member

@ Advertise with Payperclick program:

Tips:

You can promote your program with pay per clik, this very good methode but you must pay to advertise. you can get targetted click from visitor. You can set your cost per click with very low like $0.01 per click.

Traffic Exchange Sites

2008-08-18T05:36:00.000-07:00

Traffic Exchange Sites are websites where you get page views of your own site in exchange for visiting others. Many such sites are available. However, choosing the right one or a combination of them can be a very time consuming process.

Basically there are two types. Manual surfing and Auto surfing. Some Traffic exchanges cater for Manual surfing only, some cater for Auto surfing only and some cater for both.

Manual surfing - This requires your input by clicking a button after a specified time period, generally 15, 20 or 30 seconds, although there are a few other variations. With manual surfing, the surfer is expected to view each site. However, with most exchange sites, it is possible to minimize or resize the windows. This defeats the purpose because it allows multiple sessions to be run simultaneously. On the better exchange sites, security measures are often used to deter this. These are normally random prompts that require user input. For example, after x number of page views, you may be required to enter a code, select a color or image or perform some other variation of this.

Auto surfing - This requires no input. However in reality, your input may be required because of popup or frame breakers. Some traffic exchange sites require that the pages run are maximized and although you can minimize the page yourself, it will automatically maximize at the next refresh. You will also find that with some exchange sites, pages will run on top whereas with others, pages will run quite happily underneath, allowing you to do what ever you like without ever viewing the page content.

Both manual and auto surfing will bring traffic to your website, but there is a much greater likelihood of your web pages being actually seen with manual surfing.

Credits - As well as surfing, credits are usually acquired for subscribing, for referrals and for any winnings associated with exchange site lotteries, games or competitions. These credits can then be used to increase the traffic to your site. Some exchange sites will also allow you to sell your credits to other members.

Free or Paid - The majority of Traffic Exchanges offer a paid option. This option may give you a better surf ratio, bonus credits, money for referrals or other benefits. Before paying however, it is important that you test how targeted the traffic is that you receive. There's no point in paying for extra traffic if it doesn't generate any more income for you.

Click for Credits or Buy Credits - Is it worth buying credits?

This can depend on a number of reasons. The two main ones are time and money.

Let’s take an example

At the time of writing the cost of 2000 credits for free members of a well known Traffic Exchange Site was $40. This works out at $0.02 a click. For pro members the same $40 bought 2200 credits.

With the number of clicks limited to 250 per day and page views of 20 seconds this means that in theory it will take you 250 X 20 = 5000 sec or 83 minutes 20 seconds to view the 250 pages. However in practice you must allow extra time for clicking the next button, clicking the title of the page you will be viewing and any sites worth looking at.

Since I am a firm believer in practical results, I viewed the 250 pages. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to accomplish this. During that time, I accumulated 854 credits. To buy these credits would have cost $17.08 as a free member and approximately $15.53 as a pro member. Allowing for rounding up, this equates to almost 390 credits per hour or $7.80 per hour cash value.

Now ask yourself this. Would you work for $7.80 per hour?

I must emphasize that this is only one example and that other results will differ because of the random allocation of credits. It is shown here only as an example and to give you an idea of the cost implications for one particular traffic exchange site. The cost of credits may differ dramatically for different exchange sites. If you buy or intend to buy credits from a traffic exchange site, you can apply what is shown in the example. There's no need to click on a large number of websites to find out if your exchange site is giving you enough credits for your money. A sample of around 20 sites should give you enough information to produce a rough value-for-money guide.

If you enjoy this sort of thing or want a break from train spotting, you could expand on this. Increase your sample size, increase the number of samples, select a good representation of traffic exchanges and tabulate your results. Choose enough sites and you will be able to create your own league table. There’s a market for everything.

Whether you use traffic exchange sites or not in the quest for more visitors to your site, you should at the very least know what they are and what they do. But don't totally dismiss them. They are part of an expanding market. I recommend that you try at least one traffic exchange site. You could read every book on the subject, but without active participation, you will not be qualified to comment on their worth or suitability. The time taken for a few mouse clicks is a small price to pay. If it works for you, you have learned. If it doesn't work for you, you have learned.

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A New Way To Create Digital Product Fast

2008-06-21T04:05:00.000-07:00

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: Circulated by Article Emporium

by: Mark Tse

The Old But Reliable Ways of Attracting Free Online Traffics

2008-06-21T04:04:00.001-07:00

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 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. Circulated by Article Emporium

How to save money on the Adwords network

2008-06-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

by: Steve Cash

Copyright 2005 Private Mail Services How to save money on the Adwords network Over the years I have had many accounts with Adwords, spending a small fortune with the Adwords service. So naturally I have picked up many cost saving tricks. I am aware that most people feel Adwords costs too much and delivers little results, this is completely untrue. Adwords is a service that is here to help us, so I have written this article to help web developers make the most out of the service. 1) Set your currency, First and foremost, select the currency of which you locally trade in. You may think its wise to start your Adwords account in USD, but if you do not live in the USA you may get a shock when you find how much you have been charged. 2) Use negative keywords, You are using the Adwords service to generate website traffic, so obviously you want the right traffic to generate revenue. Start by using negative keywords for people whom you do not want to click on your advert, the best place to start is the keyword “free”. As I doubt you want to waste money on traffic that will not generate revenue. 3) Make a strict daily budget Make sure you have set out a daily budget, Adwords generally advise a way out of proportion budget. After all most new Adwords customers have no idea how effective the advertising will be. Do not start off with a bang, your pocket will feel it. Just as important as the budget, be careful with the CPC rate. I advise you to start with a low number, each click soon adds up very quickly. I actually found that by lowering my CPC rate by 50% I doubled my visitor count… 4) Check those clicks! One of the most talked about problem with Adwords is, click fraud. There are two main types of click fraud: the first is when any one starts clicking away at your advertisements trying to waste your money. It is very hard to stop this kind of fraud, if you are a victim stop your ads and file a report to Google ASAP. The second main issue is now that google allows Web Developers to earn money off their websites by placing ads (Adsense) .some Web Developers try to cheat the system by clicking on their ads as much as possible. The best way to stop this kind of fraud is check your page log, Adwords allow you to block out websites that you do not want your advert to be placed on. Adwords does not have many protections against Click fraud, although they do disable Adsense accounts who cheat. Google are very hesitant to refund the victims, if at all. Reports tell many organisations are actually suing Google to get their money back, so be careful. In this article I have illustrated some of the most beneficial ways to save money when advertising with Adwords. My main advice to you is, do not go crazy with your spending. You may not see the results you are after, it does take a while to get to know Adwords. I have had many successful ad campaigns using the Adwords network. However I do advise to look around, with the ever growing popularity of MSN search you may actually find it much more affordable. About the author: Steve is the owner and operator for Private Mail Services. http://www.private-services.com We endeavour to keep your personal life totally safe and private. http://www.private-services.com Circulated by Article Emporium

How To Track All Your Website Traffic For Free

2008-06-21T04:01:00.000-07:00

by: Louis Allport

Copyright 2005 Louis Allport Do you know: * Exactly how many people are visiting your website? * How long they're staying on your site before they move on? * Exactly where those visitors are coming from, each day? * How much of your website traffic is repeat visitors? * The exact paths people take as they click their way through your website? Here's what I'm getting at: If you don't know your visitors, it makes it *very* difficult for you to improve the performance of your website and turn more visitors into customers - AND - get more quality traffic. For the simple reason that you're effectively working blind. Without knowing how people visit your site and what they do on your site, any attempts at growing your traffic and improving the profitability of your website is working with one armed tied behind your back, at least. And unfortunately - the web stats that come with your web-hosting are generally not enough these days. Depending on your web host, chances are you've either got Webalizer, Analog Stats, or AWStats installed on your server. Here's how that software works: It takes the "raw" (unreadable to the human eye) information your web server stores of everyone that visits and presents this in an easy to understand way. Unfortunately, due to a number of technical reasons, this information is often presented in quite an inaccurate way. And in my personal experience, these software packages don't present this information in a particularly helpful way either for someone trying to improve the conversion ratios and profitability of their website. What I personally do, and what I would suggest you do is use a "Tracking Solution" that accurately tracks and reports all your visitors in an easy to read and understand way. These solutions come in two forms: Software & Services Both these options have their pros and cons, but what they both do very well is present exactly what's happening on your website right up to the minute, and in a way that's very helpful to you for making good (and profitable) decisions for your business. To start with here's a software solution you can install and use for free on your website: Now before you go and install it, you should of course be familiar with installing software on your server. If you're not comfortable installing software on your website, a tracking service (which I'll come to in a moment) would probably be best for you. And it's also important to note that installing software on your website can often put more strain on the server. This is particularly true if you're on shared hosting. I've personally used the following free tracking software and it works well. See what you think. Go to http://www.curve2.com and look for "TrackPro". As I write this, version 2 is in Beta and is downloadable from the site at the following address: http://www.curve2.com/trackpro.php You'll also find many further free tracking software solutions at http://www.hotscripts.com. But personally speaking, what I've found works very well and avoids putting any increased strain on my existing websites is using a third party tracking service. The only things really to worry about when using a third party service are: * How long will this service be around? (If they stop their service after a year, you wouldn't be able to access your past data and will have to change all your tracking codes on your pages too.) * What is their privacy policy regarding my web stats? (Are they honest and trustworthy in other words. You don't want the service owners studying and then duplicating your successful business plan.) Over the past month I've been using ecommStats (http://www.ecommstats.com). Now, this service isn't free, but at this time they give you 50,000 free page views per domain, and depending how busy your site is those page views can last you a very long time. The service works great and is very easy to add to your pages -- simply add three lines of code at the bottom of each of your pages (you can easily do this with Server Side Includes if you're comfortable with that) and all your visitors get tracked accurately and in great detail. Alternatively - an entirely free (at this time) and very established service is StatCounter (http://statcounter.com). It even has a rave review from Tucows.com (one of the largest download sites on the internet) which speaks for itself and adds a lot of credibility to the service. And just in case you're wondering how a free service like StatCounter makes money, well - since it's such a popular service with many webmasters logging in every day (and many I'm sure even more than once a day just like me) that it's made it very easy for them to sell a lot of advertising on their site. They also offer an upgrade to their advanced paid service. But thinking beyond free services, as your business grows you may choose to upgrade to high end paid services that provide even more in depth information about your visitors... Services like Urchin (Urchin.com - owned by Google) or Deep Metrix (DeepMetix.com). However, to help you grow your business to that point you need to keep a close eye on what your visitors are doing and where they're coming from, and free tracking software and services is a great way for you to start to do this. About the author: Louis Allport is an online product developer and marketer. To get a FREE copy of his powerful "Viral PDF Generator" script, visit the following site: Circulated by Article Emporium

Developing a Profitable Web Business Concept

2008-06-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

by: Michael Lawrence

Copyright 2005 Cobrasurf.com 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 providing free website traffic and free website promotion. He also publishes a web promotion related blog which can be found at Circulated by Article Emporium

The Four Smartest Ways to Spiral Your Website Traffic

2008-06-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

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, Circulated by Article Emporium

The Four Smartest Ways to Spiral Your Website Traffic

2008-06-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

by: Cari Haus

7 Great Email Habits for the Beginning Internet Entrepreneur

2008-06-21T03:54:00.001-07:00

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 Circulated by Article Emporium

Ten Ways To Promote Your Site And Increase Traffic

2008-06-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

by: Keith Gloster

Copyright 2005 Keith Gloster Website promotion is a vital area in internet marketing that you should learn to master immediately. Your website is your HQ on the web, and as such, should be made prominent at the soonest possible time. The more people who would know about your website, the more visitors you would have. Increased web site traffic would mean more potential sales and an expanded customer base. Here are ten useful ways to increase the volume of traffic of your site: 1. Get Your Own Domain Name. People will never forget catchy domain names. Getting your own domain name will provide familiarity and recall. Be sure to choose a short and easy to remember domain name that is appropriate to your business. 2. Upload New, Original and Useful Content. Blatant ads such as banners and pop-ups only irritate visitors. Give them information they can't find anywhere else, and give it to them for free. Always think benefits when posting a new article or feature. Thinking of ways to get your visitor what they want will establish respect and more importantly trust. 3. Submit Your Site to Search Engines. Search engines bring more than 75% of traffic to most web sites. Search engine submissions means serious work. This involves search engine positioning and meta tag placements. It doesn’t end there because you need to test this with a number of search engine tools. This process involves constant monitoring of website competitors, and continuous editing of pages. 4. Pay For Top Spots. The best way to get website traffic without trying too hard would be through paid advertisements. These advertisements would be posted on prime locations or banners of websites. Popular websites like leading newspapers and search engines would provide immediate recognition and visibility to their customers. Of course this entails some substantial advertising budget, but it is a good recourse for those who could afford it. 5. Form an Online Community. An online community can be a message board, email groups, discussion list, and even a chat forum. Actively participate in these on-line groups by posting answers to other people’s questions and post appropriate information. Be visible and include your signature at the end of your postings. Maximize these special interest groups because people in online communities get involved easily and are ready to communicate with others. 6. Start Your Own Mailing List. It is the best way to keep in touch with your prospects and your customers. This is the best way to build the credibility needed to close a sale to your target market. 7. Start an E-Zine for Your Website. An E-zine is an extension of your site, but this will highlight new information and features of your site. People will be reminded of your website as they read each issue. If they find they issue interesting or worth sharing, they can easily and instantly pass this on to the people within their network. 8. Submit Articles. Write your own article and submit it to e-zines, websites and magazines that accept article submissions. Be sure to include your business and contact information and website address in the resource box. 9. Exchange Ads. Create ads that will promote your business and website. Submit this to e-zines or other websites in exchange for free ad space in your own electronic publication. Your presence to other site or publications is very important in getting the increased traffic that you want. This is usually facilitated with either simple links or flashy banners. 10. Update Your Website. Your website should always be up and running. It is to your advantage if you maintain your website with new articles and updated features. Maintain a clean layout and check for broken links, images and pages. If they always find what they want and need, they will surely be coming back each time. Additionally, search engine spiders love a site with changing content! About the author: Keith Gloster provides advice on effective traffic and lead generation tools and techniques. For the creative edge on permission email marketing, traffic and lead generation, and to claim some valuable bonuses, you can subscribe to his popular newsletter at: http://www.free-mlm-leads-generator.com Circulated by Article Emporium

Persist in the Right Way to Succeed in your Online Home Business

2008-06-21T03:52:00.001-07:00

by: Arthur

By © Arthur, The Online Internet Home Business Opportunity Persistence is one of the most important characteristics of a Business Entrepreneur. Without it, failures will follows. This happens to every business entrepreneur including me. When you start your own online business, you often get frustrated when you cannot get the desired results that you want. When you checked your web log, not enough website traffics is coming. You have try lots of promotion methods: banner impression, guarantee clicks, exchange links, search engines optimization and many others ways but traffics is not coming as quickly as you want. That's the problems many online entrepreneur is facing. Quick Results. They want to make money quickly and get frustrated and give up their online business when they cannot see the money coming in FAST. Many forgot how they managed to land into their FIRST job. We forgot the vast amount of time and money our parents have invested on us on our education before we can eventually land on the desired job that we want. Try counting back in time the number of years you spend on education before ending up on your present job. Don't forget to include those time you spend searching for your job, writing resume and attending interviews. Likewise, every business take time to build and grow. Your persistence will bear results sooner or later if you continue to persist in the RIGHT WAY. You just have to keep moving FORWARD even if you cannot see the result now. It is good to invest on a little paper notebook to record what you have done for your online business. Analyze your written log OFFLINE and think about what are the methods that are working and strike out those that are not. Many people never realize that it is better to analyze your problems away from your work desk to allow new ideas to pop out of your mind. Go for a jog, a swim, a walk around the park, look at the fishes in the pond, visit the zoo just take a break from your normal routines. Have you ever encounter situation where your problems was immediately solved the next day after having a good night sleep. Sometimes your online promotion might be working but it takes time for the search engine to rank your site, index your contents, count the number of incoming links to your site etc. Don't forget that there are billions of website the search engine database is handling and it will take time before you can see any real results. Therefore, never stop feeding your website with new contents. Your body need to eat daily so does your website. At least, try to feed your website weekly. Never stop exchanging links and provide a place for others to exchange links with you. Regularly, free a portions of your old articles and submit it to be published into other websites, ezines with your resource box at the bottom. QUITTER never wins and WINNERS must Persist in order to WIN. Wishing you success in your Persistence of becoming a Successful Business Entrepreneur. About the author: Copyright @ Arthur Helping to groom potential entrepreneurs into the next Business Star. Most Financial Successful individuals Grow Rich by starting their own business. You too can own your dream business. Circulated by Article Emporium

TRAFFIC GENERATION ~ The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow. (Part 3 of 3)

2008-06-09T00:54:00.001-07:00

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... Circulated by Article Emporium

TRAFFIC GENERATION ~ The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow. (Part 1 of 3)

2008-06-09T00:43:00.001-07:00

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... Circulated by Article Emporium

The No-Work, Money-Making Website

2008-06-09T00:41:00.001-07:00

by: Willie Crawford

Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford While growing up on the farm in North Carolina, I loved gardening. There was something magical about planting a dollar's worth of seeds, watching them germinate, and then feeding the family for a entire season with my efforts. The only part I didn't enjoy was the weeding and cultivating. That was the WORK! So I was thrilled when I discovered "The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book." That book taught me how to get all of those great vegetables with no weeding, very little cultivating, and little watering. It really did teach you how to garden with literally no work. Twenty year later, I discovered just as fertile a garden on the Internet. With practically no investment other than my time, I could put up a website, nurture it, build traffic to it, and in time, harvest lots of sales from it. Just like with the vegetable garden, there was a lot of maintenance required if you wanted a good harvest. The site needed to be constantly updated so that the search engines "learned" that they should visit this "fresh" site often. The site needed to have lots of keyword rich webpages so that it would rank high for relevant keywords, and attract organic search engine traffic. Since I was taught that "content is king" that meant the more content-rich, tightly-focused webpages you had, the better. The content-rich pages meant you could make sales, get new subscribers, and even earn pay-per-click revenue from programs such as Google AdSense. The only problem with the above model is... it's a lot of WORK. Then I discovered, "The No-work, Money-making Website. It wasn't completely no work, but it was probably 1/10th the work that I had been doing. The no-work website encompasses building a content-rich website using automated tools. These tools allow you to gather relevant content (articles, RSS feeds, etc.) from all over the Internet and then instantly generate hundreds ... even thousands of content rich webpages in minutes. The no-work website encompasses using other tools to automatically update your site, so that each time the search engine spiders visit, they notice new content. Noticing new content on each visit, the search engine spiders make a note to visit more often. Now here's where this gets really powerful... As these search engine spiders visit more often, they don't just crawl your current no-work, money-making site. They also follow links to other sites you want to get indexed. So now you can put up your no-work site, teach the search engines to come back often, and then go on to build other sites knowing that getting them indexed is as simple as linking to them from your old sites. It really is that easy :-) By now you're probably asking what are some of these magic tools I use to build these amazing, no-work sites that literally takes on a life of their own. Here's are just a few of the tools I personally use: 1) Blogs. Blogs hosted on Blogger.com get noticed very quickly by Google because Google owns Blogger.com By pinging blog directories (and Yahoo using your "My Yahoo" page) lots of other sites take notice of your blog. They visit your blog and follow links to other target sites. 2) I'm a charter member of Content Desk. Content Desk has a tool that allows me to query databases containing tens of thousands of articles (based upon keywords). I can automatically sort the list of articles that is returned based upon keyword density, or a number of other criteria. Then, I can have the software itself create webpages for me using a template I've designed using the template tool built right into Content Desk. Content Desk is probably my favorite tool because I can, quite literally, add hundreds of article pages to my sites in minutes. My templates also include ads for a "pet" product and/or Google AdSense. I can add content-rich, relevant, very nice-looking pages to my sites in minute, and then move on to the next project, knowing that these pages WILL make me money. Content Desk limited its charter membership to a total of only 400 members, and that quickly sold out. However, since it's a monthly membership, not all members renew and there are probably some openings. To check on openings, simply visit: http://WillieCrawford.com/content-desk.html After arriving at the site, click on the "Charter Membership" link in the upper left menu bar. This will tell you if there are any current openings. 3) RSS Feeds. By incorporating RSS feeds into your webpages, you can set them up so that the content is constantly updated. This gives your visitors something fresh to read each time they visit. This gives the search engines fresh content each time that they visit ... and trains them to visit often. Content Desk incorporates a feature that works very similar to regular RSS feeds EXCEPT that it doesn't send your website traffic away. With a normal RSS feed, the content automatically added to your site contains links inviting your visitors to click away. It allows you to automatically update your pages, but it also siphons off traffic. Content Desk does this in a way that automatically updates your site without sending your visitors away. 4) Traffic On Steroids. This is another system for automatically updating/changing content on your site. Traffic On Steroids actually takes a core database of articles/content that you set up and then rotates it in your target webpages. The net effect is that each time a visitor (or search engine) visits a page, the page is different. This is very effective at training the search engines to come back often... and increasing your pages' ranking. Incorporate Google AdSense into these pages and you have another hands-off money magnet. You can also incorporate a product data-feed into your page using Secret Money Generator and have pages that are constantly updates AND have a catalog of products built in that all pay you an affiliate commission. Secret Money Generator is at: http://WillieCrawford.com/money-secret.html You can check out Traffic On Steroids at http://WillieCrawford.com/traffic-on-steroids.html I've just shared with you a few of the dozens of tools I use to create nearly-hands-off websites. I do still look at some of them from time to time to see if I can make them perform better. However, you could LITERALLY never touch many of your sites created with these tools for years... and you'd still have a nice revenue stream from them. It’s all about working smarter, not harder. It's all about using technology to leverage your time.

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 implemented systems. An example of such a system that you can study and utilize is at: http://WillieCrawford.com/TheSystem.html Circulated by Article Emporium

TRAFFIC GENERATION ~ The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow. (Part 2 of 3)

2008-06-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

by: Ron Hutton

How You Can Make Your Ad Command Attention

2008-06-09T00:37:00.001-07:00

by: Ronald Gibson

Copyright 2005 Ronald Gibson There are lots of ads for lots of product out there , so it is very easy for your ad to get lost in the shuffle. To avoid this, you must do all that you can do to make sure that your ad gets noticed. Here are some things that you can do to ensure that your ad commands attention. 1. Place colorful graphs, pie charts and other charts in your ad copy. Use charts that will grab a person's eye and also support your product claims. For example, if you are selling a product that boosts website traffic, a screenshot of your site's traffic stats can be very effective. 2. Highlight buying incentives like free bonuses and money back guarantees. You could place them in boxes or in front of a different colored background. 3. Use short sentences or sentence fragments in the body of your ad copy. A short burst of words can catch a skimmer's eye with one quick glance. 4. Highlight all the important keywords and phrases in your ad copy. You could use bolding, underlining and color to highlight the important words. I see keywords both bolded and highlited in yellow in many ads nowadays. 5. Always remember that we live in a visual world. Place attention grabbing pictures above and within your ad copy. A powerful technique is to use before and after pictures of people using your product. 6. Use a headline that catches the attention of your target audience. One of the most effective ways is to use a free offer as your headline. The "shocking claim" headline can also be effective, provided that you can back up your claim, of course. 7. Make your ad's keywords and phrases stand out by enlarging the text. This technique works wonders with headlines and sub headlines. 8. Make your products list of benefits and features stand out by using a symbol in front of each of them. The symbol could be a dash, solid circle, star, etc. 9. Use sub headlines to break up your ad copy andto capture a skimmers eye. You could make them even more powerful by highlighting them with color. 10. Use attention grabbing adjectives to describe your product. For example sizzling, incredible, high power, ultramodern, killer, eye popping, etc. But, be careful not to overdo it. Using the above methods should dramatically improve the chances that your ad will get noticed by potential customers. And that is the first step to ultimately making the sale. About the author: Ronald Gibson is a Web Designer and Web Marketer. He is the Webmaster of AffiliateUtopia.com, which offers information about some of the best money making opportunities on the Web. For more information, visit: http://www.affiliateutopia.com/ Circulated by Article Emporium

Consultants - Writing Articles for the Internet Blankets the World with your Expertise and Style

2008-06-09T00:34:00.000-07:00

by: Lynella Grant

Copyright 2005 Off the Page 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 Free how-to. Or let me write and submit your articles online for you. No learning curves (719) 395-9450 Circulated by Article Emporium

Get More Website Traffic

2008-06-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

by: Andrew Daigle

Copyright 2005 East Tech LLC 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 , DXInOne Free Training Site and Forum and Google AdWords Training Circulated by Article Emporium

Pay Per Click Advertising

2008-06-09T00:30:00.001-07:00

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. ** For a FREE 6 Day e-course on How to Improve your Search Engine Ranking and Tips on how to get much more Traffic please send a blank email to searchengineandtraffictips@getresponse.com Circulated by Article Emporium

Use Your Website Traffic Statistics To Improve Your Results

2008-06-09T00:22:00.001-07:00

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: For his Top Picks Home Business Newsletter visit Circulated by Article Emporium

How To Win The War of Pay per Click Advertising.

2008-06-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

by: Raamakant S.

Do you know what is the most important question among most internet marketers specially newbie’s. It’s "How to get highly targeted visitors to there site?" Believe me, I know it because I received this question from my subscribers almost daily. Well, earlier when I started my internet business I also faced this problem. I tried safe-lists, I bought so called guaranteed visitors, even I blast my ad to 10 million (Yes, you are right. It’s 10 million) sites but couldn’t make a single sale. Than I changed my strategies and get this problem solved by finding a right solution, and that is "Pay Per Click Advertising". Pay Per Click Advertising is a great solution for traffic worries which directs a highly targeted traffic to my site. Yesterday only I got around 280 visitors and I made 24 sales. 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 pros and cons. Where there are flowers there are thorns also. what you have to do is to protect yourself from thorns and let only the fragrance touch your inner sense. I am going to tell you advantages the Pay Per Click Advertising. One of the greatest advantages of PPC 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. Now came the very point in your mind that what is bad about Pay Per Click Advertising. The downside is that PPC 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 10000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors. 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. Since when you are doing the business for earning money and you are losing a heavy part of it then 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. The only way to assess your success in this field is monitoring, not only monitoring but careful monitoring. You can easily analyze it by visitor behavior which can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and pay-per-click campaign is a must for this. ----------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2005 Raamakant S. About the author: Raamakant S. is owner of 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. Circulated by Article Emporium

How to get traffic to your website!

2008-06-09T00:01:00.001-07:00

by: Matt Bacak

Today, the biggest problem that new website owners have is: “How they can get traffic to their website?” Significant amount of time and energy is spent today on this single task. You or your webmaster needs to commonly focus on: - Get ranked well on the most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn, Ask.com, etc.) - Pay Per Click (PPC) programs - Cost Per Click (CPC) programs - Link Exchanges - Directory Submissions - And more… All of these methods are valuable for getting traffic to your website. If you are not competent enough to rank well your keywords, you can obviously hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) for this work. From search engines you can get a very large portion of traffic to your website. Today, everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic to their website. Every day I see an article or an ad talking about driving people to your website; driving traffic to a website has become the “holy grail” on the Internet. People are realizing that if you build it, they won't come... unless you give them a reason. Website traffic just doesn't happen by itself. Your website is just one of many millions on the web and people rarely just stumble upon your site by accident. There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. You can buy traffic from vendors that will pummel your website with hits from automated programs. This will increase your hits but will it increase your bottom line? Probably not. You can set up blogs that spider (connect to) your website increasing your traffic count. Does this drive users to your website? Only if your blog is so interesting that people are reading it. There are thousands of blogs posted on the internet and your blog is just a needle in the internet haystack. Another trick is to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your website and subscribe to other RSS feeds. This again will increase your hit count but will do very little to drive potential customers to your website unless you're providing valuable information. Tricks will increase your hit count but do very little todrive potential customers to your website. People often turn to traffic exchanges. Quite simply, a traffic exchange is a program where you sign up and agree to surf sites in exchange for some credits. These credits are then used when other members of the exchange surf to your site. This traffic is not highly targeted traffic. In fact, if this were your only method of advertising your website, you'd probably fail. BUT it is a great method of getting traffic to your site in addition to the other methods listed above. So, why do people use traffic exchanges? Here are a few of the benefits: - Increase your Alexa rating! Did you know that some search engines factor your Alexa rating into their algorithms? More traffic means higher search engine placement! - Increase your branding awareness. Any marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that branding is extremely important to stand out amongst the billions of websites out there. More traffic equals more sales. A percentage of people surfing will be enticed by your ads and click on them to find out more information. Another source of revenue. Many traffic exchanges will actually pay you money to surf. More importantly, as you refer other people to the network, you'll earn a percentage of the money that they earn! It may be small amounts but if you work the system it could amount to a lot of money. Now, before you head over to Google and search for Traffic Exchange, I'd recommend knowing a few facts: - Some traffic exchanges are simply out to get money from you and will refer very little traffic to you. - Some traffic exchanges have poor systems in place to stop cheaters from running programs to increase their credits faster. Finally, some traffic exchanges will allow popup, active x controls, site rotators, etc. in their network. Any of these can stop your auto surfing from working, or even worse, allow your computer to be infected with a virus. The best part about Traffic Exchanges is that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The worst thing that could happen to you is you get a little bit of traffic which increases your Alexa rankings and you don't get any money. Of course, for the system to work, you've got to make sure that you do some surfing yourself. The makers of the exchange programs realize this and some of them even have an auto surf feature where you get a reduced number of credits while your browser happily loads page after page every 10 seconds or so. About the author: Matt Bacak became "##1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets Circulated by Article Emporium