Increase Your Web Traffic

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Welcome back!

Your Ultimate “How To” Guide For Increasing Your Website Traffic!

traffic lights Increase Your Web Traffic

Your website needs traffic. It lives, breathes, and thrives on it. The challenge is positioning your site so that it enjoys continuous exposure to the right people at the right time. Deploying 1 or 2 internet marketing tactics can easily drive hundreds, even thousands, of people to your site. But, what happens when that traffic stream dries up?

Most site owners seem to approach traffic generation without grasping the true potential of their marketing strategies. We’re going to change that today.

Before we get started, let’s set our expectations properly. There’s no possible way we can cover the entire range of marketing strategies that can drive traffic to your site. It can’t be done in 1 article. But, we’re going to take it one step further. Below, I’m going to give you a bird’s eye view of the most effective internet marketing strategies you can use to generate traffic. For each tactic, I’ll provide links to 1 or 2 of the best resources available to learn, master, and apply the strategies. In time, this will become your ultimate “how to” guide for increasing your website traffic.

Let’s get started.

Inbound Link-Building

Building targeted, thematically-related inbound links is the cornerstone of all search engine optimization strategies. But, there’s an art to doing it right. Submitting your site to a few directories is no longer sufficient. Here are 2 comprehensive resources for planning and deploying an inbound linking program:

  • Guide To One-Way Link-Building – a thorough treatment of pursuing the right kind of links and their cumulative effect on your website’s search engine rankings.

Link Bait Creation

Link bait is exactly as it sounds: you create content that baits others into linking to your site. That can mean developing an interactive credit card payment calculator, a controversial political view, or an entertaining video. The idea is simple: get people to notice and motivate them to link. Ideally, this strategy should be a part of your inbound link-building program, but it deserves its own mention. Here are 2 resources for learning the link-baiting craft:

  • Link Bait Primer – this blog post provides a good overview of the topic from Matt Cutts, a high-profile Google engineer. Start here before moving to advanced link bait tactics.

Autoresponder Sequences

Getting people to visit your site is only 1 part of the traffic generation formula. You need those visitors to return to your site over and over. If you leave the matter to them, it won’t happen. But, if you can persuade your visitors to sign up for an autoresponder sequence, you can drive them back to your site on a predictable schedule. Read the following page to learn the strategy and how to apply it:

  • Autoresponder Flowchart – a top-down look at the entire process of encouraging people to subscribe to your sequence and delivering compelling messages that drive them back to your site.

Social Networking And Media

Social networking has become a powerful buzzword over the past few years. It’s a maturing strategy to develop traffic to your site and is bound to change dramatically over the next 12 months. Here are 4 resources that will give you a comprehensive blueprint to leveraging the technique:

PPC Campaigns

Eventually, your search engine optimization strategies, autoresponder sequences, link bait, and other free traffic generation techniques will be sending you a growing stream of visitors. To continue building the stream, launch small, ultra-targeted PPC campaigns. Doing so requires an investment, but if you know your metrics, you’ll be able to deploy this strategy and enjoy a positive ROI. Here are 2 reliable PPC resources:

  • Designing Effective PPC Campaign Strategies – don’t let the date (circa 2005) dissuade you from reading this article. The author discusses PPC strategy from a long-term perspective that is not only still viable today, but critical.

Product Development With An Affiliate Program

Here’s a potent internet marketing strategy that 99% of all site owners neglect. Once you’ve developed a traffic generation program using all of the tactics described above, your website (or blog) will be receiving a continuous stream of readers and fans. If you develop a product and attach an affiliate program to it that allows your visitors to make money by promoting you, it can turn your traffic stream into a river. Here’s a great resource for launching your affiliate program:

  • How To Start An Affiliate Program - a tutorial by Allan Gardyne, an affiliate program authority. It was written in 2004, but contains a mountain of useful information about creating your own program.
  • Overwhelmed with your affiliate program?

    Get Advice, Information and Tips on How To Build an Army of Motivated Affiliates

    Click Here to Find Out How!

Traffic Generation Strategies For The Future

Things change quickly online. The techniques that we’re using today in order to drive waves of traffic to our sites will likely be different 3 years from now. However, the strategies that I’ve listed above have a proven track record of success. They may change in the future, but the foundation upon which they’re built will remain static.

Here’s what I recommend that you do: invest time at each of the resources I’ve given you. Learn the tactics that are described there and apply them. As the methods for driving traffic to your website change, you’ll find that the resources above will prepare you to adapt.

Dynamic Link Building Teleseminar

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / FOR RELEASE BEFORE 2008/ FOR RELEASE AFTER 2008
Teleseminar Teaching “Dynamic linking building Strategies” To online Internet Marketers wanting to learn search engine 0ptimization.

Contact: Elizabeth Ashe
Company:http://www.internetmarektingstrategydiva.com
Address: 6303 Yellowstone st
Phone: (407) 926-9466
Email: eashe1@cfl.rr.com
URL: http://www.seoskillsunleashed.com/blog

ORLANDO, FL – 11/05/2008 - Internet marketing Strategy Diva, An online internet marketing business teaching search engine optimization, and online marketing skills to new work at home individuals and internet marketers. Is hosting a Teleseminar teaching internet marketers link building strategies on how to develop links to their site .Using her link building strategy is something that will bring highly targeted and special incoming traffic to your site or blog that is highly valuable.

This teleseminar is for those that are new to the internet, internet marketers and those wanting to increase their rank in the search engines. Elizabeth Ashe owner of Internet Marketing Strategy Diva and comments “Search engine optimization is something that needs to be learned and link building is one of the quickest ways to go about building rank in the search engines”. This link building teleseminar will provide valuable insider information that will teach from the ground up linking strategies and take your business to the next level.”

Highlights from “Dynamic Link Building Teleseminar” include:
• Strategies to get links to your site
• Valuable insider information on effective link building
• Free recording
• The importance of article marketing when it comes to links
• Press releases and blog comments

The Link building teleseminar is available at http://www.seoskillunleashed.com/blog To learn more about internet marketing visit http://www.internetmarketinstrategydiva.com Founded in 2007, Internet Marketing Strategy diva is a virtual strategic internet marketing company that helps small business and new online marketers to establish an online results-oriented marketing program.

How to Get Links to Your Site

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Link building and How to Get Links to Your Site

Link building is one of the most significant website promotion strategies. Not only does it give you the opportunity to get traffic from other websites, it is also a key factor in your search engine rankings. When it comes to links, more is better.

There are, however, a few caveats to that notion. These include:

• In order for links to be effective, they must come from websites with topics that are related to yours. If you have a knitting website, for example, links from wholesale car part distributors won’t do you much good.

• You’re better off not having links from so-called “bad neighborhoods.” These include directories that do not review websites before posting them and free-for-all sites. They are highly unlikely to bring you any traffic from their visitors, and the search engines could penalize your site if your link appears there.

• Reciprocal links should be used sparingly and judiciously. There’s no harm in trading links with a few highly relevant sites, but if that’s where all your links come from, you won’t see as much benefit as you would from more one-way links.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, there are many ways that you can get links coming in to your site. Here are some of the most effective.

Write Linkbait

Linkbait is content that just begs to be linked to. It’s informative and easy to digest, and it appeals to your target market. If you write a good piece of linkbait and submit it to social news and media sites, you could end up with a swarm of traffic and many new incoming links.

One of the easiest ways to come up with linkbait is to write a list. Titles such as “Ten Free Pieces of Small Business Software You Can’t Live Without” or “100 Ways to Save Money Without Depriving Yourself” are sure to get lots of attention. So when in doubt, write a list.

Do Some Networking

Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to find potential customers and business partners. They’re also a good way to get inbound links. Just setting up a profile on these sites gives you a link back to your site.

But don’t stop at your profile. Use the site to connect with others who might be interested in linking to you. By actively participating you give yourself the opportunity to build relationships, and even if those relationships do not lead to business, they could lead to links.

Give of Yourself

Helping others is good for the soul, and it can also give you incoming links in return. Simply answering questions on sites such as Yahoo Answers, sharing your knowledge as an About.com guide, or providing testimonials for other Internet marketers gives you the opportunity to build high-quality links. And as a bonus, it will give you the opportunity to build a reputation as an expert in your field.

These techniques are just the tip of the iceberg – you could also distribute press releases, participate in forums, guest post and comment on blogs, and much more. But no matter how you achieve it, getting quality links is crucial to your website’s success.

For more information about developing a linking strategy and a Teleseminar with a free special report on Search Engine Optimization visit http://www.seoskillsunleashed.com/blog

How to Get Website Links

Friday, October 10th, 2008

How to Get Website Links

Creating a winning website can take a lot of work and dedication to your website. You have to be able to set up your content management system if you’re using one, come up with an attractive layout, have graphics done, and fill it with content. If it’s an ecommerce site, you’ll need to set up a shopping cart and add pictures and product descriptions

Marketing the site is next step, because visitors are not likely to stumble onto your site by accident. And even if they did, there’s no guarantee that they would be interested in what you have to offer. Search engine optimization can help you get listed in Google and the others, but you also need to get links coming in from other websites if you want visitors.

Here are some reasons why:

* Links from relevant websites will bring you click-through traffic. It stands to reason that if someone visits a website with subject matter that is related to yours, they will likely be interested in what you have to offer.

* Links from other websites are seen as endorsements. In most cases, webmasters link to other sites because they like them or find them useful. Even in the case of link exchanges, few webmasters will trade links with a site they dislike. So when people see your link on someone else’s site, it looks like a vote of confidence.

* If you have a blog, incoming web links can get you increased visibility on sites such as Technorati. Technorati is a popular blog search engine and directory that ranks blogs by authority, a number that is directly connected to incoming links.

* Website links can help you get better rankings in standard search engines. When other sites link to a page on your site using a given keyword as anchor text, it helps you rank higher for that keyword. And the number of html links you receive from other sites helps your overall search engine positioning in the search engines.

Getting Web Links

Getting links to your website isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Here are some ideas:

* Link to your site from your social networking profiles such as twitter and facebook, and add links to your forum signatures.

* If you have other sites, link to your new site from them and place links with in your content of your site. From your own web pages of course.

* If you have an email newsletter, announce your new site to subscribers. If they like your other sites, they will probably visit, and they might choose to link to the new site on their own.

* Ask Bloggers you know to review your site and offer some sort of incentive for them linking to you.

* Email owners of related sites and ask if they would like to exchange links.

Incoming links can help you get your website noticed, and they can cut down on the need for paid marketing. These links can bring you both traffic and traffic from the search engines.

How to Find Broken Links

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

How to Find Broken links

A broken link, also known as a dead links and a URL links, is defined as a link which leads to an error page or a web page or server which is unavailable. While the occasional broken link may not seem like too much of a big deal all it takes is a single unchecked dead link to lose a customer.

A website visitor’s attention span is typically limited to about twenty seconds. If you can’t capture their attention in those first twenty seconds – click, they’re gone. They’re onto- your competition.

Now imagine you’ve done your job as a webmaster and captured the attention of a visitor. They’re reading your content and liking what they see. A link or button captures their attention, they click it and oops, there’s an error page. Some patient folks will go back to the page they were on and continue browsing however the majority will simply click away. You’ve lost them and any potential profits which may have been gleaned from their wallets.

Unfortunately most web site masters are completely unaware that their links are broken – dead. Many never even consider to check for broken links. What is an unaware webmaster to do?

Fortunately when there’s an issue on the internet, there are many people and companies who jump in to help you solve the problem. Dead links are no exception.

You can, of course, check all your links yourself. If you have a single page brochure site this is probably the best and most economical decision to make. You can click on each of your links on a monthly basis simply to make sure they’re still working. Perhaps you link to an order form, a map or even other websites. A few clicks and you’ll know whether your links are breathing or have kicked the bucket and need to be fixed.

However many websites have hundreds of pages, each with their own internal links. One broken link can break a very important chain. Checking a site like this manually can take way more time than you have. You could hire an administrative assistant to weed through page after page of links trusting that they’re not going to miss any or you can use one of the many dead link checkers available online. Most of these tools work by simply typing in your URL and generating a report. Depending on the size of your website this process can take anywhere from five seconds to five minutes, to find broken links. The result is a nice list of links to update.

Once you have a list of links to update, the sooner you can fix them the better. Remember, each dead link may be a lost customer. While it isn’t necessary to check for links weekly or even monthly it pays to schedule a quarterly broken link check into your calendar. All it takes is a few hot minutes and your website stays fresh and up to day.

How to build link Popularity

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

How to build link Popularity by exchanging links.

Effective link building can offer website two main benefits. Incoming links increase your website traffic which of course means your conversions and sales increase. Incoming links also increase your search engine ranking because search engine spiders from all the search engines including MSN, Yahoo, and Google, all use incoming links as part of their ranking and indexing algorithm.

One of the most excellent and most popular ways to increase incoming links is to exchange links with other relevant and trustworthy websites. Relevancy and trustworthiness are both important not only to maintain and increase your own website integrity but also with search engine rankings. Links which come from websites which are relevant and trustworthy have more weight than non-relevant links.

So what is a relevant link? It’s a link which compliments or supplements your own site. It doesn’t compete with it. For example if you sell cloth diapers then a link from a site that sells nursing covers or an organic pillow company would be applicable. A link from a company that makes men’s shoes is not relevant to your site.

So now the big questions…how do you exchange links with a relevant site?

The first possibility is to contact the webmaster directly and ask if they will trade links with you. Make sure to follow through if they do link to you and check occasionally to make sure they’ve followed through with their end of the deal. It’s unprofessional to remove links after agreeing to however it does happen. Link strength can go down if the links are on the same page coming from each other. For example you have their link on the homepage and your link is on their home page. Try to have the links on different pages for Google to still count the link.

Another way to exchange links is to offer a link to us button on your website. Visitors can click on this button and receive html code for a variety of link types including text and banner. Make sure webmasters have a way to contact you to let you know they’ve linked to you so you can reciprocate.

If you’re approaching a webmaster to request a link exchange make sure you’ve done your homework and understand not only their website business but also the benefit of linking to you. Present it so they understand what’s in it for them. This is accomplished by understanding your target audience and theirs.

Be sure to also provide relevant data including daily website visitors and any visitor demographic information which may be applicable.

When handled correctly, link exchanges are a good way to increase your website traffic. Do your research, approach webmasters with a professional and thorough presentation, and follow through on your end of the agreement.