The reciprocal link principle is simple – find websites with good rankings and plenty of traffic, and trade links with them. But when you’re just starting out, why should a big important site give a little upstart like you any kind of link? Well there’s only one way to find out –ASK.
It helps if you have some kind of relationship with the site owner. But even if you don’t, you can sometimes use bribery to get a link from a well-ranked site. Ask for a link. If they say no, ask “Would you consider linking to me for $100?" You’d be surprised at how many webmasters will take you up on your offer!
This technique works best with privately owned sites that rank in the top 10 for targeted keywords in niche markets. There’s no point in trying to get a link from Forbes or Newsweek’s or Fortune’s web site. But if you’re selling weight loss products, and $50 will buy you a link from a small web site that’s ranked #1 for “low-carb dessert recipes,” you’re probably better off buying that link than buying $50 of PPC advertising. This also can’t hurt your own search engine ranking.
Get a simple written agreement about exactly what the link will say (keyword optimized) and the duration of the link – 6 months, a year, forever...
A similar technique involves finding all the sites that link to your competitors, and offering them a cash incentive to add your link to their site. To accomplish this there are a slew of products out there.
Software programs that will:
analyze a web page and reveal the main variables used by a search engine to determine its rankings
These include:
Incoming link popularity.
Link text (keyword ratio).
Keyword density ratio on the web page.
Keyword density ratio in the title tag.
Google PageRank rating (if Google is the selected search engine).
Analyze and optimize your websites internal links
finds relevant link partners by searching for:
Web sites that link to your competitors' web sites.
web sites that offer products or services complementary to yours.
informational web sites.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Social Networking
Yes, you can make new business contacts online. Joint Venture's, which are so common today, proves the simple principle that in the end, people do business with PEOPLE. Old fashioned networking is still alive and well, online. And it’s a great method for getting some good exposure if you’re just starting out and have no money for marketing. By building some business relationships, you’ll soon have other marketers offering to link to you, publish your articles, write about your site in their newsletter, and even offer you free advertising.
One of the best places to make business contacts in your field is in Social and Business Networks. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace are good examples. Also, Direct Matches, and Earners Online are good places to build relationships with others in yours or related fields. But instead of trying to convince consumers to visit your site, make friends with experts in related fields. Marketers, Traffic, E-mail experts can all be found on these networks. There are also other website owners who may be interested in your product or service.
As with all business networking, look for ways to help your colleagues. If they have their own site, offer them a link on yours. If they have an opt-in list, perhaps you can set up a special web page, and give them a rebate on any commissions you make. If they write their own articles, perhaps you can turn them into a mini-ebook and offer it to all your visitors. And there’s no reason you can’t be agressive, and send an email to noncompetitors (or even competitors) whose sites you admire. You don’t have to consider every competitor your enemy. Simply look for opportunities to be helpful.
One easy way to help (provided you do it diplomatically) is to point out a problem on someone’s site or in their ezine. If you find a broken link or some other error, drop them a note. Most webmasters WANT to know if a link suddenly stops working or if their database is generating internal server errors. Another way to make powerful friends online is to read your Spam. That’s because ALL online merchants want to know if someone is promoting their affiliate product via Spam. It’s not just the Spammer who can suffer some stiff legal penalties – they can too. So if you see someone’s ebook or software being sold via Spam, write to them and let them know. Make sure you keep the original Spam, and send it to them as an attachment (not forwarded) so they receive all the headers intact.
How can networking help get you targeted traffic? If you make 15 good, personal, one-on-one business contacts every month, at least 3 of them will end up sending you traffic. Someday, they’ll start pushing the right kinds of visitors to you. It might be by linking to you. They may mention your site in a viral ebook or one of their articles. They might want to do a joint venture or partner on a money making project. They might do all these things (and many more). Yes, it’s old fashioned. It’s not autopilot. It’s not passive. But networking costs you nothing except time – and can be worth gold in the long term.
One of the best places to make business contacts in your field is in Social and Business Networks. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace are good examples. Also, Direct Matches, and Earners Online are good places to build relationships with others in yours or related fields. But instead of trying to convince consumers to visit your site, make friends with experts in related fields. Marketers, Traffic, E-mail experts can all be found on these networks. There are also other website owners who may be interested in your product or service.
As with all business networking, look for ways to help your colleagues. If they have their own site, offer them a link on yours. If they have an opt-in list, perhaps you can set up a special web page, and give them a rebate on any commissions you make. If they write their own articles, perhaps you can turn them into a mini-ebook and offer it to all your visitors. And there’s no reason you can’t be agressive, and send an email to noncompetitors (or even competitors) whose sites you admire. You don’t have to consider every competitor your enemy. Simply look for opportunities to be helpful.
One easy way to help (provided you do it diplomatically) is to point out a problem on someone’s site or in their ezine. If you find a broken link or some other error, drop them a note. Most webmasters WANT to know if a link suddenly stops working or if their database is generating internal server errors. Another way to make powerful friends online is to read your Spam. That’s because ALL online merchants want to know if someone is promoting their affiliate product via Spam. It’s not just the Spammer who can suffer some stiff legal penalties – they can too. So if you see someone’s ebook or software being sold via Spam, write to them and let them know. Make sure you keep the original Spam, and send it to them as an attachment (not forwarded) so they receive all the headers intact.
How can networking help get you targeted traffic? If you make 15 good, personal, one-on-one business contacts every month, at least 3 of them will end up sending you traffic. Someday, they’ll start pushing the right kinds of visitors to you. It might be by linking to you. They may mention your site in a viral ebook or one of their articles. They might want to do a joint venture or partner on a money making project. They might do all these things (and many more). Yes, it’s old fashioned. It’s not autopilot. It’s not passive. But networking costs you nothing except time – and can be worth gold in the long term.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Press Releases
Submitting press releases gets you exposure on sites like Google & Yahoo News, along with many other websites related to your business. This generates targeted traffic something fierce. What do you think would happen if your website was featured in a large magazine or on a television interview? You’d get a flood of traffic to your website.
Press Releases need to be formatted for the press and not as an advertisement. You must tease the reader and hope that a valuable member of the press will want to know more about you. You can submit as many press releases as you want for any relevant event.
Some examples are:
- A new website launch
- A special product promotion
- A personnel promotion within your company (New CEO)
- A new product launch
- A special event announcement
- A strategic partnership deal
- An award received for excellence in business
The most popular press release site is: http://www.prweb.com/
Please Note: It is important to include the website URL that you want ranked at least once in the body and, at least twice somewhere within the entire release.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Social Bookmarking For Traffic
Social Bookmarking is essentially using a social bookmarking service to bookmark your webpages or blog posts, so that other users of the bookmarking site can visit. When you bookmark a site, you tag it with keywords, and people can search for the keywords that reflect their interests at the social bookmarking site.
Does it work? Absolutely! In fact, this is a very fast way to generate really good traffic to your site – for free. Again, you will want to try to get them on your opt-in list, once they arrive at your site, so that you can bring them back again and again. Notice that I said ‘really good traffic.’ This is good traffic because the visitor finds your site by searching for the keywords that you’ve used when you bookmarked it. They are essentially looking for you. For this reason, it is important to use keyword tags, for each page, that are absolutely relevant to the content on that page. Don’t try to use unrelated keywords, this tactic simply won’t work.
There are numerous social bookmarking sites out there, and hitting them all, to
bookmark each page of your website, could literally take days, if not weeks. Fortunately, there are social bookmarking services that will send your bookmarks and tags to numerous social bookmarking sites in one fell swoop. You want a service that targets the best social bookmarking sites, and that service is OnlyWire.com.
Only Wire is free to use (another bonus). Getting set up with OnlyWire takes a couple of hours, because you will need to go to each of the social bookmarking sites that it lists, register, and then put your username and password for each site into the list at OnlyWire. Once that is done, you will add the Only Wire icon to your browser toolbar (very easy todo – you just click, hold the mouse button down, and drag and drop it up there). Now, you are all set up.
When you are ready to bookmark your pages, first go to the OnlyWire site and login. Leave that window open. Open another window (tabbed browsers work great for this), go to your site, go to a page that you want to bookmark, and hit the icon. You will be taken to the Only Wire add a bookmark page. Here, everything is filled in, except your keyword tags. List the keywords that are associated with the page you are bookmarking, and hit submit. You’re done with that page move on to the next one. Nothing could be easier, and again, it is very effective.
Does it work? Absolutely! In fact, this is a very fast way to generate really good traffic to your site – for free. Again, you will want to try to get them on your opt-in list, once they arrive at your site, so that you can bring them back again and again. Notice that I said ‘really good traffic.’ This is good traffic because the visitor finds your site by searching for the keywords that you’ve used when you bookmarked it. They are essentially looking for you. For this reason, it is important to use keyword tags, for each page, that are absolutely relevant to the content on that page. Don’t try to use unrelated keywords, this tactic simply won’t work.
There are numerous social bookmarking sites out there, and hitting them all, to
bookmark each page of your website, could literally take days, if not weeks. Fortunately, there are social bookmarking services that will send your bookmarks and tags to numerous social bookmarking sites in one fell swoop. You want a service that targets the best social bookmarking sites, and that service is OnlyWire.com.
Only Wire is free to use (another bonus). Getting set up with OnlyWire takes a couple of hours, because you will need to go to each of the social bookmarking sites that it lists, register, and then put your username and password for each site into the list at OnlyWire. Once that is done, you will add the Only Wire icon to your browser toolbar (very easy todo – you just click, hold the mouse button down, and drag and drop it up there). Now, you are all set up.
When you are ready to bookmark your pages, first go to the OnlyWire site and login. Leave that window open. Open another window (tabbed browsers work great for this), go to your site, go to a page that you want to bookmark, and hit the icon. You will be taken to the Only Wire add a bookmark page. Here, everything is filled in, except your keyword tags. List the keywords that are associated with the page you are bookmarking, and hit submit. You’re done with that page move on to the next one. Nothing could be easier, and again, it is very effective.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Viral Marketing 101 - Not Using It Could Kill Your Business!
This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.
It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.
While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.
While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.
Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.
In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.
Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.
Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.
The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.
Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.
Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moiré popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?
Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.
Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Article and Forum Marketing
You’ve probably heard about Article and Forum Marketing. Are you doing it? The reason that you hear so much about these two marketing techniques is that they work! Article and forum marketing builds traffic slowly. There are faster ways to get traffic. But, when you build traffic using these methods as well, you are also building your credibility. You are drawing responsive people to your site, and if your site is doing its job, you get those people on your list, you can draw them back over and over again.
Note: If you are not collecting email addresses at your website, the traffic that you bring there is essentially wasted. By building an opt-in list, you can bring traffic back to your site and this is essential to online businesses. Email addresses and first names should be collected with an opt-in page, or with subscribe boxes located on every single page of your website! Give them a free report or article as an incentive to join your list.
Now, let’s start generating some traffic with articles. The idea is that you write an article, which should be anywhere from 350 to 750 words in length. You include an author’s resource box at the bottom of your article, and your website link is included in that resource box. You submit the article to article directories and ezine publishers. If you can’t write, you can get article written for less than $10 each by a ghostwriter or use PLR articles. It is essential that you do article marketing, because it is viral. Your articles will be used on other people’s websites, blogs, and in their ezines – spreading the word about your site.
Forum marketing is also important. To do forum marketing, you find good, well populated forums that relate to your niche. You simply participate in those forums, and include a signature file at the bottom of all of your posts, that lead people to your website. Forum marketing does not take much time at all, once you’ve found the forums that you want to participate in. Again, these are slow, but effective (and free) ways to generate traffic. Write and submit one article, each week. Participate in your forums on a daily basis, posting one message in each forum per day, using a signature file that brings people to your website. But no matter how slow they are, they are essential to your overall online business because of the virility of these techniques, and the credibility that it gives you.
Note: If you are not collecting email addresses at your website, the traffic that you bring there is essentially wasted. By building an opt-in list, you can bring traffic back to your site and this is essential to online businesses. Email addresses and first names should be collected with an opt-in page, or with subscribe boxes located on every single page of your website! Give them a free report or article as an incentive to join your list.
Now, let’s start generating some traffic with articles. The idea is that you write an article, which should be anywhere from 350 to 750 words in length. You include an author’s resource box at the bottom of your article, and your website link is included in that resource box. You submit the article to article directories and ezine publishers. If you can’t write, you can get article written for less than $10 each by a ghostwriter or use PLR articles. It is essential that you do article marketing, because it is viral. Your articles will be used on other people’s websites, blogs, and in their ezines – spreading the word about your site.
Forum marketing is also important. To do forum marketing, you find good, well populated forums that relate to your niche. You simply participate in those forums, and include a signature file at the bottom of all of your posts, that lead people to your website. Forum marketing does not take much time at all, once you’ve found the forums that you want to participate in. Again, these are slow, but effective (and free) ways to generate traffic. Write and submit one article, each week. Participate in your forums on a daily basis, posting one message in each forum per day, using a signature file that brings people to your website. But no matter how slow they are, they are essential to your overall online business because of the virility of these techniques, and the credibility that it gives you.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Intro to Traffic Generation
Today, I want to discuss the various things that you need to check to ensure that your site is ready to receive traffic. Prepare your website, make sure that things are neat and tidy. Make sure that your navigation follows a logical sequence. Make sure that you have plenty of good content, and that everything is spelled correctly. I can't stress enough how important that last part is. Spelling is a pet peeve of mine and I can't believe how many websites, ads and emails have typos. It leaves a bad impression in the readers mind.
You also want your visitors to be able to participate in your site – to take action. Look at each page, and determine what type of action your visitors can take. Do you have a forum or blog? Do you conduct polls or surveys? Do you have a subscribe box for your opt-in list on every page of your site? Make absolutely sure that your website is ready for company! Also make sure that your pages lead your visitors to take the action that you want them to take, no matter what that action may be.
That is the first and most essential step of traffic generation. If your site isn't pleasing and welcoming, any traffic generation activities you do from this point on are wasted! Take the time, and put forth the effort to make your site as good as possible – and learn to look at it from your visitor’s point of view!
After you do this, make sure that you are using all of the best known Search Engine Optimization techniques, such as making sure that you have clean HTML code, that you’ve used your keyword effectively, that you have keyword rich text links and alt tags, and that the title of your website, in your HTML code, has your main keyword or phrase as well. Take some time to explore SEO techniques, so that you can draw natural search traffic as well.
Once your website is ready for visitors, start inviting them. You do not need any special tools for traffic generation. What you need is your computer, an Internet connection, your mind, a willingness to do the work, and knowledge. That’s all it takes.
You also want your visitors to be able to participate in your site – to take action. Look at each page, and determine what type of action your visitors can take. Do you have a forum or blog? Do you conduct polls or surveys? Do you have a subscribe box for your opt-in list on every page of your site? Make absolutely sure that your website is ready for company! Also make sure that your pages lead your visitors to take the action that you want them to take, no matter what that action may be.
That is the first and most essential step of traffic generation. If your site isn't pleasing and welcoming, any traffic generation activities you do from this point on are wasted! Take the time, and put forth the effort to make your site as good as possible – and learn to look at it from your visitor’s point of view!
After you do this, make sure that you are using all of the best known Search Engine Optimization techniques, such as making sure that you have clean HTML code, that you’ve used your keyword effectively, that you have keyword rich text links and alt tags, and that the title of your website, in your HTML code, has your main keyword or phrase as well. Take some time to explore SEO techniques, so that you can draw natural search traffic as well.
Once your website is ready for visitors, start inviting them. You do not need any special tools for traffic generation. What you need is your computer, an Internet connection, your mind, a willingness to do the work, and knowledge. That’s all it takes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
