Archive for the ‘Website Traffic’ Category

There’s tons of buzz about how to get traffic to your website. The buzz is nothing new, but the problem is, it takes work and consistent effort to build. But if you have a plan in place, you can get a lot done in a shorter amount of time AND boast great results.

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To help you kick start your traffic building efforts and make it more effective, I’ve put together an 11-page report for you with 21 traffic tips.

Click Here to Download this Report (.pdf format)

In the blink of an eye, or so it seems, Twitter shot from the slush pile of new social networking sites to become one of the most powerful ways of reaching a large audience. But it hasn’t been without its share of problems.

To date, one of the biggest issues business owners have is figuring out how to single out the right people to communicate with. With the use of robots to add friends, and the ability to auto-follow people, you never know if those who reciprocated your follow were even interested in what you had to offer online.

In 2009, you learned how to get traffic to your websites and blogs simply by writing a compelling Tweet and sending it out there.

You learned how to personalize your Twitter page, including product images, tag lines, and hyperlinks to important sites. And some lucky users were even grandfathered with the ability to have an animated avatar before Twitter nixed it to the masses.

Just before the end of last year, Twitter created a Beta version of list options that apparently weren’t available to everyone using the site. With lists, you’re able to take the people you’re following and categorize them, allowing you to read the Tweets of one particular group at a time rather than sort through hundreds or thousands of Tweets that may be just a courtesy follow instead of a true interest.

The founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, plans to help marketers more by allowing you to open a business account this year. It will basically be a paid version of the site, that will get you perks such as analytic tools to help you focus your message more precisely.

You know, and you really can’t blame Twitter. I mean, here they are, the developers of an incredible powerful and popular social networking site that’s still not profitable. As a result, the primary goal of Twitter this year is to secure developments that will help them generate revenue. As marketers, we’ll be footing the bill for the things we use, but hopefully our return on investment will make it worthwhile.

Another thing regarding your Tweets that you can look forward to; is that they’ll soon be indexed in real time on both Google and Bing. This is great for those who are marketing trend products and services and want to defeat their competition using effective keyword-laced Tweets that result in decent conversions.

I’ve been busy putting together my plan for 2010, and naturally, one the things to be worked on is traffic.

Traffic is one of those things that you should be continually working on throughout the entire year, but it’s so easy to start slacking in this area as you focus on other parts of your business, especially if the things you’ve already done are getting you traffic now.

But slacking can lead to stale traffic. For instance, that link in the resource box of the article you submitted just 4 months ago, is no longer pointing to the free report you offered at that time. So even if you’re still getting click-throughs from that article, it’ll be hard for you to convert those visitors if they can’t find what it is they went there for.

Besides, it makes good business sense to bring in fresh traffic on a regular basis, because really, there are only so many times you can sell something to your current list and readers. So make an effort to promote your website each month, even if you only have time to write and submit an article.

Part of my traffic plan for next year includes tapping into the power of press releases, even though I have no interest in being contacted by the media. And I think that’s what deters a lot of online business owners from submitting press releases – the media.

If you’re like me, you don’t really feel a need to promote your business to the offline world, and in some cases, your business may not be suitable. But that shouldn’t stop you from using press releases to obtain incoming links and traffic.

In fact, I recently wrote up a quick press release using the templates provided by All Press Content, submitted it to a few free places online, and I’ve seen a jump in traffic as a direct result.

Now, in the not so distance past, I’ve written many press releases from scratch for clients, and I’m perfectly capable of writing them for myself. But honestly, I have no desire to spend a lot of time fussing over one for the sake of getting links. If I was trying to attract the attention of the media, then of course, I would definitely take the time or hire an expert to help.

But if you want to crank out press releases frequently without the drudgery of writing, I highly recommend the templates from All Press Content (coupon code at the end of this post). The templates lay out the entire release for you, tell you what to write and where, and even offer suggestions for what to write. Using the template I was able to write my PR it in about 10 minutes tops, and start submitting it.

A few bucks and 10 minutes of my time generated a nice stream of traffic. So I can only imagine the results of doing this on a regular basis

If you want to check out the templates, I talked Alice in to giving me a coupon code for 50% off. Here’s the info:

Go to: http://www.internetmarketingsweetie.com/pr-templates.html
Coupon Code: 65DBE
Expires: December 31, 2009

And don’t forget to share your own press release results with me!

After all these years, the most common question I get from online business owners is “How do I get traffic?”

That’s a big question for sure (by the way, at long last Kelly McCausey and I are working on a new and updated course to help you with that!)…there are so many possible methods of generating traffic.

So tell me…what is the hardest part for you? Is it getting traffic, period? Or is it a specific method that you struggle with?

Do you have a website that is losing income and traffic? Perhaps Google did a little algorithm change that caused the site to lose ranking and therefore visitors, or perhaps it’s pure neglect.

Don’t worry – it can happen to the best of us! We get busy and distracted if we have multiple projects or sites, and it’s hard to keep all those plates spinning. If this ever happens to you, don’t worry too much. You can turn things around rather quickly, especially if the site in question is already well established. Here are some of the things you can do to breathe new life into a dead website.

Launch a blog on the domain

If you haven’t heard already, search engines love blogs. The frequently updated content is also interesting to human visitors, too. Have a blog installed on the domain and start blogging with regularity. If you can do so, throw a little money at the problem and hire a ghostwriter to write quick blog posts for you. This is more cost effective than hiring writers to create entire articles. You can send the ghostwriters lists of keywords to write about so they can quickly come up with content. Of course, doing some keyword research first is a good idea. Once your ghostwriters send you their work, you can then expand on what they wrote. This will enable you to add a lot of content to the blog very quickly.

Write new articles

Write several new articles to direct traffic to the site. You can use some of the ghostwritten content you used for the blog posts if you like. Then, submit these to article directories and sites like iSnare for distribution. Where appropriate, publish the articles on another site you own. You can also write different versions of the article for use as guest blog posts for others.

Get more incoming links quickly

You can do this in a number of ways. You can pay for incoming links. Contact people who have websites in your niche and offer to pay them for text links. This can be fairly inexpensive. Writing articles will also get you more links. It also helps to go through your site and make sure your site has good internal navigation, meaning your pages are linked to other appropriate pages inside the site itself.

Use Google alerts

Sign up for Google alerts in the keyword(s) you want to rank for for this particular site. This accomplishes a couple of things. Each day (or week) you are sent an email telling you where bloggers are talking about this keyword phrase, so you can check out their blog and leave a comment if you can add something useful to the conversation, linking to your site. You also get ideas for new topics because you can see what’s going on in the news in your niche.

Twitter

After adding a new page to the site, tell your Twitter followers about it. If you have a particular page you really want to send traffic to, ask your friends to “Retweet” your update.

I have a confession to make. I recently had the experience I talked about above – letting one of my highest earning sites go neglected. I’m pleased to say that after applying the suggestions above, the traffic in the first month increased by 80%, with a corresponding increase in income too. Of course, these very same tips would work not only to resurrect a dying site, but also for growing traffic to an established site or a brand new one!

Carrie Lauth is a work at home mom who created the Natural Mom Business Guide – the internet’s only complete how to tutorial for women who want to start an online business marketing to green minded families. She also offers coaching for those who need one-on-one assistance. Click here to see how she can help you turn your struggling site into a full time income.

Today, I was delighted (ha ha ha) to see a comment on one of my posts that was a solicitation for a questionable link-building (SEO) service. The comment was wrong on so many levels…let’s have a looksee:

Hello, my name is Brian Scott and I am an internet marketing specialist. I was looking at websites under the keyword internet marketing and came across your site internetmarketingsweetie.com. I see that you’re ranked #1 on page 13 in google.

I am not sure if you are aware of why you are ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.

This guy is an “Internet marketing specialist” yet couldn’t find the appropriate contact info to reach me. He went to my “About Us” page and then clicked on a link that said, “Read Alice’s full story here” and then left a public comment there.

Ummmm…hello, Mr. Internet Savvy, you’d think you’d know how to find appropriate contact info for website owners and put a solicitation on their blog. There is a “support” link at the bottom of each page of the site, but I understand that may be confusing for someone not specifically seeking support, but why not check out the Whois for info if you’re stumped?

But what gets me is “I am not sure if you are aware of why you are ranked this low” – he doesn’t know WHY and he’s an “Internet marketing specialist”? And then he has the nerve to say, “how easily correctable this is.” Dude, how are you going to correct a problem when you don’t even really know what the problem is?

There is no reason you cannot have a top three ranking for any keyword which is important to you based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site.

You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you are interested I can help you with this…

I am talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites is what produces the rankings you are looking for internetmarketingsweetie.com.

The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking….and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

My partners and I own 1000′s of websites and offer private linking to hundreds of website owners just like yourself.

There…you DO have some idea of what the problem might be, but I wouldn’t touch your service with a ten-foot pole. If you were good at what you did, you wouldn’t need to solicit business in this manner. Besides, I’m not interested in getting involved with 1000s of sites that are in the habit of selling links, something that is frowned on by Google (Reference: Google Webmaster Help).

I did not send this email out to very many people but I am currently reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic this can deliver.

LOL, of course you don’t. By the way, what you have written is not an email. It was an unwanted solicitation you posted to my blog. And did you seriously try to intimidate me with your “reaching out to a list of [my] keyword competitors“?

I have your contact info as: phone #1-604-608-5575. Is it ok if I give you a call?

NO!

If so, just hit reply and give me the green light to call or give me a call for free consultation at [number removed - NEVER CALL THESE TYPE OF PEOPLE/COMPANIES].

No thanks.

I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it is risk free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes.

Yeah no risk in that I have no idea who you are and how you might obliterate my ability to appear in the search engines at all through possible shady tactics? No thanks.

Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

LOL, yes I think you should go somewhere else and I have a good idea where to send you, but I’ll try to be polite.

Sincerely,

Brian Scott
Vice President, Business Development
Supreme Link System
[number removed - NEVER CALL THESE TYPE OF PEOPLE/COMPANIES]
SupremeLinkSystem.com

Stay away from this dude if he contacts you.

P.S – I am talking about keywords that produce the right kind of traffic…Traffic that delivers leads, sales and profits. Because getting a ranking that does not generate leads and sales is worthless.

Yeah, that’s what I said earlier.

Is it Ok to give you a call? If so, just hit reply and tell me specifically who to ask for when I call and what time of day is best to reach that person or give me a call [number removed - NEVER CALL THESE TYPE OF PEOPLE/COMPANIES]

I think you know the answer to that one.

Final Thoughts for My Blog Readers:

Anyway, I’m just having a little fun with my blog spam today, but let’s be serious for a moment. Companies like this have been doing this for years. They may call you, email your and these days, they may comment on your blog and tell you your rankings suck and they can help you.

If you need help with rankings, start educating yourself about what search engines want and don’t want (Google, Yahoo & Live). No, the search engines don’t give you all the secrets and hand you rankings on a silver platter, but you NEED to know this stuff, so you can make a judgment about any SEO advice you get or any service you’re considering using. Then try learning from resources like SEO Book, so you can learn more techniques stay on the up-and-up with your SEO efforts.

It’s that time again -> Sweetie Saturday Report Club Time!

To Report Club Members: If you’re a member, this brand new report is already in your account. If you’re not a member yet, info on signing up comes in a bit. If you’re looking for BIG value in your Internet Marketing learning materials, you’ll definitely want to check this out.

But back to this month’s report…

You’ve probably heard that to get good traffic – from website and otherwise – you need links to your website. Well, there’s no way around it, links are like gold for an online business. They boost your reputation, drive traffic and improve your search engine rankings. It’s definitely a worthwhile exercise to build links to your site…but how?

This month’s Sweetie Saturday Report (for Report Club Members only) shows you easy and cost-effective ways to build those links to receive the long-term benefits for your website.

Introducing: “75 Link Building Strategies: For Increased Traffic and Boosted Search Engine Rankings”…this is your guide to increasing your reputation with your prospects AND the search engines.

This guide includes a written report plus full audio recording that covers 75 ways to build more links to your website and discusses:

The benefits of building links to your website and how your efforts today, can mean a lifetime of benefit.

Guidance on what kinds of links search engines are looking for.

6 things to AVOID in you link-building efforts.

The best thing is, most of the 75 ideas won’t cost you a dime to do…so you can start your link building campaign, no matter your budget.

At only 10 easy-to-digest pages (or listen to the audio if you prefer), you can zip through it and begin your link-building campaign today. There is absolutely no sense in reading all day, when you can be building highly-beneficial links to your website.

Get the Report + Audio for Only $12.97 by Joining the Club…

Click here to join the Sweetie Saturday Report Club for $12.97 per month and instantly receive a new Sweetie Saturday Report each month. You can cancel at any time.

Plus, you’ll receive this…

Members-Only Perk:

The monthly Essential Biz Notes supplement is a personal letter from me including a variety of strategies and recommendations for all aspects of your online business.

This month’s topic: This month’s topic: “Lacking Focus?: Give Yourself a Virtual Slap” ~ This month gives you insight into my recent struggle with focus as I dealt with an important shift in my business focus & a new baby…and the strategies for staying focused can help you too.

What to Do Next

Click here for full details on the Sweetie Saturday Report Club.

…or…

If you’ve already made up your mind, go directly to the sign up page.

Now, I’m not asking you to divulge your secrets, but I find it interesting to know how people generate traffic to their websites.

My top 3 sources for this website are:

1. Repeat visitors.
2. Organic search traffic.
3. Links from other websites (Top: Twitter)

How about your traffic sources? What are your top 3?