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Web Traffic Building Techniques

 
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PostPosted: Dec Sun 17, 2006 12:48 pm    Post subject: Web Traffic Building Techniques Reply with quote

Web Traffic Building Techniques
By Terry Dean

The question that beginning web marketers ask me most often is, "How Do I get Traffic to My Web Site?" Having tested just about every type of traffic generation tool in existence, I will usually give them some specific ideas. Then, they always ask exactly how do I produce traffic at my own sites. I own many different web sites and domains, and the stats at each show some slight variations of where the traffic is coming from. That is part of the reason I teach so many different techniques you can use. Some traffic techniques work better than others for specific sites and products. To make this article as simple as possible for people to understand and follow, here are the ten best traffic building techniques of my main web site at http://www.bizpromo.com during the past month. Understand that the ranking of each of these techniques change from month to month at my site depending on exactly which tools I am focusing on, but these ten almost always are the top traffic producers for this site.

1. Publish an Ezine.
Publishing an ezine is number one in my book even though it doesn't produce the largest number of actual hits to my site. It's impact is significant in traffic levels though. I will always notice an increase of around 500 to 1,000 visitors on my traffic stats the two days after my newsletter is published. The reason I have ranked it number one on this list of traffic building tools is that this is when the largest number of buyers hit the web site. It isn't traffic that you really want at your site. You want sales. When you are publishing your own ezine, you will notice that you will have a much higher sales ratio to visitor ratio on the days your ezine comes out. You have built a relationship with your ezine subscribers, so many of your buyers are going to come out of this group.

2. Give away free ebooks.
This is a traffic strategy that came to me as a surprise back in December of 1998. I created a short ebook on different businesses you could start online and gave it away as a Christmas gift to my Web Gold subscribers. The book, originally intended only to be offered once as a Christmas gift, has spread like wildfire around the Internet. Every day, I get at least 2 new requests for permission to place this book on a web site. Add that daily number up and include the fact that around 500 sites asked permission the first month it was out and you will have a pretty nice set of free links out there for my web site...and that isn't counting those who may have listed it without informing me!

3. Give away free articles.
This is a major traffic generating strategy to use when you write your own articles. Whenever I check my traffic stats, I will always end up finding one or two new web sites listed as referring visitors to me. When I go over to the domains to check them out I will inevitably find that they have listed some of my articles on their site. I have over 70 articles at http://www.bizpromo.com/free and anyone who wants to use them has my full permission to do so as long as they keep my contact information in tact at the bottom of every article.

4. Publicity
I never send out "press releases" for bizpromo.com as most people think of one. What I have done is send out articles with a resource box in them which brings the reader to my web site. Then, those articles get picked up by magazines, newsletters, and even some of the large Internet sites. This type of promotion doesn't drive long term traffic like the above methods, but it can sure give you a big jump in traffic when the article runs.

5. The Major Search Engines.
The major search engines like Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, and MSN drive the majority of traffic to a site. This is usually true, but at bizpromo.com during the past month I have noticed that the largest portion of my search engine traffic is coming from google.com and dogpile.com. So these two are definitely becoming top dogs in the search engine industry, at least in my book.

6. Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
If you aren't currently using Goto.com as one of your sources of traffic, then you are missing out on a real opportunity. During the past few months Goto.com has become extremely popular and many of the bids are reaching astronomical levels, but you can still find many keywords to bid on in the 1 cent to 20 cent per visitor range. To create my large keyword lists, I will go through my pages and then use the Search Term

Another technique for coming up with additional keywords is to do a search on any of the other major search engines for some of your keywords. Then you can scan competitor's pages for additional keywords you could be using. For example, I did a search for "marketing" and came up with hundreds of other keywords I could use by looking at twenty of my competitor's pages.

7. Ad Exchanges with Other Sites.
I have used both my web site and my ezine to joint venture with other companies online for mutual traffic growth. For example, every week I receive a large number of new subscribers to my ezine through the joint promotion of ezines at http://www.ezinehits.com This was a wonderful idea that Kris Stringham came up with to team up ezine publishers such as Jim Daniels, Mark Joyner, Kevin Needham, and others while at the same time giving away a 100,000 Ezine Ad Impression Prize every week. Anyone reading this can go there and have the chance to reach 100,000 ezine subscribers while receiving the best online ezines. Each of the publishers gives a little ad space to the promotion in exchange for receiving a number of new subscribers each week. Everyone wins.

8. Post Card Decks.
This isn't a major promotional strategy of mine, but I have found that by using postcard decks it is possible to obtain quite a few new buyers at a web site. Whenever a postcard deck comes out that I have advertised in (either with the whole card or as an advertiser on a card), my sales jump up at the web site for the next week. You will find that it is easier to reach a large number of buyers for your products or services with offline advertising instead of only limiting yourself to the web. This type of advertising gives lower actual hit numbers, but a larger number of buyers than most online advertising sources.

9. Banner Advertising.
Even though banner advertising is one of the most well known forms of online marketing, it is still a small element in my overall promotional strategy for http://www.bizpromo.com I participate in some free banner exchanges and do purchase click through banner ads (where you pay for each person who actually clicks through your banner instead of per impression), but these are only for very special promotions that I run. I absolutely never run a paid banner campaign to the front page of my site. It must be for a specific promotion and straight to the sales page or a sign up for information to be sent through email. When using banner advertising, you have to solicit a response from the visitor immediately...or you will lose out on your money every time.

10. The Smaller Search Engines.
Many people put down the small search engines and Free-For-All Links pages as a useless waste of time, but they are forgetting a very important purpose they can serve for your site. I have them listed last because they do send very little traffic to my site, but I use them for another reason. Many of the major search engines are now using what they call "link popularity" as one of the determining factors in how high your pages rank. The more links that are to your pages, the bigger advantage your site has at the search engine. By using an automated program to submit your site to thousands of search engines at one time, you will be able to produce a little higher link popularity for yourself, and possibly give yourself that little edge you need in the major league search engines that really count.

Terry Dean is the author of Scientific Internet Advertising which will show you an incredible new Internet marketing system that makes you money even while you sleep.

Click here now for more information: http://www.roibot.com/w.cgi?R249_WG10
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Business - People on Your E Mail List

How To Remind People They Really DO Belong on Your Email List
By Scott T. Smith, MarketSTART

Sometimes people forget that they emailed you first, or asked to subscribe to your mailing list or newsletter. Here's a quick 3-point checklist to help head off any problems - BEFORE they happen.

1. Be sure you are sending your offer or ezine to:
( individuals who have requested information from you in the past
( individuals who have asked to be placed on your mailing list
( companies or individuals who have sent you their solicitation first

2. Keep your initial email to people short - step 1 of a 2-step mailing process. Invite your prospect to request additional information, or visit your Web site where they can fill out a form to show their interest.

3. Use a message header similar to the ones below when you send marketing information or an ezine to email recipients.

You are receiving this mailing because:
1) You have asked to be placed on our in-house email list.
2) We are updating you on previously requested information.
3) We are reciprocating your recent email solicitation.
Following these simple guidelines will help keep potential flames to a minimum, and remind your contacts why they should always be glad to hear from you.
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Publish An Ezine!!

Who Me, Publish An Ezine?
By Clay Stone

There are thousands of email newsletters published each day. If you're not already publishing one, you may wonder why? To begin, why are you subscribed to this ezine? Most likely it's because you find the articles and resources helpful. Free, useful information is what every online user wants. Ezine publishers provide this service to their readers . . . knowledge. We all have a particular topic we enjoy talking about. This is something you could share with thousands of ezine readers across the internet.

1. Share What You Know!
Have you worked in a particular field? · Do you have a hobby? · Do you stay current on a specific issue? · Do you do study a topic of interest? Everyone is hungry for knowledge, you can find many readers who are interested in the very topic you know about. Just write what you know and provide others with the gift of learning.
There are many reasons to publish an ezine:
It's exciting and fun · educate and inform · offer expert advice · share your favorite hobby · support existing customers · earn a decent income at home. These are just a few of the many reasons, but most important, you need to have fun!

2. What Can an Ezine Do For Me?
Ezines are an industry of their own. Besides being a very satisfying experience, publishing a newsletter can also be a very lucrative business. Picture your ezine reaching thousands of readers monthly, weekly, or even daily. You can sell ad space to advertisers interested in reaching your readers. This is a great opportunity for them to get some quality exposure, and they are fully aware of it. Targeted subscribers with a large circulation has a greater profit potential. It is very possible to start a business simply with an ezine. Yes, you will make money once you've built a decent circulation, but to be successful you need to know how to create, publish, and attract subscribers, advertisers, and sponsors.

3. Own a Business? Help Your Customer Know You!
An email newsletter provides the perfect tool for you to promote your products and services. You can quickly increase your credibility and become a leading authority in your field. You will also always be able to keep in touch with your customers and prospects. The power of online publishing is that you can make your ezine do almost anything you want. Build company stability, educate, inform, announce, ask for positive or negative feedback, and it all leads to a more satisfied, more active customer! So you can see why companies are realizing that publishing an email newsletter makes an excellent marketing tool, sales device, and much more. Ezines give you an entry to gently remind customers of your existence, keeping them updated on what's new and maintain a favorable impression in their mind.

4. Just Think of the Possibilities!
The benefits to the ezine publishing is endless, not to mention the unlimited benefits it provides to customers, readers, prospects, and advertisers. Creating a successful ezine is a reliable road to online success if you understand how to make it work. It's also a great way of using the Internet to make your business more successful, competitive, and profitable. Remember, above all make sure you have fun! I hope this article has helped you decide if publishing an ezine is right for you!

Article by Clay Stone of the Ezine Publishers Association join free at:
http://www.EzinePublisher.org/
EPAI is a free, non-profit organization dedicated to ezine publishers. As a member, you will find numerous services and resources to increase circulation, find advertisers, promote your ezine, and more! EPAI is helping thousands in the development, growth and success of their newsletter.
© http://EzinePublisher.org
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Ezine Hints: The Magic Number
By Bob Osgoody

Having published a Newsletter for over 6 years we've learned a few "tricks." Probably the most important one is that people want to get their information as quickly as possible. They are not willing to wade through tomes of information, no matter how well written, to get the ideas presented in the article. If two identical newsletters are published, except one has a rather long article, and the other has a condensed version of the same article, there will be a disproportionate number of "unsubscribes" from the first, and few, if any, from the second. This has got to tell us all something.

The magic number, we have found, is 750 words or less. Personally, I try to keep all the articles I write (and publish in our Newsletters) under that magic number. If I let my fingers get away from me, and have exceeded that magic number, I take a long hard look at the article. Nine times out of ten, it can either be shortened or made into two articles. Most modern word processors have a word count feature. As you are developing your article, if you check this on a regular basis, you can achieve the desired size without having to go back and rewrite it. The second, and equally important "trick" is to word wrap at 65 characters per line. If you don't, people may receive your article in a format that is very difficult to read. Many mail packages default to 65 characters per line, while others default to a higher number. If they receive an email that is wrapped at 80 characters, and they are set for 65, they will get 65 characters on the first line and 15 on the next. The entire article will be presented like this - very distracting. Almost all mail clients (readers) will display 65 characters per line correctly. There is also less eye movement required using the shorter line, making it easier to read. If this is the case, why would anyone consider using a longer line?

If you do not have a sophisticated word processor, "Word Pad" will serve the purpose. First - set your margins using "Page Setup" under the "Files" Tab to .25 inches on the left and 1.5 inches on the right. Select the "Courier New (Western)" font with a font size of 12. This will give you exactly 65 characters per line. Other margins and font sizes will work, but be sure you are getting the correct number of characters per line.

Now, you can estimate your word count. Figure an average of 9 words per line. There will be short lines and blank lines between paragraphs. If your article is around 80 lines long or less, you should be in the ballpark. This article, for example, is 56 lines. The actual word count is 506 - close enough? You may vary a bit on the actual count, but at least you'll have an idea of the length of the article and be close to that "magic number."

Bob publishes the free weekly "Your Business" Newsletter Visit his Web Site at http://adv-marketing.com/business to subscribe. As a bonus, get 40,000 FREE E-Books from Larry Dotson, when you visit http://www.ldpublishing.com
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Business - Build Your Ezine Subscriber Base

I will start off by saying that building a list of subscribers is NOT easy. It takes a lot of time and effort. I had a mentor who told me that in the beginning... be ready to work your rear end off... that's what I was told. And I really do appreciate it, because many will try to get you to believe that it's a cake walk. I have use all the following at one time or another since I started my ezine in November of 1998:

1. Writing and publishing free Special Reports and articles.
2. Writing and publishing free email Seminars and tutorials.
3. Swapping ads and articles
4. Personal recommendations from other publishers.
5. Joining ad co-ops
6. Participating in Web-based and email discussion lists
7. Sig file/line
8. Purchasing leads
9. Joining directories and lists
10. Joining list announcements
11. Participating in Joint Ventures with other publishers
12. Following up with members who join affiliate programs with me
13. Putting pre-printed posted notes and business in books at the local bookstore
14. Leaving business cards on the restaurant table
15. Inserting a business card or Post-It note in every envelope that goes out of my house; the mortgage payment, phone bill, gas bill, electric bill, car payment, cable bill
16. Giving business cards to friends, relatives, neighbors, etc.
17. Handing business cards to bank teller, grocery store clerk

I really do all the above and more. Exposure is the key. You must get in touch with those people who are interested in what you publish about. Have you ever noticed how some of the major corporations have their promotional an advertising materials all over the place. You have to do the same. I don't know if a lot of these methods are big producers, but they are cheap and inexpensive to do. So, there's nothing to lose. Some of my biggest returns that I can measure come from affiliate members, Joint Ventures, article submissions, and email seminars. I'm sure there are others out there that have some creative and interesting techniques for list building. Let's hear them!
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Web Traffic Magnet

"Traffic Magnet"... The Genuine Article by Jim Daniels

Fact: Most new, small business web sites take months to average just a few hundred visitors per week. At many of these sites, growth stalls indefinitely at that level. Unfortunately, lots of income just cannot be generated with these numbers. Why such little traffic to so many of these sites? Well, while there are a multitude of reasons, it basically comes down to this... Most small business owners simply do not have a marketing budget big enough to properly "kick off" a new web site. What's more, web promotion is getting more and more difficult as the net is saturated with new sites daily. With these facts in mind, I've put together one of my favorite traffic generation tips today. It has been working for me for years, and it will work for you. I like to call my little web traffic magnet, "The Genuine Article!" "The Genuine Article" helped me grow my web site traffic to 8,000 visitors per month in just my second month of existence. Not a big deal to many larger web sites, but to a brand new site, not bad. Keep in mind, I had zero banners and a very limited budget. I still rely on this promotion method heavily as my traffic surpasses 100,000 a month. So exactly what is this traffic magnet and how can YOU use it?... Simple. I write about what I do. That's it. Nothing more. I simply write a new article every week. I then do two things with my articles.

1. I email my best articles to other publishers and webmasters.
Since each article is filled with real, useful information on my area of expertise, (online marketing) many webmasters and ezine editors are happy to post the articles at their web sites and in their ezines. Anyone can use this powerful promotion method no matter what you are promoting. Just go to http://ezinesearch.com and gather some ezines on your area of expertise. Email each editor and ask them if they accept article submissions. Nearly all editors are happy to receive articles!

2. I also post my articles as stand alone web pages at my own site.
(With reprint rights.) I do this, not only to allow more webmasters easy access to my articles. It also attracts more traffic through the search engines.
Here's how...
Every article that I post gets a fresh set of META tags and a search engine submission. I also make sure that every article is keyword rich and I always try squeezing in a few extra keywords where appropriate. This helps with my search engine ranking and generates some very targeted traffic.
NOTE: Beware, there is a fine line between what search engines consider "the natural occurrence" of keywords and keyword "stuffing". If your document is a good read that happens to be keyword rich, you stand a much better chance at having it appear on a search engine than if is an obvious attempt at search engine trickery.
ANOTHER TIP: If you purposely misspell a few of your keywords, especially in your META tags, it can actually be a good thing. After all, many people searching the web often misspell the words they are searching on. This can work to your advantage. Next, I am very careful to "title" my article web pages tactfully. Here's an example of a few of my page titles:
Advertising in ezines - Ezine advertising that works! Direct Email Marketing. Using direct email to sell. Notice a few important components. The alphabetically strategic first word, the most important words repeated (another helpful tactic), and the interesting nature of the titles themselves. Even the word ezine is mentioned in singular as well as plural in that first title. I'm always careful to employ ALL of these features. They add up to better placement.

The last thing I do as I build my "article" web pages is to place a link to my home page on every article. Readers who find my articles and want more information about the topic they are researching, can always simply click to my main site! Starting to get the picture? Every week I build another page and register it with all the major search engines. Different keyword rich pages, different subjects, and all linked to my main site home page. So, are you using this creative and FREE marketing tool? If not, it's simple to start. Gather your best areas of expertise and start writing. Contact at least 25 other webmasters or ezine editors with the new article. Tell them about your article that would fit in perfectly with their site or publication. And don't forget to make every article into a separate web page at your site. Absolutely anyone can utilize the "Genuine Article" and start growing a traffic magnet to their web site! You can even get started today without having to write an article. Just visit http://bizweb2000.com/articles.htm and gather any of mine you want. You see, I always practice what I preach!
Article by Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing. Jim's site has helped 1000's of regular folks profit online.
Subscribe to their Free, weekly BizWeb E-Gazette: freegazette@bizweb2000.com
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