How To Increase Targeted Web Site Traffic
I get on average around 10,000 to 12,000 unique visitors to my main site each month. Actually, when you're speaking about the Internet, that's not too much to brag about, but it's better than getting say 1000 or 2000 visitors; that was my usual rate until I aggressively went after targeted traffic for my site.
I thought I would briefly and in very simple terms explain how I increased the targeted traffic to my main site from around 1,000 to 10,000 unique visitors each month. That's a ten-fold increase -- I am aiming for a hundred-fold increase but would gladly settle for thirty or forty times the traffic.
How did I increase my site's traffic? The answer might just help you get more traffic to your own site. Most of these techniques are very simple to implement and if you're serious about building an online business, lets face it, the first thing you're going to need is targeted visitors to your site.
I hope you have noticed I have mentioned the words 'targeted visitors' several times already. I did this to bring home the fact that you're not just after traffic but targeted traffic or visitors to your site. You want visitors to your site who are already interested in your site's topic and who are more likely to benefit from your site's content or products.
It's the first ingredient for a successful web site.
Below are my 5 main sources of targeted traffic to my site. Along with a short explanation of how you can create or put the same practices to work for your own site.
1. RSS EMPOWERED One of most effective sources of traffic to my site would have to be my blogs and RSS feeds. Notice I said blogs and feeds; I have created simple blogs and feeds for the major topics of my site: on rss resources, web hosting solutions, notebook computers, etc. These blogs and feeds bring in a great number of targeted visitors to my site.
With the introduction of Google Blog Search, my blog traffic is increasing even more. Within minutes of posting to my blog - I am getting targeted traffic from Google. You are instantly indexed by Google Blog Search; it's reason enough for every webmaster to put at least one blog on their site.
Try to imagine the traffic you'll get when the next RSS empowered Windows browser arrives from Microsoft. Get your own site ready and prepared for RSS to take advantage of all this traffic. Just use Google owned blogger.com to create your blog -- it has that all important blog search bar at the top!
2. SEO EMPOWERED Seo optimization should be your goal! Still the main source of traffic to my site are the search engines. Mainly from Google, followed by MSN and Yahoo. You must optimize your site for the search engines. This includes off/site links and on/site tactics.
I have been online since '98 so I thought I knew how to optimize a website. Boy, was I ever wrong! I didn't notice a big jump in my traffic until I stumbled across a SEO expert, actually stumble is the wrong word, I actually sought out the best SEO expert I could find. His name is Brad Callen. He offers a free email course on how to optimize your sites for the search engines. His main product is SEO Elite.
Just the free course and his helpful newsletter have really fine-tuned my site, which resulted in a major increase of traffic especially from Google. You should try the same for your site or sites and see the results for yourself.
3. ARTICLE EMPOWERED This one works. Article marketing for me has been the major reason for the turn around in the amount of traffic my sites were receiving. It's one of the most effective ways to get targeted visitors to your site.
Getting your articles published in ezines and on sites such as addme.com or sitepronews.com will generate an enormous amount of traffic to your site. As a bonus, you even get 100's of subscribers to your own ezine in one day!
The trick is to write helpful how-to articles on current topics that other webmasters want on their sites, this will boost your link popularity with the search engines and increase your rankings. You must also very carefully choose the right keywords to target in your articles, matching the content on your site. One way to do this is with a site like www.nichebot.com -- it will show how to pick the right 'competitive' keywords for your site. You must target keywords that have high traffic, yet little competition from competing web sites.
My main sources of traffic from article sites include www.ezinearticles.com and www.buzzle.com.
4. EZINE EMPOWERED Building a large opt-in list or subscribers to my ezine is another method that brings in a lot of traffic to my site. You can use an ezine to offer helpful tips to your subscribers. It is a very easy way to get repeat visitors to your site and build up a relationship with your visitors.
Your ezine should relate to your site's theme and offer more information on the same. Whether you believe it not, if you operate a site on a particular subject for a couple of years, you will fast become an expert on that subject. People will regard you as such and this will also bring in visitors to your site.
5. VIRAL MARKETING EMPOWERED Another way to attract targeted visitors is to offer a free product or service. I use free brandable reports that visitors can download and use. These reports and ebooks have links back to my sites. One of my most popular ones is a timely report and guide on how to use and benefit from RSS on all your sites. It brings in a lot of traffic.
Similar to the one above, I use other free viral techniques to build targeted traffic to my site. These are products that can be branded with your links and passed around. Helpful software programs that match the theme of your site are good choices to make.
Another popular one that I have on my site is the DATEwise eCalendar and personal planner that visitors can download and place on their desktops. It has hotlinks to my site that brings in traffic. It can be customized with your site's products so you get targeted visitors or customers.
OTHER SOURCES There are other sources of traffic for my site that I find effective but they bring in lesser traffic than the methods listed above. But they are still worth mentioning, one of these is regular posting on major online forums. This brings in very good targeted traffic, so too, is posting comments in online blogs.
Another good source is a traffic exchange called 'Traffic Swarm' - most sites where members exchange traffic don't work. You get worthless hits to your site. However, Traffic Swarm is one exception that your should try. You just set your start page to this exchange, and click on sites you want to visit.
Increasing targeted traffic to your site is an ongoing struggle for every webmaster. I hope you can try some of the techniques that have worked for me. I am sure they will also work for you.
Empower your site with targeted traffic!
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Get More Website Visitors
Without Going Broke
In the never-ending quest to make money online, every website owner wants to get traffic to their website fast.
The main problem they face: finding traffic that converts into buyers without breaking their bank.
In their haste to get the traffic they need, many website operators start throwing money at the problem buying ads and exhaust their advertising budget without any meaningful profit (unless you count the person they paid for the advertising).
The following three rules should help any business, big or small, make money with their online advertising.
** Set An Online Advertising Budget **
Most businesses, especially smaller ones with only a few people (or even one person), don't operate with an advertising budget.
The advertising money gets spent when everything else gets paid, or worse, they spend money on advertising without a plan so they're basically gambling with their money.
By setting an advertising budget, you can factor it into your overall business picture and it gives you a yardstick to measure results.
If you budget $500 a month to advertise and look for ways to spend that money wisely, then your business will grow more predictably than if you advertise sporadically and then wonder why you don't operate with a predictable income stream.
** Follow The Numbers **
Unlike offline advertising on billboards, magazines or in direct mail, you can track virtually all aspects of an online ad, including: how many people saw the ad; how many people clicked the ad; how many sales and how much revenue the ad generated.
Since you can track everything, you can test various phases of the advertising process.
Regardless of whether you operate a real estate agent website, sell an ebook, or hawk your plumbing services online, you can and should measure each phase of the advertising process.
If clicks on your ads fall below expectations, then work on your ad until it generates a healthy click-through rate turning viewers into website visitors.
If you don't convert very many of the website visitors you get into buyers, then your site needs work to do a better job of selling people.
By following the numbers, you can see where you need to focus in the online sales process.
The number one rule of online advertising: use a unique tracking link for each and every one of your ads, preferably one that tracks not only unique visitors, but also sales.
This might add an extra 5 or 10 minutes of work to placing each ad, but it will allow you to see which ads make a profit (so you can run them again) and which ads don't (so you can change or cancel them).
** Go Beyond Pay-Per-Click **
Google AdWords and Overture, the Web's top pay-per-click advertising sources, have made people lazy.
Many website owners never go beyond buying advertising from these two. However, a whole world of advertising exists buying ads on websites targeted to specific niche audiences.
For more, check out www.adbrite.com, a leading broker of online text link and banner advertising.
Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist & creator of an amazing course that shows A Quick and Easy Way To Painlessly Set Up Your OWN Money-making 'Mini' Websites... Without Being a Computer Geek, Buying Software, or Paying A Webmaster!" Click => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com
5 Top Places to Maximize Your Traffic
and Sales for Free!
Do you want more traffic and sales to your site?
If so, do you want to know how to take full advantage of the internet to get your sales message out there without having to spend thousands of dollars?
There are thousands of high traffic sites on the Internet where you can market for free. The trick is finding these sites and using them effectively to market your business online.
Your best weapon in finding these sites is Alexa. You can use Alexa, http://www.alexa.com, to search by topic and compare stats on sites, as well as get the traffic ranking of a site.
The point of marketing on high traffic sites is that the more visitors a site has, the more likely you are to be seen. The more you are seen, the more likely someone will click through and visit your site.
Marketing on high traffic sites isn't enough though. The traffic has to be targeted. By targeting your market, and marketing on high traffic sites, you can quickly multiply your traffic and sales.
To get you started, I've included five of the top sites on the internet, with tips on how to market your site effectively so that you can increase your traffic and sales.
1. Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com
2. MSN - http://www.msn.com
3. Google - http://www.google.com
According to Alexa, these are the top three sites respectively. Although you should make sure that you submit your site to their search engine spiders, which is free, there is a better way to market on these sites.
It's called Groups.
Yahoo Groups - http://www.yahoogroups.com
MSN Groups - http://groups.msn.com
Google Groups - http://groups.google.com
You'll find thousands of groups at these sites where you can post your articles, advertise your ezines, and submit free classfieds. You'll also find discussion groups on just about any topic you can imagine, and unlike forums, you can conveniently read and reply to messages in your email.
You can share information and build relationships with potential customers. The beauty of these sites is that they spider each other. Yahoo also uses RSS, which can give you an opportunity to become syndicated, especially if you write articles.
Your promotions can quickly become viral.
4. Ebay - http://www.ebay.com - If you sell products and services on Ebay, you can use your About Me page to offer a subscription to your ezine, as well as advertise your website.
You need to follow the instructions on Ebay when using this feature. Build a relationship with both your customers and fellow Ebay marketers. If you haven't considered marketing here, you definitely want to consider marketing it because this site gets over eight million hits a month.
5. Myspace.com - http://www.myspace.com - Although this site considers itself to be noncommercial, and it has strict rules about promoting your products and services, this is an excellent place to network.
You'll find blogs, groups, free classifieds, and forums. You can send and receive email and private messages. There's a search function that allows you to find others with your interests.
As long as you take the time to get to know the site and follow the rules, you can effectively promote your business here by networking with others. You'll need an account, but it's free. You won't be allowed to post for the first seven days, but this is to keep spammers out.
In fact, there are currently over 2,800 business groups here, some with thousands of members, and you can post quite a bit of information in your profile.
If you're on a shoestring marketing budget, you can use these high traffic sites to help you increase traffic and sales to your site.
Want even more high traffic sites to market on? Jinger Jarrett will show you how to market your business online to hundreds of high traffic sites for free. Grab a subscription to her premium ezine for just $5 per month. This is a limited time offer. http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/Special-Offers.html
How to Drive Traffic to Your Website
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 sointeresting 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.
A better way to buy traffic for your website is by using pay-per-click with Yahoo and Google. You identify the most common keywords associated with what you’re offering and bid on those keywords. This can be a costly option if you’re bidding on popular keywords but it’s a reliable way to generate highly targeted traffic. In my next newsletter I’ll go into more detail about using pay-per-click advertising.
The best way to generate traffic for your website is to provide quality content that will solve your customer’s problems. People search the internet for information that will solve their problems. Write and post as many articles as you can on your website.If you don’t have time to write articles or can’t write then hire someone to write the articles for you. You can have quality articles written by freelance writers at www.elance.com for practically nothing. The articles should be relevant to the problems your customers are experiencing and to the services you provide to solve those customer problems. Remember, it’s all about providing solutions to your customer’s problems. Check the “How To” Articles section on my website at www.valiss.com for more information about your website content.
The bottom line is that you can’t trick people into finding your website. You must provide valuable information that solves your customer’s problems. Your customers don’t come to your website to read your blog about how you spent the weekend. They’ll come to your website if they know they can find a solution to their most pressing issues. Keep your content fresh and relevant to solving your customer’s problems and in no time you’ll have plenty of visitors to your website.
Next time I'll talk about how you can use pay-per-click to generate targeted traffic and not spend a fortune.
Ted Prodromou spent over 25 years in the computer industry working for IBM, Digital, and Cellular one. Today he's the owner of Valiss IT, a consulting firm that provides small business coaching and marketing help. He’s also a certified personal and professional coach.
Ted has created and led many coaching workshops and today is helping small businesses automate their marketing with his latest coaching program, "Attract Clients While You Sleep". For more information visit http://www.valiss.com/specials.
