The Cold Turnkey

If you have a Web site, you have already done so much work just building it. But you are going to need exposure. Why build something great if people don’t even know about it? Search engine optimization can help you score well with major search engines like Google and Yahoo. But what I want to do is share some non-seo tips that you can use to finally increase your traffic.

Importance of incoming links

You will need a lot of incoming links to even stand a chance of being highly ranked on the major search engines. The way to do that is to list with free and paid directories. Don’t expect tons of traffic from these directories, but what you should expect is relevancy for the major engines. The engines take you more seriously when you have quality links pointing into your Web site. Good places to start with directory submissions are strongestlinks.com and improvinglinks.com; both these sites list great directories and provide information on them. You will want to submit to directories with a high page rank and passes the PR.

Link exchanges

Another way to get incoming links is to exchange links with other quality sites with a similar theme to your site. Major engines such as Google will love this and reward you with higher rankings. Linkmarket and Value Exchange (free) are great places to start with link exchanges.

Keep adding quality content

To stay on the search engines friendlier side, just keep writing rich content with great keywords. Make sure there are no broken links on your site before you submit… that hurts your chances of being listed.

High demand, low supply keywords

The keywords you use are very important; you simply can’t afford to guess on which ones will work best. Use wordtracker to help you decide which keyword to useeven if you are using SBI. Placing keywords in the title and in anchor links earns you extra points with the search engines.

Help and be helped with forum chat

Not only can you get good tips and advice from forums, you can always pay it forward and help others as well. Forums are another place where you can increase traffic to your websiteall you have to do is leave your link at the end of each post. Remember though, most likely you are not able to blatantly advertise in forums. But you can leave a catchy signature (which should contain a link back to your site) that will lead to a click.

Spending a little more money on advertising

I know people may want to quickly read over this part, but you may have to spend a little bit more on advertising. There’s no need to go overboard with spending though. When you advertise, you should monitor your campaigns to see which methods work best for your particular business.

Starting a PPC campaign can be a great way to advertise. If you are not too familiar with Adwords I would like to quickly explain what it is all about. If you do any search using the Google search engine and then look towards the right of the screen you should see ads under the “sponsored links” section. When you use Adwords, you are going to be creating ads to go in that same area for a given keyword; everytime someone sees your ad and clicks on it, you have to pay a certain amount (hence, pay-per-click).

There is an easy-to-understand ebook available that shows you how to use Google Adwords effectively: Google Adwords 1-2-3
. IF you are into affiliate marketing you should definitely check this ebook out. This ebook is especially great for beginners because it’s very clear and it holds you by the hand from the start. PPC is a great way to advertise but it must be done carefully… this book shows you how.

Article submission

Submitting your articles to directories is another great way to gain exposure for your Web site. People read your quality articles and check your site out. If it’s useful, word will get around quickly. Just remember to leave your information (i.e. about author) at the end of your article; that way if someone reprints your article in full, your name and website URL are there.

When your article legally appears on someone else’s site, you can gain traffic if they click your link after reading the article. Another bonus is that you have an incoming link from the Web site that is using your article.

Build relationships with newsletters

Having your own newsletter will gain repeat traffic. People who sign up already like you and they are willing to hear whatever you have to say. Don’t look passed a quality newsletter.

Blogging a mile

You can also use blogs to increase your traffic. It’s another way to write about what’s going own in your niche. You gain even more exposure, while helping people out with useful information. If you want to use a blog successfully, try having a form that they can fill out for questions or feedback. Once again… you will receive repeat traffic. You can find out what real every people want out of the niche or industry that you’re in.

Final thought…
Using any or all of these methods should raise your site traffic considerably.

Understanding what your visitors do on your site is crucial information, not to mention interesting. If a large majority of your visitors who proceed to purchase a product leave the site when they get to a specific page in the order process, you need to know about it. It could be that the page in question is confusing or hard to use. Fixing it could increase your sales exponentially. In fact, it is not uncommon for small website changes in headlines and order processes to result in a 200%-300% increase in sales. This is just an example; there are many reasons why you want a detailed analysis of your site visitors.

Most website hosting services offer a stats package that you can study. If you’re not sure where this is, call up your hosting service and ask them. Statistics are a vital part of tracking your marketing progress. If you don’t have access to website statistics get a package that can help you in this area. Do not get a counter that just shows how many visitors you’ve had. You’ll be missing out on vital information that can help strengthen weaknesses in your site. A good website hosting service would offer traffic logs that provide an invaluable insight into the traffic being referred to a web site from various sources such as search engines, directories and other links.

Unfortunately, traffic tracking provided by web hosting services is often in the form of raw traffic log files or other hard-to-comprehend, cryptic formats. These log files are basically text files that describe actions on the site. It is literally impossible to use the raw log files to understand what your visitors are doing. If you do not have the patience to go through these huge traffic logs, opting for a trafficlogging
package would be a good idea.

Basically two options are available to you and these are: using a log analysis package or subscribing to a remotely hosted trafficlogging service. A remotely hosted traffic logging service may be easy to use and is generally the cheaper option of the two. In fact, you can get a powerful free tracking tool at: StatCounter.com. Other reliable tracking programs include WebTrends.com and HitsLink.com. These services do not use your log files. Typically a small section of code is placed on any page you want to track. When the page is viewed, information is stored on the remote server and available in real time to view in charts and tables form.

A good traffic logging service provides detailed statistics pertaining to the following:

• How many people visit your site?
• Where are they from?
• How are visitors finding your site?
• What traffic is coming from search engines, links from other sites, and other sources?

• What keyword search phrases are they using to find your site?
• What pages are frequented the most - what information are visitors most interested in?
• How do visitors navigate within your web site?

Knowing the answers to these and other fundamental questions is essential for making informed decisions that maximize the return on
investment (ROI) of your website investment.

The most important aspect of tracking visitors to your website is analyzing all the statistics you get from your tracking software. The three main statistics that will show your overall progress are hits, visitors and page views. Hits are tracked when any picture or page loads from your server on to a visitor’ss browser. Hits, however, can be very misleading. It is quite an irrelevant statistic for your website.

The statistic that is probably the most important for a website is Page Views/Visitors. This gives you a good indication of two things. First, how many people are coming to your site, and secondly how long are they staying on your site. If you have 250 visitors and 300 page views you can figure that most visitors view one page on your site and then leave. Generally, if you’re not getting 2 page views per visitor then you should consider upgrading your site’s content so your visitors will stay around longer.

If you see the number of visitors you have increasing as well as the number of page views per visitor increasing then keep up the good work! Always look for this stat as an overall barometer of how your site design is going and if your marketing campaigns are taking hold. Also, a good stat to look for is unique visitors. Once a person visits your site they will not be added to the unique visitors category if they visit again. This is a good way to track new visitors to your website. Page views are a good indication of how “sticky” your website is. A good statistic to keep is Page Views divided by the number of Visitors you have. This statistic will give you a good idea if your content is interesting and if your visitors are staying on your site for a long time and surfing.

Some people are intimidated by web traffic statistics (mostly because of the sheer volume of data available), but they shouldn’t be. While there are many highly specialized statistics that can be used for more in-depth web traffic analysis, the above areas alone can provide invaluable information on your visitors and your website performance. Remember, this data is available for a reason. It’s up to you to use it.

About the Author

Ravikiran Thummalapenta is a professional software Develper who blogs about technology and entrepreneurship his recent blog is ZillionBits is about How to Make Money Online - ZB is about learning skills, sharing information and providing tips on how to make money online Online.

If you’re feeling a bit of confusion and frustration about how to get visitors to your website and generate more sales, I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way until I stopped listening to every “big time” marketer that came along with the latest traffic generating trick.

You’ve got dozens of gurus vying for your attention and every one of them has the solution to all of your problems. Right? The proliferation of messages that promise a traffic explosion using new techniques can become overwhelming.

Time out.

Take a deep breath.

Sit back in your chair.

Relax.

Now, if you will focus your energy on a very short list of traffic generation strategies that actually DO work, and commit to continually improving your skills in these few areas, you will be amazed at what you can achieve… WILL achieve.

In part 1 of this article series, we discussed the fact that…

There are only 3 ways to get traffic to your website:

1) Buy it.
2) Borrow it.
3) Steal it.

Since #3 is not an option we’re going to consider, that leaves us with “buy it” and “borrow it”.

We also talked about the “Holy Grail” of web traffic. What is it? FREE TRAFFIC! I want it. You want it. Every disillusioned internet marketer wants it.

Here’s the truth…

It’s a myth.

It doesn’t exist.

There is no such thing as free website traffic.

We’ll resume our discussion where we left off…

Ezine advertising.

I’ll spare you all of the details regarding conversion ratios, etc. since we’ve already covered that in part 1 of this series.

Ezine advertising is very much a viable way to pay for traffic, but don’t use it until you’ve formulated a profitable ad in the PPC search engines. It’s important that you know you have a winning ad before spending money on ezine advertising. Use something that’s proven to get results.

Ezine ads can be purchased at reasonable rates and the cost will vary from one ezine to another depending on the newsletter’s circulation, track record of producing sales and the exposure that you’ll get.

By exposure, what I’m referring to is the type of ad that you buy. Your options typically include solo ads, top sponsor ads, middle sponsor ads, bottom sponsor ads and classified ads. A solo ad is sent in an email with no other distractions. You get all of the attention, and for this reason it’s also the most expensive form of ezine advertising. Top sponsor ads allow you between 5 and 8 lines of copy and are included in regular ezine issues near the very beginning of the newsletter. Middle sponsor and bottom sponsor ads will be similar to top sponsor ads with the exception of the position within the newsletter. And lastly, classified ads are usually shown in groups near the end of a newsletter and are the lowest cost.

My personal opinion is not to advertise in ezines that you haven’t subscribed to. If you’re considering advertising in any particular ezine, subscribe to it and read it for a few weeks before spending any money there. That way you’ll be able to get a feel for the value of the content, the kind of reader that will be interested in the publication and whether or not the advertising opportunity is a good one.

Here are a few sites where you can begin researching ezines that accept advertising:

http://www.gothrive.com/directory-of-ezines-lifetime
http://emailuniverse.com/

http://www.ezineadvertising.com
http://www.ezinehub.com
http://www.ezine-marketing.com
http://www.ezinewizard.com

There are only 2 ways to get traffic to your website:

1) Buy it.

2) Borrow it.

In part 3 of this series, we’ll continue our thoughts on “(2) Borrow it” - traffic that is.

Copyright 2005 Ron Hutton

Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to “GoThrive Online”, for big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. 17 Free Cool Tools… http://www.gothrive.com

All of us want to increase traffic to our web sites. It helps our search engine rankings, and is a very cost-effective way to provide us with potential new customers. One of the best, and certainly least expensive, ways to do that is by exchanging links with sites similar to our own, or that contain content our own visitors are likely to find interesting and useful. It is important to restrict our exchanges to such sites because if we indiscriminately exchange with everybody and anybody we become what is known as a “link farm” and wind up being banned by the search engines.

No one wants to be banned by the search engines, so this article will discuss how to find relevant sites with whom to exchange links, and how to keep track of them after you have exchanged the links. Even though there are software programs that will do most if not all of this for you, they have various flaws and inadequacies. If you are one of those people who prefer the personal touch, this article is for you!

The first thing to do is to type your key words or phrases into a search engine and see what comes up. The sites you see on the first few pages have made it to the top of the search engine rankings. Go to these sites and look around on the home page for the phrase “links exchange” or sometimes just “links.” Some sites now use “resources.” They will have instructions for how to place a link to their site on your site, and instructions on the information they need from you in order for them to place a link to your site on theirs. Some have a form for you to fill out; others want you to e-mail it to them. Have your information (your site Title, URL (your home page where you want them to point their link), Description, and the URL of your links page where you have placed their link, your name and e-mail address) saved in a document ready to cut and paste into both forms and e-mails. It will save you tons of time.

Always remember that the Golden Rule applies here. You want them to place a link to you on their site so you need to reciprocate. If you are uncomfortable with the content of their links page and would prefer not to be associated with that site, then just move on. There are plenty of others.

Some of the higher ranked sites will have non-content related restrictions about with whom they will exchange or will not links. They will only exchange with you if your site and/or links pages have achieved a certain Google PageRank. (To download the Google Toolbar click here.) Even if you do not have such a page rank yourself, you can request an exchange with such sites but do not be surprised if they decline or ignore you. If your site is new, be sure not to stop looking after the first page or two in the search engines. There are many wonderful sites not on the first few pages and most of them would be more than happy to exchange links with you.

Repeat this search frequently because nothing is static on search engines; you might get different results every day searching for the very same word or phrase!

Once you have exchanged links with a site check out the other sites on their links pages. Some sites have links pages loaded with other sites that would be a good match for you. Go ahead and offer to exchange links with them, also. Beware however that some sites may not have been very discerning in their choices of exchange partners. You, however, will be very discerning and will choose wisely the sites with whom you will exchange links! Be careful not to be too narrow, though. Remember that you want to exchange with sites that have content your visitors may find interesting and useful.

If you only exchange with clones or near clones of your site, nobody will be interested for very long. For instance, if your site is about a particular breed of dog, don’t limit your exchanges to other sites about that breed, or even other breeds. Try sites that deal in dog food, dog care in general, grooming products, training methods, dog accessories, shows and other events, etc.

Set your site up so that each category has its own page or set of pages, and alphabetize the links on each page by site title if your software does not do that automatically. What you want to avoid are sites that have nothing whatsoever to do with the main topic of your site. In our example of a site about a breed of dog, avoid exchanging links with sites offering bargain vacations on the other side of the globe, casinos, real estate, music, etc. You get the idea. Remember that people who visit your site are looking for dog related information, not that other stuff.

Now that you have accumulated several pages of links, you need to be able to keep track of them so that you don’t request exchanges from the same webmasters more than once. It would be embarrassing for them to respond to your request with “I exchanged with you 2 months ago” or something like that. So, what do you do if your software does not do it for you?

Set up a simple spread sheet. Don’t worry about setting it up to print out on neat pages, because you shouldn’t have to print it out. Make the columns as wide as you need to. You will need to set them up as follows: Title / Description / Category /URL / Reciprocal URL. You can add optional columns for webmaster name and e-mail if you want. Your categories in our hypothetical site would be food, training, accessories, etc. As you add a link to your site, add it to the bottom of your spreadsheet. You can then alphabetize your spreadsheet by whichever column you need. Not only will you know which sites you already have, but you can see at a glance where on your site you have put it! I have used this system extensively and it works extremely well.

One last thing. Please don’t ever refuse to exchange links with someone without a high enough page rank because they are new. Everyone was new once and started out with a page rank of “0″ including those who are now at the top of the list for their chosen key words and phrases. As people help you to get started when you are new, turn around and help others behind you as they get started.

In case you might be wondering how to tell the difference between a new site with a page rank of “0″ and a link farm with a page rank of “0″, the new site with have a cached page and the link farm will not. The link farm will have a bizillion links and the new site will have few if any. To find this information look for the icon on the Google Toolbar that looks like a blue circle with a lower case white “i” in the middle, located right next to the little green bar that shows you your current page rank. When you click on that icon you will see a drop down menu that includes both “cached snapshot page” (what your page looked like last time Google checked out your site) and “backward links” which shows how many links Google shows point to your site from other sites.

If when you click on one of those drop down menu choices you find that Google has no record of that site, it’s best to wait to exchange links until you find our why there is no record. If the site has been up for more than a few days, there should be at least a cached page. If there isn’t, the site may have been banned, and you should not associate with banned sites.

Sandi Moses has been involved in internet marketing since
November, 2003. Visit her sites at
http://www.123iwork4me.com
http://www.123-home-based-business-works-4-me.com

1. Trade links with other web sites. They should be
related to the subject of your web site. Instead of
trading links, you could also trade banner ads, half
page ads, classified ads, etc.

2. Start an e-zine for your web site. When people
read each issue they’ll be reminded to revisit your
web site. They’ll see your product ad more than
just once which will increase your orders.

3. Form an online community. It could be an online
message board, e-mail discussion list or chat room.
When people get involved in your community they
will regularly return to communicate with others.

4. Write articles and submit them to e-zines, web
sites and magazines that accept article submissions.
Include your business information and web address
at the end of the article.

5. Give away an electronic freebie with your ad on
it. Allow your visitors to also give the freebie away.
This’ll increase your ad exposure and attract people
to your web site at the same time.

6. Combine your products or services into one big
package deal with other businesses offerings. You
could share a web site and advertise the package
deal; which means double the traffic.

7. Submit your freebie to the online directories that
list your particular item or service for free. If you’re
offering a free e-zine, submit it to all the free e-zine
directories on the internet.

8. Participate on message boards. Post answers to
other people’s questions, ask questions and post
appropriate information. Include your signature file
at the end of all your postings.

9. Exchange classified or sponsor ads with other
free e-zine publishers. If there is a huge subscriber
difference between e-zines, one can run more ads
to make up for it.

10. Post your ad on free advertising areas on the
internet. You can post it on free classified ad sites,
free for all links sites, newsgroups that allow ads,
free yellow page directories, etc.

About the author:

Rojo Sunsen is a specialized bounty hunter who prefers to work quietly/confidentially for the benefit of her clients.

You can create more traffic for you and your business without spending
any additional money on marketing. With guerilla marketing, it is more
about out-smarting the competition than it is about out-spending the
competition. Boundless opportunities and countless positive effects on
your business await you when you take advantage of the guerilla-
marketing concept.

Guerilla Marketing is defined as unconventional marketing designed for
low budgets and maximum impact. Guerilla marketing gets you and your
company in front of future customers in the places that they frequent.
Customers today are bombarded with traditional advertising and have
become resistant and unaffected by it. Meaning: it is time to change the
way you market.

Guerilla marketing works when complimentary businesses agree to
come together and take a cooperative approach to marketing their
businesses. There are synergies between companies who serve a
similar customer base. Identifying these synergies and getting to know
one another’s business are the first steps towards creating a lasting
guerilla marketing relationship.

The possibilities are as vast as your imagination. Here are four guerilla-
marketing techniques that you can use to generate more traffic next
week:

1. Thank-You Take-A-Way Packets

A thank-you take-a-way packet enhances your sale, helps validate the
customer’s purchase, and provides a valuable service to your customers
while simultaneously thanks them for being your customer.

The key to the take-a-way packet is to have something that is high
quality and feels like a thank-you gift. It should, by no means, represent
a selling piece.

The thank-you take-a-way packet will vary depending on your type of
business. For a high-end retail location we suggest using a small folder
about the size of a half sheet of paper. On the outside of the folder
should be an effective and professional design with the words “Thank
You.” Inside the folder should contain all the relevant paperwork
associated with their purchase as well as all necessary information to
make sure that their after purchase experience is pleasant and well
informed. This information should go on one side of the folder only.

The other side of the folder is where you will put your pieces of value.
Pieces of value can include anything that your customer will enjoy
receiving. Successful examples include, a free appetizer at a local
restaurant, free dry cleaning, a small book on a topic relevant to their
purchase, or a small ad-specialty item from a complimentary business.
The pieces of value will differ depending on the type of business that
you are in. Use your imagination and have fun with it.

These thank-you packets work because every company that is
represented in your packet will reciprocate by including your piece of
value in their packet. Therefore, you are quadrupling your exposure to
customers from complimentary businesses in exchange for giving your
customers something that they perceive as a gift.

2. Website Co-Branding

When you have a strong guerilla partner network, you can use a similar
approach with your website. The group of businesses can link their
websites together in a way that ‘provides value first’. Providing value
first means that the link needs to be positioned in a way that is more
than an advertisement.

A good cooperative link on a website is more than just an
advertisement. It must be something that would interest a customer.
Examples include interesting tips, suggestions, or examples of how the
customer can enhance their experience. For example, having an
interior designer and a realtor provide design tips could add value and
augment the experience of buying a new home.

3. Lunch and Learns

Whether you are a financial planner, a realtor, or a fitness expert, you
have valuable information that people would love to hear about. When
you provide value first and you provide value without expectation of
something in return, a return is exactly what you will get.

Office buildings love food — especially free food. The lunch-and-learn
program is a guerilla marketing strategy that has been proven
successful. The lunch and learn program is an educational lunch
program for an office that would be sponsored by you or your company.
The office personnel would gather and eat lunch while listening to your
talk on something both valuable and interesting. Do not try to sell them
anything; this should be treated as an opportunity to share valuable
information that they can use.

The best contact to set up these lunches is the office manager. Most
times the office will provide the lunch and you will provide the talk. If
they do not provide lunch, you will be able to negotiate for a local
restaurant to provide the lunch for free in exchange for some signage on
the lunch table and their information in your packet that will accompany
your presentation.

Topics will naturally vary depending on your profession. If you are a
financial planner you can give a talk on “10 things you can do now to
guarantee financial security,” “investing tips for the non-investor,” or
anything else that is both creative and interesting. After the mini
seminar, ask “If anyone would like to hear more about (topic), just drop
your business card in the basket at the front.” You can also have a mini-
book prepared on the subject and offer to send it free to anyone who is
interested. You will leave with an established reputation in the field as
well as a small stack of qualified leads with whom you have already
established rapport and credibility.

4. Be A Guest Columnist In A Newsletter

There are networking organization newsletters, non-profit newsletters,
and internal company newsletters. These newsletters are always
looking for guest columnists that will provide a relevant and an
interesting article.

This technique is similar to the concept of the lunch and learns. Seek
out these newsletters and offer to write a column. When they run your
column, you will provide valuable and interesting information. By doing
so you will be getting your name out into the community as an expert in
your field. By having a brief bio at the end of the column, the readers
who have an interest will have the information necessary to contact you
for further information. You may even direct them to your website to
download a small mini-book on the topic where you will capture their
information for proper follow up.

The different types of guerilla marketing are endless and are only limited
by your imagination and willingness to get out in front of people. Guerilla
Marketing is incredibly effective because the rapport that the partner
business has already established with their customer is transferred to
you and your company. When you successfully implement guerilla
marketing into your marketing plan, then your cost per lead will be
significantly reduced while the quality of your traffic will dramatically
increase.

To join Tom Richard’s weekly ezine, Sales Muscle; click on https://app.quicksizzle.com/survey.aspx?sfid=7796 and you can visit his
website at http://www.tomrichard.com

Need more traffic? There’s a lot you can learn from spying on your competition. Your competition has traffic sources that you can easily swipe by following these steps.

Step One: Who should you spy on? You probably can name six to thirty online competitors. If not, you need to go through Google and Yahoo with the key terms you target. Who comes up? Write down everyone who has a business similar to yours, even if they aren’t identical.

Now you need to figure out who you should spy on first. Begin with the most successful websites. How do you find them? It’s easy with a couple tools.

The Google toolbar (toolbar.google.com) is essential for spying. The Google toolbar features a little bar labeled “PageRank.” Depending on each site, this bar may be gray, white, or (usually) a combination of green and white. The more green, the higher Google ranks that page. To get an exact PageRank, put your cursor over the PageRank graph and hold it there. Your competitors with the highest PageRank are the ones you want to look at very closely.

You also want to spy on the competitors with the most traffic. To figure out the relative traffic position of your competition (compared to all web sites), go to alexa.com and download their toolbar. The Alexa toolbar will display a number for each website it?s traffic rank. The lower the number, the higher the traffic. (For example, Yahoo?s Alexa rank is 1, while Blockbuster?s is 2,220.)

Step two: Snoop through your competitor’s log files to see which sites and search terms send them the most traffic. Is there a public stats tracker on your competitor’s site? If so, check it out. If not, try typing in your competitor’s URL with /stats.html and /stats/ on the end of it. Often times, web hosts put statistics here - without password protection. Still can’t find your competitor’s stats? Try Googling their URL and “statistics.” It’s a long shot, but sometimes statistics pages will turn up this way.

Step three: Look at who is linking to your competitor. The easiest way to do this is to run a backward link search in Google and Altavista. Simply type in link:http://www.yourcompetition.com (using your competitor’s URL). You’ll find most of the pages that link to your competitor this way. How do you know which links are the best? By using the Google toolbar. The pages linking to your competitor with the highest PageRank are the ones you should look to for links of your own.

To steal those links, email all the webmasters that are linking to your competitor without getting a link back in return. Figure out why they link to your competitor (good free content, subject fits site, etc), and give them a better reason to link to you. Chances are, most of these webmasters will give you a link as well.

Once you have these new sites linking to yours, positive changes in your Google ranking are likely. You may even overtake your competitor for your targeted search terms especially if you get links from spying on multiple sites. All from a little reconnaissance work and some emailing!

About The Author

Kari Freckleton, aka Greedy Girl, shares her unconventional ideas for free at http://www.greedygirl.com. Ready to smoke the competition? Email Kari at girl@greedygirl.com to join her Too Good To Publish marketing club.