Beyond Caffeine

Social bookmarking is a very simple step that you must do after you post an article in your blog. In this article we will discuss 5 benefits and tips that will help you increase your traffic and they are directly related to social bookmarking.

1. When you make a post in your blog get your keyword phrase as close to the beginning of the title of the post as possible. When you tag your post use the keyword as a tag. Then when you bookmark the post be sure to use the title of the post and again tag the keyword. This is search engine bait and if you practice basic SEO methods in your writing you will find yourself on page of Google and other search engines in a matter of days, maybe even hours.

2. Bookmark to the correct directories and the right categories. For sure bookmark to Google Bookmarks, Yahoo MyWeb, Digg, Netscape, and any other relative or favorite directory. Join Onlywire and you can bookmark to several directories with one click.

3. Post often and bookmark every post. Social bookmarking is bait for the search engines. By posting in your blog and bookmarking on a regular basis you will get the search engines showing up at Netscape for example and putting your article on page one for the keyword phrase you are targeting. This also gets them spidering your blog more regularly which can lead to more traffic on some of your other posts.

4. Social bookmarking can lead to many things. Certainly getting your article read can create credibility for you. It can also lead to traffic, repeat traffic, referrals, join ventures, sales, newsletter sign-ups, comments on your blog posts, emails from your readers.

5. Having interaction with your visitors is one of the biggest benefits that comes from bookmarking a post and getting it read. In the old days a website did not have the interaction with it’s visitors. Now you can play video, add audio, solicit comments, get your posts read via RSS feeds, and who knows where this will all lead.

These five benefits of social bookmarking have all been listed to get you going bookmarking your posts if you are not already doing it. If your goal is traffic then blogging combined with social bookmarking is a guaranteed formula for success. If you are not doing it you are not only standing still, you are going backwards.

Author: Daniel Trainor (Email)

Dr. Daniel Trainor is an established internet marketer and mentor. To find out how Dr. Trainor can help you make money from home go to http://www.emeraldpassport-info.com

So, we all know that you need a decent website to attract customers, good key phrases to get noticed on search engine pages and about search engine optimisation. However, what exactly makes a good website and what should you do to get people coming back?

The most important thing about having a website is to make sure that search engines recognise it as this is where most of your customers are going to come from. With billions of websites on the net it can be very difficult to get noticed so register with as many as possible such as Google, Yahoo and even the smaller sites.

Keep your website regularly updated as it keeps it looking fresh and can help with search engine optimisation. If your website has been exactly the same for the last five years people will be very bored of it and won’t find any reason for going onto it.

The most successful sites contain powerful, relevant, useful information and lots of it. If people can find everything they need on your site they will keep coming.

Although search engine optimisation is very important there are also a lot of very simple things you can do to attract people to your site. For example, make it easy for visitors to get around your site otherwise they will get frustrated. Also make sure that you respond to any queries quickly as this shows customers that you care about them and value their custom.

Websites are capable of gathering information about its visitors which is very useful when it comes to knowing exactly what gets people clicking on your site. This can be done through surveys, newsletter subscriptions, contests and many other methods.

Other than search engine optimisation another extremely important aspect of any website is its design as it can be the difference between customers returning or not. People are very judgemental when it comes to the way something looks so if something is plain and boring they’re not going to like it. However, if a site has good graphics, texts and colours it is going to attract people’s attention and they are more likely to come back.

Once you know all about search engine optimisation and how to create a good website there is no reason why the amount of traffic going to your site shouldn’t increase. Once people have achieved these things they often wonder how they ever coped without a great website.

Author: Derek Both (Email)

At WRS http://www.webrepairservices.co.uk we aim to help you get the most from your website investment and turn it into a high performance revenue channel.

Glam Media made news a couple of months ago when it was ranked by comScore as ‘Number One Women’s Web Property’ in a results list that had it scoot just barely past the extremely popular iVillage.com in the results top 10.

Now Glam Media is launching a new proprietary search tool for their network that they call a vertical search tool. The tool is described as:

a proprietary search tool aimed at delivering top quality and highly relevant content from Glam Media’s Publisher Network of 350+ lifestyle, celebrity and fashion sites, as well as its flagship site, Glam.com.

In the press release Glam Media explains their new search technology as follows:

In addition to classic search and indexing technologies, Glam Search uses a proprietary “curated rank” algorithm, which assigns a weighting to a page based on relevance, timeliness and an editorial analysis of the content source. This gives Glam Search results a higher contextual relevance to the item being searched.

The publishers in their network will be able to add a search widget to their sites and blogs that they can configure to show custom results.

~Nicole

Why would you consider advertising on blogs? Well, blog advertising is currently one of the hottest marketing techniques available.

Advertising through blogs is much cheaper than the traditional advertising media, mainly because it is still in its infancy. Blog advertising is becoming more and more prevalent throughout the web. It’s easy, convenient, cheap, and you do not require a website or any expertise in site building… the list goes on.

If you do not have a website or know how to set one up, focus all your attention on creating a strong blog design and template that draws attention. Bloggers are less inclined to link to a website that’s plastered with ads and all types of hype. Most search engine visitors arrive at your website looking for specific information. Once they tag you and/or buy from you, you are very likely to get them back as repeat visitors/buyers. If a blog appeals to a visitor both through content and design, they’ll be back!

Whether or not you have one or many websites, it’s - from my experience - super beneficial to advertise on a blog as well. In fact the more blogs you have going and the more often you submit to them, the easier it becomes to reach your target market. You can connect speedily and economically with a like-minded audience hungry for your product. The power of advertising through your blog lies in the fact that bloggers on the whole tend to be an influential crowd of doers.

Blog advertising is the latest and most natural way to create your brand. If you want fast recognition of your products or services, then you will find this way of marketing will do it for you.

Advertising on your blogs not only is an excellent and surefire way to reach millions of readers, but it can boost your websites search engine and page rank.

Remember, the key to a successful home business is quality traffic to your website and/or blog(s).

Unlike a business website, blog advertising is a conversation. Treat your blog as an email you’re sending to your best friend. And, just like a personal letter, it is important to communicate with your readers as soon as they respond to your ideas.

So, I encourage you to go ahead and think out of the box! Blogs are not just for fun anymore. Let your entrepreneurial spirit run free, and advertise.

Written by: Ann Stewart

About the Author:
Ann Stewart, net entrepreneur and author, offers you information about state-of-the-art free, affordable and profitable internet business and products. Whether you’re a newbie or savvy networker, All Yours Now invites you to tap into the inspiring and informative newsletter here: http://allyoursnow.com.

Introduction
So you’ve got your website published on the net? You have your own great domain name and the design is so perfect. Your site couldn’t look better - and is just as good if not better than you’re competitors. But your missing the vital ingredient: traffic! In this tutorial I will explain how you can get those visitors literally flooding in!

Promotion methods

There are lots of different ways to promote your site, in this article we will look at the pros and cons of some of the different methods of website promotion. We will cover:

• Online Advertising
• Offline Advertising
• Link Exchanges
• Purchased Links
• Articles
• Directories
• Search Engine Submission
• Forum / Email Signatures

Online Advertising
There are lots of different methods of online advertising, PPC (pay per click) is the most easy to manage model, as you only pay for the visitors you get. Let’s say I run a flower website, and I convert roughly 1 in 10 visitors into a buyer, also my average order converts to $10 profit. Then if I pay 50 cents/click, that is $5 for each order. So even though I am paying 50 cents for each visitor from my PPC ads, my business is still profitable as on ever 10 PPC visitors I make $5 profit. ($10 profit - $5 PPC costs)

To find out more about internet advertising, I suggest you read this article: http://www.affiliatesrated.com/article.php?article=cpm_cpc_or_cpa

Offline Advertising
You can advertise your website with flyers, in magazines, on billboards, on television and on the radio. Although it is harder to monitor how profitable your advert is, it is important not to forget that these adverts can be just as effective as internet campaigns and often more effective. For example if I run a website selling bike parts, and advert in a cycling specialist magazine would be the perfect way to target my advert to my chosen audience.

Link Exchanges
These can be very beneficial, but only in certain situations. For example, if I run an internet shop selling PCs, and my friend has an internet shop which sells PC games, then a link exchange could be mutually beneficial. My visitors who are buying a new PC might decide to buy some new games from his site, and his visitors who are buying new game might decide it is time for a new PC so they can play the latest games and buy one from me.

Link exchanges are no longer of any real benefit from a search engine point of view, and so should only be used with the intention of getting more visitors, and not for getting higher search rankings.

Purchased links
There has been an increasing trend in purchasing links from other websites. This is because the benefit here is two-fold. Firstly, assuming the website is targeting the same market as your site, then you get a new stream of targeted visitors. Secondly, search engines see the one-way link as a vote of confidence in your site, so you can get a search engine boost. You will need to weight up the cost of the link with whether or not you think you will get a significant boost to traffic as a result.

Articles
As should be clear by now, I am a keen advocate of articles as an excellent means of website promotion. Firstly, by publishing them on your site first, you get unique website content for your site. Secondly, then by submitting it to an articles directory other webmasters will post the article on their site providing you with tons of one-way links back to your site. Although the glory days of articles are over, they are currently an under-rated method of promotion, so if you are a good writer, and have knowledge about topics related to your site which others might not know, get writing!

Directories
Directories have really frustrated me. Time and again I have submitted my sites to directories and I have only been disappointed. Firstly, it often takes ages to submit your listing, and once submitted, your listing may take ages to be accepted. Also, the benefit of directories has been hyped up, hardly anybody tries to use a directory to find what they are looking for, they use search engines. Some promote the idea that search engines use directories in calculating rankings, especially the ODP, as far as I can tell the ODP is pretty much dead with a backlog of 1000s of site submissions and editor submissions and is old news. So are directories. Conclusion: don’t waste your time on them.

Search Engine Submission
Search engine submission is the process of going to the search engine and telling them about your website by hand. I would recommend doing this for msn, yahoo and google but only when you first launch your site and they don’t yet know about it. If your site has been around for a few days and has some links from other sites indexed by these engines, this won’t be necessary as your site will already be indexed by these engines. The other search engines aren’t worth your time or effort, they will make it their business to find your site so don’t waste your time on them.

Forum / Email Signatures
Why don’t more people do this? It’s such a simple method of promotion, and it’s free! All you do is put a link to your site in your forum signature and that could mean hundreds or thousands of new links to your site depending on how often you chat in forums. With the email signatures, lets say I send a funny email to a friend, and they forward it to all their friends, all of a sudden lots more people could find out about my site. Don’t overlook this promotion gem!

Conclusion
I bet you hadn’t thought of all these different ways to promote your site! And even if you had, I’m sure you learnt something new. I hope that the article has helped you find new ways to promote your site. To find out more about promoting your website I suggest you look at http://www.affiliatesrated.com/affiliate_tips.php

Written by: Benjamin Wigoder

About the Author:
Benjamin Wigoder is a website designer, programmer and entrepeneur. He has been using affiliate programs for years and his new (affiliate programs directory) allows webmasters to see affiliate programs rated and reviewed as well as categorized to make choosing suitable programs easy.

RSS stands for “Rich Site Summary” or “Really Simple Syndication”, and is another exciting internet marketing method that can help you boost web traffic and skyrocket your sales. When a web site owner wants to share content with other web sites, the content can be placed into an RSS document and registered with an RSS publisher. This content can include articles, press releases, blog postings, headlines, web content, and any other information that the web site owner wants to allow others to read.

Because of the ease of distribution and the potential for unique web traffic, you can use this technique to improve your online marketing efforts. The key to using RSS as a successful marketing tool is to have useful content that engages and informs your intended audience. No one will want to read boring or useless information, and they certainly won’t want to pass it on to others. Use the following tips to make your content sizzle so that your target market will keep coming back for more.

Articles for RSS

When you write articles for use in RSS feeds, put yourself in the shoes of your intended audience members. As a busy professional, do you want to read long articles with large blocks of text, or would you rather read short how-to articles and checklists? Write your articles to be long enough to provide at least one important piece of information, but short enough to capture the attention of even the busiest professional.

Consider breaking longer articles into one article series. Instead of writing one 2,000 word article, you can write ten 200-word articles that are more likely to be read. These shorter articles are also perfect for submission to online newsletters and e-zines. In addition to considering length, consider the topics you can write about.

Make sure that your articles are appropriate for your intended audience in terms of subject matter and depth. A beginner audience will get discouraged with overly technical articles and an advanced audience will not want to read simple tips and how-to articles.

RSS Press Releases

Press releases can easily be distributed with RSS, much like other types of content. Your press releases need to be targeted and contain information that presents your business in the best light. You can send press releases out for many reasons including changes in ownership, special events, charitable donations, the addition of new staff members, and an increase in the number of products and services you provide.

If you write just one press release a week, you can see a startling improvement in your web site traffic due to all the one-way links your submission efforts can generate. Using press releases is also a great way to encourage other people to post your information on their web sites.

RSS Blog Postings

Blogs are one of the most effective internet marketing tools currently available. They’re also relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain. Blogs allow you to post information about your company, optimize your web site for the search engines, and have customers leave comments so that your web site becomes interactive. When you write blog postings that will be used for RSS, keep the same principles of article writing in mind. Shorter posts are better because people can read them in between major projects or when they want to take a quick break from their work.

You should also be sure to write for your intended audience. Don’t overly promote your business in your postings. Instead, give people information and resources that they can use and they’ll be encouraged to keep visiting your web site. This can help you build solid customer relationships and improve your sales conversion rate.

RSS Content

There are many other types of content that can be used to promote your business through RSS. You can turn all of your knowledge into tip sheets, special reports, question and answer listings, and almost any other type of content that can be used with RSS. Keep in mind the rules for writing content for a target audience and you can successfully use your content to develop your web traffic and help to improve your sales conversion rate.

Setting Up an RSS Feed

Setting up an RSS feed requires a small investment of your time that can help you see a phenomenal return. If you want to set up your own RSS feed, you’ll need to have a server, a database with descriptions of your content, and the ability to use scripting. If you’re not able to use scripting or you don’t have a server or database set up, you can hire a freelancer to do the technical work for you so you can concentrate on finding ways to make your content available all over the Web.

Once you have everything ready to go, you can find an aggregate, or RSS publisher, to submit your content to for syndication. Many of these aggregates are available and allow you to submit your site under a specific category.

Categorizing Your Feed

When you submit your content to an aggregate, you need to make sure you submit it under the right category. This helps you to make sure your intended audience can access your information.

If you own a sporting goods business and accidentally categorize your content under a home furnishings category, people will wonder why your content is listed and will not be interested in visiting your web site. Review your content and make a list of categories that it might fit into. If you are a freelance writer, you can categorize your content under small business, home business, marketing, web content, search engine optimization, or publishing depending on the type of writing you do.

The important thing is not to pigeon-hole your content into one category. If your content can be used by many different audiences, submit to several aggregates under different categories to see the best return on your investment.

Written by: Khemal Dole

About the Author:
Khemal Dole owns and operates http://www.PaychecksDirect.com, a completely FREE service which helps many first-timers and even experts find their perfect Work At Home job. Visit www.paychecksdirect.com right now and see for yourself why so many are flocking to his site.

I have lost count of the number of free and purchased eBooks I have downloaded on the subject of Website Traffic, and not one of them so much as touches on the most important problem of all, never mind offer some solutions.

Not so long ago, one self-appointed Internet guru published a free eBook on how he generated over a million dollars in sales on the Internet in one day, forgetting the months of preparation that went into the project beforehand. The sales figure was presumably attained by making 1,000 sales of a $1,000 product; but once again, while his free eBook goes into detail about the process it does not even mention the vital problem.

The real problem with Internet marketing is the one element that leads to the rapid collapse of numerous online business ventures, from the home-based part-time Website run on a shoe-string to the massive million-dollar Websites that come and go overnight. And it can quickly be answered with one simple question:

What is the cost per sale?

In simple terms, you need to know how many visitors to your sales page are required for each confirmed online order you take, and how much those visitors cost. In the million-dollar-day example, the author explains about the vast affiliate network that sent out his sales letter to their massive e-mail lists of potential customers. I do not know the exact figures, but I have read of people who profess to make millions online from an affiliate network of more than 55,000 and each with mailing lists that varied from 10,000 to 60,000 and more!

When you take the lower figure, it could indicate that they despatched some 500 billion e-mails with the sales letter for this $1,000 product, and yet only 1,000 purchased it. Now that is pretty lousy conversion rate of about 1 sale from 500,000 e-mails; although the actual figure will probably be up to 10 times better than that because of duplicate names across the affiliates mailing lists.

That example is fluffy, because we do not know the exact figures, so let us examine a genuine marketing program that I ran for a month last year for a group of garden decking companies.

I spent £1,067 on click advertising, which resulted in 238,827 impressions and 12,016 clicks. The landing page had an offer of a free eBook on garden decking, and it had a 9.03% conversion rate, which provided 1,085 qualified enquiries. They were qualified by admitting they are interested in garden decking and providing full address details as well as pertinent information on the type of deck they would like to own.

The final sales figures were 10.5% or 114 sales of garden decking, with an average sales price of more than £4,000 a time. The cost per sale was £9.36 in advertising, which is good in any language, and so I had a winner and it only took one month and just over £1,000 to test.

Naturally, now that the Website is fully developed and uses the other 120 ways of obtaining visitor traffic, it attracts considerable ‘free’ visitors that make the conversion rates and cost per sale even more attractive. The important point is that with a 1-month test I was able to learn if the project was viable or not without spending a fortune in money and months of painfully wasted time and effort.

You can use this ‘missing ingredient’ to your own advantage when you start your next online business project. Write an excellent 1-page Website to promote your product or service, provide a good reason for visitors to leave their contact details, and a simple and easy form for them to complete. Write a strong advertisement that invites the reader to visit your Website, and do some test marketing.

If the tests do not work out, cancel the project.

You have to do many tests in most instances, because there are so many variables in marketing online; but once you finish your tests make an informed business decision and move on.

When the costs per sale are not viable, then neither is your business project, and you must waste no further time or money.

Written by: Brian Hunt
About the Author:
Brian Hunt
http://www.PowerBusinessPublishing.com/.
The author of this article is Brian Hunt, who has been writing, publishing, and marketing books and articles on leisure and business related subjects for the past seven years. He is a highly successful person with a broad depth of sales and marketing experience in various fields gained over many years in business.

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let’s start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as “hits” and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor’s needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Written by: Don Resh

About the Author:
Don Resh is CEO of WebForce, Inc. A more detailed bio is available at:
WebForceSolutions BizBuildSoftware TurboMaxSoftware

Experienced webmasters know there are special sources or places on the web which will send massive amounts of traffic to your site. They also know, if harnessed properly, these mega traffic sites will supply any web site with a steady stream of visitors.

Perhaps the best source of web site traffic is Google. That’s not exactly a Newsflash, but the key to getting massive amounts of traffic from Google is to go wide and long. With this strategy, instead of targeting highly popular keywords which may be too competitive for your site to win, you create a whole multitude of lesser known long tail keyword phrases to bring in the traffic.

This traffic takes longer to build but because very few webmasters bother with these longer phrases, your keywords will be more stable and secure. Develop a whole list of these traffic generating keyword phrases and Google will reward you with a whole flood of targeted visitors stemming from these thousands of small dribbles of long tail keyword traffic.

Turning these dribbles of traffic into massive amounts is not a difficult task. One very effective way to tap into the entire search engine source of traffic is to tag everything. Tags are just another name for keywords. As Web 2.0 or Social Bookmarking sites become more and more popular, tagging will become extremely important.

You must be especially careful of how you tag the content on your site or sites. If you’re using a blogging system like WordPress, all your categories will be considered tags automatically. If you’re creating URLs, be careful to place your keyword phrase in your links.

Another effective way to tap into the whole keyword traffic system is to include your keyword phrase or variations of it in your articles while promoting your site. Place your anchor text in your links in the resource box at the end of each article.

Over time, as these articles become distributed all over the web, they will create a steady stream of targeted visitors to your site. Simple, effective and very powerful.

You are probably tired of hearing about Web 2.0 and the new Social Bookmarking sites but they are some of the best places for massive traffic on the web. Any webmaster who has been Slashdotted already knows this fact all too well; if you get a listing on the homepage of Slashdot.com you will immediately start receiving thousands of visitors to your site. It can be somewhat scary.

A similar experience is getting one of your articles published in ezines run by Addme.com, SiteProNews.com, WebProNews.com, as well as others. These ezines go out to hundreds of thousands of readers and can produce massive traffic back to your site.

However, much of this sudden traffic is only temporary and most savvy webmasters know it would be wise to try and capture the contact information of these temporary visitors for follow-up targeting. Turn that temporary visitor into a patron of your site by offering a free ecourse or an email newsletter.

The same marketing technique should be applied to traffic coming from all these social media sites. Don’t think of your traffic as just numbers in your website’s stats, but rather as potential customers who will return to your site again and again.

Keep this strategy in mind as you target some of these Top Sources of massive traffic on the web:

1. Digg.com
2. Netscape.com
3. Ezinearticles.com
4. Del.icio.us
5. StumbleUpon.com
6. Reddit.com
7. Slashdot.org
8. BlinkList.com
9. Furl.net
10. Squidoo.com

You should be actively promoting these social bookmarking sites by allowing your visitors to easily bookmark your content. You should be creating your own content on sites like Squidoo and placing links back to your site.

Of course, there are countless other sources of massive traffic on the web. Press releases is another effective way of quickly drawing in massive traffic to your site. Sites like PRWeb can deliver targeted traffic very quickly and efficiently.

Another very effective and high converting venue you should try is Yahoo! Answers, a simple process where users post a question and other members/experts offer answers. Used correctly this can be a good source of targeted traffic.

Don’t forget other important search engines such as MSN Live. Traffic from MSN has earned a solid reputation for converting very well. So optimize your web pages for MSN Live Search and you will probably see an increase in your sales as well as your traffic.

Always keep in mind, the underlying key factor running through all these sources of massive traffic is unique quality content. You must create good original content on your sites as well as in your articles and posts. Your content must be informative, useful or entertaining. For in the end, it is this quality content that will create the interest, the links and the massive traffic to your site.

Don’t ignore this factor or your quest for massive web site traffic will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve.

Written by: Titus Hoskins
About The Author:
The author is a full-time online marketer. For the most effective web marketing software try:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com/bestsoft.htm. Want more traffic? Why not try these excellent free training manuals and videos: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com/free_marketing_tools.htm . 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

It’s easy to forget the fundamental components of Web site promotion. Winding back the clock to the days when many Webmasters couldn’t afford prolonged advertising campaigns, the majority of people starting out with a new Web site were forced to discover the art of free Web site promotion.

In recent times, however, with "pay per click" advertising becoming less expensive and various other marketing activities becoming increasingly cheaper, the art of effectively promoting your site for free appears to have been lost. The purpose of this article is to act as a refresher course for any Webmasters who are keen to keep their promotional activities down to a shoestring budget.

The practices you perform when promoting your site for free are just as important as any paid advertisements you might run. Indeed, drawing a steady flow of visitors to your Web site needn’t be an expensive affair. So, what things really matter if you’re serious about increasing your site’s traffic for free?

1) You should ensure your site is easy to link to.

Even Webmasters who enjoy what your site has to offer may not consciously think to link you. In any case, you should remind your visitors, preferably on every page, how to go about adding your link. Not only will this bring extra visitors, it will improve your site’s relevancy for the search engines. Additionally, establishing link exchanges with similar-themed sites as yours is a remarkably popular and effective way of boosting your traffic levels for free. Your aim should be to establish as many relevant link-backs as possible.

2) You might like to consider adding a hyperlink to your Web site in your e-mail signature.

If you’re feeling creative, you could do what some Webmasters do and add a small slogan, too. As well as this and within reason, you should respond to every legitimate e-mail you receive so that your Web address sticks in the mind of your contacts.

3) You should utilise search engines since they’re an ideal form of free traffic.

Ensuring your pages are search engine friendly is crucial. The majority of people find information on the Internet via search engines and it’s important that you correctly research how to optimise your site. A good listing on a popular search engine can work wonders for traffic levels, so try spending some time optimising your pages. If you’re unsure and need some guidance with the technicalities, there are numerous sites and forums on the Internet that can help you out.

4) Entering your site for awards is an excellent way to gain recognition.

However, when suggesting your site for review, be sure to avoid "automatic award submitting" services, since these can significantly lower your chances of winning. They don’t generally fare too well with the judges either.

5) Although not entirely free, you might like to experiment with running competitions on your site.

Even if the prize is inexpensive (e.g. a t-shirt with your Web address on the front), it’s a sure-fire way to reel-in interested visitors. Besides, directories specialising in listing competitions may also link to your site and send you additional visitors.

6) Submitting your site to the Open Directory (dmoz.org) is a free necessity for generating more site visitors.

Not only will a listing here help to increase your site’s relevancy (for search engine purposes), it will be accessible via countless other Web locations who use the Open Directory to power their own sites.

7) If you want to instantly draw some attention to your site, then tell all your friends about it.

Word of mouth advertising is the best possible form of promotion anyone can muster, and incidentally, it’s completely free!
Try telling visitors how to bookmark your site.

There are still many Web surfers out there inexperienced with the Internet. You’d be surprised at how many also don’t know how to bookmark a Web site they’ve found. That said, when designing your pages, it’s a good idea to tell visitors how to add a bookmark. Alternatively, you could add a "click here to bookmark
us" hyperlink.

9) Newsgroups are perfect for gaining site recognition.

Recklessly promoting your site in newsgroups, however, is frowned upon. The key to promoting your site in newsgroups is to participate in newsgroup discussions that interest you. To promote your Web site (and to avoid any behaviour that may be deemed inappropriate), simply include your Web address in your signature. If readers appreciate your point of view, then it’s likely that they will take some time to visit your Web site.

10) You should endeavour to update your site regularly.

Fresh, regularly-updated content will enable you to gather a keen audience, and what’s more, it will keep visitors returning. It’s far easier to retain existing visitors than to find new ones. Therefore, your content should be structured in such a way that it entices people to return.

11) You may not have realised but how a person finds their way around your Web site is a make-or-break scenario for traffic levels.

If people can’t find what they’re looking for then they won’t view your site in a favourable light - and chances are they won’t return. Therefore, when designing your site’s pages, keep site navigation in mind, since consistent traffic levels are swayed by your site’s user-friendliness. All your content should be easy to locate within three mouse clicks. Think "simple navigation". If visitors can find what they’re looking for within the shortest amount of time possible then by and large, they will keep a mental note of your site and may pay a visit in the future.

12) Sites that are fast to load keep visitors visiting, and they’ll undoubtedly help to increase your Web site traffic flow.

Keeping site loading times down is a free and sensible way to indirectly increase traffic. How many times have you visited a Web page, only to find that it takes an age to load? My guess is that you didn’t bother waiting around. On the Internet, if you want to be successful, then your site should (ideally) strike a balance between presentation and loading time.

Summary: A massive, targeted advertising campaign is the ideal solution for quick traffic. However, most ordinary Webmasters are not working for large corporations who can afford this level of promotion. The fact is you don’t necessarily have to pay for high traffic levels, although if you are opting for the "free" route, you will have to work hard if your endeavours are to be successful. Remember: some of the best and most effective ways to increase traffic do not always require a wallet!

Written by: Andy Varley
About the author: This article is courtesy of Andy Varley, owner and Webmaster of FreebieList.com (http://www.freebielist.com), a site dedicated to reviewing only the best quality freebies that can be found
over the Internet. FreebieList.com provides a great mixture of consumer freebies and free Webmaster resources.

You’ve heard of the olden days when people would hunt for potential link partners. Well, those days are long gone and smart web masters are moving on to greater things, while decreasing their reciprocal link building effort.

If you are wondering what this new technique could be, it’s actually quite simple… in theory. It is known as linkbaiting. This is a strategy that brings links to a website simply because of the unique and popular content on a website.

With the rise of the blogosphere and social bookmarking sites, all it takes is one person to notice an interesting page and link to a site. Once a link is passed around once, it becomes easier for it to spread further.

Bloggers around the net constanly use linkbait to encourage other bloggers to mention them or to get their content passed around the blogosphere. However, many traditional web masters have not quite latched on to this powerful technique.

The benefits of creating quality, unique, or even controversial content go way beyond what one might first imagine. When a web site offers true value to the visitor, they can create hundreds and even thousands of backlinks without even asking.

Unfortunately, simply having good, quality content on your site doesn’t always work. To gain the full potential of linkbaiting, you need a good hook. Some of the most popular ones include:

News
Controversy
Resources and…
Humor

News Hook: Everyone loves to read about industry news. However, the key to attracting some real traffíc is to add a twist to the latest news. Find out exactly how it affects your web site visitors. If you just give a rehashing of what everyone else has already said, no one will care.

However, if you inject your own twist or personality into your news story, then you are prepared to catch someone’s eye.

Look at CNN.com as an example. What do they offer? They provide the latest news every day of the week. In the world of information that we live in, news is a commodity. Because CNN offers such appealing content, thousands of sites are linking to them. Do you think CNN sent these sites a little email asking if they would be interested in a reciprocal link? Of course not.

Instead, they employ linkbaiting. Their fresh and interesting content automatically encourages other people to link to it. Luckily for us, we can use this same technique on our own web sites.

News is one of the best ways to attract incoming links, especially if the news is controversial.

Controversy Hook: Before we move on, I must warn you that this hook can be very powerful and also very dangerous. It involves contradicting what someone says, preferably someone very prominent in the industry.

When used correctly, controversy can be very effective in bringing traffíc to your site, but always be careful.

To begin, look for articles and stories in your industry. Some of the best places to find this type of content is on blogs, news sites, and social bookmarking sites. Once you have found a good story, take an opposing viewpoint or give it some sort of twist. This will make your content stand out from the hum drum of what everyone else is publishing.

The next hook is actually one of my favorites. It is known as the resource hook.

Resource Hook: Information is powerful online. If you have information that is not available anywhere else, you become an authoritative resource. Many of these resources come in the form of a list.

You would be surprised at the power of a list. You can organize:

* a list of helpful tools that would be beneficial to your readers
* a list of the best blogs in your niche
* a list of popular news stories within your industry (When you are doing this kind of list, be sure to sprinkle in some of your own commentary)

One of my favorite lists is located at SEOCompany.ca, where they offer over 150 SEO tools. Simply by linking out to their favorite SEO tools they get tons of traffíc each and every day.

Robin Good of MasterNewMedia is a webmaster who uses lists especially well. One of his most popular resource pages is a list of RSS and blog directories that webmasters can submit to. You can see it at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/.

However, not only does he show you over a hundred places where you can submit your blog and RSS feed, he also gives you an overview of each service, some commentary on which of these directories are the most influential, and exactly how to submit to each one.

This one page alone has thousands of incoming links to it because it is an invaluable resource.

Another popular resource hook is to create a useful online tool that your visitors can download for frëe. Once they have downloaded your frëe tool, let them rebrand it and give it away on their own sites.

Humor Hook: Have you ever received a joke or some other sort of humor in your inbox? If you are like most people, then you probably have. Jokes, funny stories, and wierd pictures are some of the most viral hooks on the Internet.

Within your own web site, you can add your own touch of humor. However, you must make sure that it fits with your personality. People on the internet want to see your true self.

Many companies have made their web sites an impersonal void. This is not the way the web works. The Web is an engaging and interactive community of people. When you start giving your web site some personality, people will start taking notice. The ordinary is simply too easy to pass over.

Another key to remember when employing linkbaiting is that your article or news story should almost always link out to leading industry web sites or influential bloggers. There are so many web sites who are afraid to link out to other sites. However, by mentioning other web sites and bloggers, you would be surprised at the number of people who start linking to you.

Bloggers are a group of web masters who realize the power of linking to others. Within the blogoshpere, links are spread willingly to those who provide great content. As a result, they all receive more traffíc than they would alone.

Final Verdict

The term linkbaiting itself may sound a little fishy, but it’s not. If you are a good web master, you should always strive for your content to be linkbait. This simply means that your content is of such quality that others simply can’t help but link to it.

Written by: Kim Roach
About The Author: Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews & SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim @ seo-news.com

Most webmasters have visited Google’s Webmaster Help Center: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters. Many of the suggestions are obvious: Don’t use frames; Don’t employ cloaking techniques or scripts designed to trick search engines; Create a search engine-friendly site map; Get incoming links from other quality web sites. But us webmasters can be a cocky bunch and will let our own pre-conceived notions get the better of us sometimes.

This refresher is for all you (ie. us) webmasters and search engine optimizers who have a set method of designing and/or promoting web sites and who consider yourselves experts in your field. Experts you may be, but it is never a bad idea to review the basics from time to time.

- Make sure your pages have less than 100 links. This won’t be too difficult unless you display product lists without breaking them up into separate pages (which should be done for your visitors let alone search engines!) or have a link partners page or a site map. If you have more than 100 outbound links, you may want to review your linking practices unless you have compiled a comprehensive list of high quality and relevant resources for your visitors.

- Dynamically-generated content can create session IDs and URLs that contain a “?” character. Check your database administration settings to make sure that you aren’t forcing search engine spiders to begin a new session each time they visit your site. Note: Preventing spiders from starting a session on your site may have negative effects if you use a third party for web site credit card processing. Always check with these services before making any changes of this nature.

- Web designers still utilize images as a way of displaying headings or other important areas of text instead of simple HTML simply because they think the Book Antiqua font with a drop shadow improves the aesthetics of the site. While branding and clarity are always paramount, keep in mind that multiple fonts used on the same page can have a negative impact on readability. And the more text written in HTML that can be read by search engine spiders, the better. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) also provide a way of attaining the look you want while keeping the code clean and in search engine-readable format.

- “Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.” Most webmasters assume that by using keywords in the page title that are relevant to the page’s topic, that they are adhering to the rules. But that last word in quotes is the most important: Accuracy. It is standard practice for search engine optimizers to make sure that if a word is used in a page title, that it also shows up in the main body of the page as well. Not doing this means that Google may be interpreting your page titles as inaccurate or at worst, trying to manipulate its algorithm.

- Use 301 redirects to let visitors know if a URL has changed. Many people still use the “meta refresh” command. This is an outdated command that has been utilized in the past for unethical purposes. While visitors can be directed to the new page the same way with either method, Google specifically mentions using a 301 redirect. More information on how to implement this redirect can be read at http://knowledge.freshpromo.ca/seo-tools/301-redirect.php

- Google suggests you submit your site to the Yahoo! directory. Why would Google urge its users to pay a direct competitor of theirs $299 USD a year? It is safe to say that web sites included in the Yahoo! directory are not trying black hat SEO techniques such as free-for-all link exchanges, cloaking, multiple domains showing duplicate content, and so on. Companies that spend money promoting their web site should receive a vote of legitimacy from search engines. As difficult as it might be for some small business owners to bite the bullet with Yahoo’s yearly cost, having Google recognize that you have paid for directory listings will increase the chances that your site will rank well.

- “You should never have to link to an SEO.” If you are hiring a search engine optimizer to help you with your site’s rankings, be careful they do not insist on linking your site to theirs. The only reason for this is to help the SEO’s own link popularity. If anything, it will detract from the SEO efforts. Not the most brilliant suggestion from a company claiming to help you, is it?

It is recommended that you read Google’s entire webmaster guidelines if you are developing a new site. The above points are ones that a lot of webmasters may have overlooked, and if you’re included in that group don’t worry: just fix the issues and remember them for next time you work on a web site.

Written by: John Metzler
About the Author: An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. His web site, FreshPromo.ca, features more of his search engine optimization articles.

The next time you visit a website, take a moment to stop and ask yourself “Why am I visiting this website?” Chances are your answer is going to have something to do with the content. The fact is, content is king. Having the most unique and informative content that is relevant to your genre of website will greatly increase user retention. We’ll discuss some key components to keeping your website content fresh and keeping it relevant!

Choose a Topic You’re An Expert In
Consider this. You have just discovered the world of online affiliation where you can make money through advertisements placed on your website. You see advertisements on just about every web page on the net these days, mostly in the form of Google AdSense. “Open a Google AdSense account and start earning commissions today!” Sure, it sounds great and it can be very profitable, but the mistakes many new webmasters will make is choosing a market that they feel will make them a quick buck rather than choosing something they are passionate about. The result of this over-enthusiasm for capital gain is typically a website that lacks originality, style, and quality content. You’ll find that the key to success is providing users with a quality site where content is your main focus. Once you’ve established a niche that you feel comfortable in and can showcase a strong knowledge on your subject matter, content will come easy.

Enlist The Help of Ghost Writers
Writing quality content can be time consuming. The more ambitious your site is, the more quality content you’ll need to provide. Don’t be afraid to enlist the help of Ghost Writers to help you fill those empty pages. As long as you enlist the help of others who are experts in your chosen website category, you’ll be well off with the additional content writers. Try asking some colleagues if they’ll write an article or two, post messages on forums stating that you’re looking for a content writer. Of course not everyone is willing to help without some form of compensation. If you site offers services that users typically pay for, try offering those services to a select few friends or colleague for free in exchange for articles and content.

Be Your Own Worse Critic
When it comes down to the quality of your content, be your own worse critic. Be nitpicky about every little nuance and aspect of every sentence you write down. Read it several times over, making sure it’s relaying effectively the message you’re trying to get across. When in doubt, have a friend or co-worker read through your content and get their honest opinions. You only have a few seconds to make an impression on your users, so never publish anything that is less than perfect. Your goal is to make sure your content contains useful and quality information without error before being seen by visitors of your site. Also, make sure to run your article through a spell check (such as with MS Word) before publishing it.

Add Something New Each Day
A website that remains static will not retain users. It’s fact. For your website to keep generating repeat traffic, you need to give your users something new each day. They will need to see constant changes, new articles, and up to the minute news and information so they will be intrigued in coming back. Never fall into a comfort zone where you feel you can “wait another day” to update your site. You can be sure of one thing, if you’re not on top of your website, the competition will be!

Write Your Content For Users, Not Search Engines
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important to search engines, content is important to users. Do not confuse the two. Content should be written with the user in mind, without thinking about how it will impact search engines. Content written for search engines usually are comprised of keyword stuffing (repetitiveness of key words), which more often that not will make the content neither useful nor particularly enjoyable to read. You will be doing a disservice to yourself and your users if you write your content for search engines.

By focusing on the user you’ll soon reap the benefits of quality content that was written with passion and knowledge. Over time you’ll find that you’ll receive residual traffic as other webmasters link to your site, users post your URL in forums, and word of mouth spreads. Although content is just one component to generating traffic to your site (you still need to apply SEO), it will ensure that the traffic you do get keeps coming back for more.

Written by: David Nicolosi
About the Author: David is a Senior Programming consultant and SEO expert with over 10 years experience in the IT industry. David currently owns several successful websites, including Free Links Direct, a free SEO service that provides one-way links and quality SEO articles and tips.

There is little argument from webmasters and publishers that RSS brings in traffic. So once you’ve made the leap and created a feed, how do you tell your visitors about the feed?

1. Submit Your RSS Feed to RSS Directories.

This will not only increase the number of sites linking to your website and increasing your link popularity, it will also increase the RSS feeds profile. A number of RSS search engines and RSS directories exist that allow you to freely submit RSS feeds. Feeds are generally categorized and grouped together by subject. Web surfers looking for RSS feeds about a specific subject will often search the RSS directories, to locate a feed that matches their specific criteria. Topic specific RSS feed and podcasting directories are also emerging. Choose a
web feed’s category carefully and only submit relevant feeds to topic specific directories.

A large list of directories is located at http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

Example of Topic Specific - http://www.realty-feeds.net or http://www.religious-podcasts.net

2. Explain RSS

While you have finally figured RSS out, some of your visitors may not have. The concept while brilliant, can be a bit confusing for the beginner. The concept of RSS feeds might be completely new to some of your website visitors. Hence it is generally good practice to walk website visitors through the steps of locating, subscribing and reading an RSS feed. It is generally a good practice to include a page on your website that contains a general explanation on RSS and details how website visitors can subscribe to an RSS feed.

Sample explanation page that can be used to on your website: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-subscriptions.htm . RSS specifications has authorized the replication of this webpage. It can be republished, simply insert your RSS feeds or otherwise customize the material to explain RSS to your website visitors.

3. Graphic on Website

Since the conception of RSS, bright graphic flags have been used to denote the location of an RSS feed. Now instinctively, website visitors frequently look for a colorful flag on websites. The looks of the flags have changed but a variety of options exists. When you add the image, be sure to link to the location of the RSS feed. Some webmasters use chicklets to indicate the presence of feeds, web surfers click on the chicklet that relates to their RSS feed reader or news aggregator and the feed is added to their list of feeds. Others feel that the volume of chicklets simply add confusion, and opt for a single relevant RSS graphic.

4. Press

As with any important addition to your company, it is completely appropriate to send a press release to let the media know you have RSS feeds available for specific content. This will often garner a little attention. Additionally, key news editors may opt to subscribe to your RSS feed in order to stay abreast of your latest corporate news. Considering the possibility of these subscriptions, makes a press release to signal the availability of an RSS feed simple common corporate sense.

5. Newsletters

Include a mention in your e-mail newsletter that content is now available via an RSS feed. Many newsletters subscribers appreciate an alternative subscription method and will subscribe to a web feed as well.

6. Auto Discovery

Some of your website visitors might be web savvy. Be sure to include an auto-discovery tag in the HTML header of each web page. Many RSS Readers will automatically discover that an RSS feed is available for specific content and notify the website visitor and ask them if they wish to subscribe.

7. Brand a Newsreader

Distribute pre-loaded RSS readers branded to your company name. The big benefit to brandable newsreaders is that you can include all of your RSS feeds in it. Any downloaders will have immediate access to your RSS feeds in the branded news reader.

Brandable Readers - http://www.deskshare.com or http://www.customreader.com

8. Blog

If you have a blog or know bloggers, be sure to share with them that you have added an RSS feed for specific content. Blogs are a great vehicle to spread the word. Marketers instantly understood the power of word of mouth, but few marketers understand the movement of blog to mouth. This growing phenomenon has added credibility to online blog endorsements.
In order to reap the benefits of an RSS feed, it is important the feed be properly publicized. Taking simple steps to promote an RSS feed will go a long way in ensuring a feeds adoption.

Written by S. Housley.