Web Success Secret #2) Without Traffic- What’s the Point?

Part 1 of this series really got down and dirty about content.  Content’s main focus is twofold- make your visitors happy and make search engines happy.  This article is all about making you happy!  Think of this as your starter guide to increasing traffic and building a profitable business.

Traffic can be summed up in 2 words- free and paid.  I consider all PPC (pay-per-click), ezine advertising, offline advertising, and paid directory submissions a form of paying for your traffic.  I also consider any project that takes up your time to be paid advertising.  After all in the business world time is money.  Paid advertising is not bad.  It just means that you are paying to receive traffic.

Free traffic is harder to attract, but it costs you absolutely no money.  Almost all free traffic is the result of surfers finding your site on the search engines.  We talked about using content as your ultimate search engine ranking booster in the last article.

Here are several ways to increase traffic.  Some are paid advertising options and others are totally free.

- Write articles and submit them to several niche websites.  Manually submitting articles to many websites can take a long time.  I use a submission service to do all my hard work.

- Post in forums.  Many forums will not allow you to market your product or services.  That’s totally understandable.  What I recommend doing is finding a really great forum that you can participant in.  When people have questions, provide top notch and comprehensive answers.  No selling.  Almost all forums allow you to post your website in your sig file.  Take advantage of that.

- Submit each page of your website to all major search engines.  Also submit each page to all major search engines whenever you make a change on that page.  Be careful with this one.  Each engine has very specific directions and rules about submission rules.  Be sure you do not spam!  Submit pages according to each engine’s guidelines.  I also use a submission service that does this for me at no additional cost.

- Create joint ventures with non-competing websites.  Work with a company that compliments your product or service.  Also be sure the joint venture is a win-win-win for you, the other company and your customers.  Joint ventures can be a pain to set up and complete, but well worth it if done correctly.

- Look into ezine advertising, web advertising and/or PPC.  Each method takes an initial investment and some time to learn, but can bring back traffic.  Personally I do not prefer this method to increase traffic because it’s “iffy” at best.

- Print your website name on all business correspondences.  This is a simple task, but one that is simple to do.  Add it to your email sig line, forum sig lines, letterhead and business cards.

- Create an atmosphere of amazing customer service.  This always leads to referrals from current clients.  The more referrals the more traffic!

The bottom line is without traffic your site is floating in a sea of doom.  No one is seeing your content or services.  Traffic is the lifeline of any business, and the rule of thumb is more traffic means more income.

This brings me to my last and final point about traffic.  Once you develop a nice flow of visitors you need to know specifics.  Where did those visitors come from?  How did they find you?  What pages are the most popular on your site?  What page did they enter into your site?  What page did they leave your site?  What keywords did they use to find you?  You must know your visitor inside and out!

As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder.  Traffic analysis and search engine submissions can be very time consuming, but your hosting company should be providing most of these services to you free of charge. There are a small few that do this, but it is well worth the investigation.

Previous parts:
4 Secrets to Turn Any Business Into a Successful Web Business – Part 1

Click Here And Learn The Best Traffic Techniques For Your Web Site…

Google Adwords is an incredibly powerful marketing tool with an instant global reach that can take your business from nowhere to an overnight success. Why wouldn’t a new marketer take advantage of such a powerful tool? I can answer that question with another question. Why wouldn’t you let someone with a new driver’s license behind the wheel of a race car? Because, unless they are extremely lucky, they are going to crash and burn. Google Adwords is the Formula One of online marketing and it is not for beginners.

As advertising goes, the reasons to avoid Google Adwords early on in your education is overwhelming.

1. First, it can be very expensive and most new marketers will exhaust their ad budget before they can successfully bring in revenue. This is mainly because Google Adwords can be deceptively difficult to master. The basic formula is to identify keywords, write an ad that uses the keywords and have a landing page that completely delivers on what your ad promises.
2. Next, Google rewards advertisers who solve the problem their searchers are trying to solve. If you fail to do this you can expect high cost per click and low traffic.
3. Further, Google purposefully keeps the exact formula for success under wraps. If you are not getting the results you are seeking, the support you receive from Google will be general at best. Expect Google to suggest “improve your landing page” or “tips for writing ads.” On top of that, Google periodically change their rules requiring you to change your campaign or face the prospect of high cost per click or low traffic.
4. Finally, the instant global reach of your Google Adwords campaign is accompanied by global competition with a wide variety of skill levels and budgets.

Keep your chin up though. There are many options that exist for the new marketer.

Initially most new marketers have more time than money and that can be a good thing (more on that later). There are many low-tech approaches that have worked for decades and still do. These alternatives allow you to learn how to market affordably which will allow for some trial and error without spending your whole ad budget.

Using some of the methods below will allow you to use several forms of marketing which is a more balanced and stable long-term approach. Here is the big bonus: your competitors are still online spending themselves out of business with Adwords!

Here are just a few options when thinking about an offline marketing campaign. They may not be sexy, but they are time-tested, and still very effective marketing tools.

1. Newspaper Advertising – requires only a computer and 800 number. Information about newspapers from around the country is easily researched online and ads can cost as little as $10 per week.
2. Flyers – this is a big one for those who have time but little money. Getting flyers or business cards made is cheap and easy using a site like vistaprint.com. Spend a couple of hours a day papering parking lots. The key with this plan is to put out a lot of flyers (hundreds daily).
3. Bandit Signs – Simple three line signs that reside at intersections and other high traffic areas which direct prospects to an 800 number with a message. Signs cost between $2-$5 dollars each and work wherever your prospects pass by or congregate.
4. Warm market – You have an immediate advantage approaching people you know because a level of trust exists between you. Many marketers can get off to a quick start by starting here.
5. Article campaigns – this is absolutely free to do. Establish yourself online as a respected and knowledgeable marketer in your niche. You may still be learning the ropes about marketing but you definitely know more than most people about your business.
6. Blogging – Similar to article marketing in that you share information about your area of expertise. Once people see you as a helpful resource they will begin to seek you out. The key here is to provide new content on a consistent basis. You can start today with a free site from WordPress or Blogger

If you have the budget, make Google Adwords a part of your overall marketing plan AFTER you have established other forms of marketing. Whenever you are new at something you need to be allowed to make mistakes, learn from them and apply what you have learned in the future. Hard won knowledge is the best way to learn. By starting with basic (and still viable) forms of advertising you can develop into a well-rounded, knowledgeable and, ultimately, more successful marketer in the long term, which is everyone’s goal.

Learn More About Google Adwords…

All the most successful entrepreneurs have a customer list they nurture and treasure and unless you’re a complete novice to marketing you’ll know that your own customer list is vital to your success. In today’s marketplace your clients have a greater choice and it is just one ‘click’ away.

Relationship Building The Internet is a fantastic relationship building tool and by keeping in touch with your customer list on a regular basis via email you have an ideal opportunity to build up trust and credibility with your clients. There are several ways to do this:

1. Write an eZine to your clients at least once a week
2. Tips are very popular and they can be short, not more than one or two paragraphs you send out every week. They must be packed with information that is relevant and beneficial to your clients.
3. Mini courses are effective too, but again must contain good, useful, informative information. Ideally, it should be delivered over 5-7 days and be broken down into one subheading a day on your subject.

How Targeted is Your List? What type of client do you want to attract? It’s simple to build a large customer list quickly by appealing to anyone and everyone.

BUT, the more targeted the list, and your offer to that list, the greater chance of success your business has. I prefer 2000 people on my list who have a strong and passionate interest in my niche rather than 10,000 people who just have a passing interest and not nearly the same motivation to buy.

How Can You Be Selective With Your List? It pays to be as specific as possible when referring to your list. An example of what I use for my own eZine is… ‘Internet Marketing Review Newsletter – Subscribe Today and receive powerful & affordable solutions to increase your online sales and profits every time ..’ By putting in the word “affordable” I immediately put off all the ‘Freebie Seekers’ who are just out for a quick fix or magic solution. If I had put ‘Get the Internet Marketing Review Newsletter to improve your business…’ I would have got a lot of clicks, but not the people who are focused and motivated enough to be open to investing in their business.

How To Build Your List There are many ways to do this, and here are three you can start to use immediately:

1 Articles Writing and submitting articles to other eZines and offline magazines is a very powerful way to build your list and a fast way to promote your business in the resource box at the end. For example: “Neil Stafford is Editor and Publisher of the Caribbean Adventure Journal – Your key to unlocking the secret unspoilt hideaways in the Caribbean – subscribe to the Caribbean Adventure Journal eZine today” Click here………

You only need to write 500 to 750 words on your niche that is informative, entertaining and useful to the reader. Do that and it will get published, but remember it’s not an advert. Keep promotion to the resource box otherwise your article won’t get accepted.

2 Pop Up Box On Your Website They generate strong feelings, but whether you use a pop box that appears when a visitor either enters or leaves your site you NEED one to grow your list. The pop up can be a simple form that invites you to leave your name and email address but the results will be greater if you have a dynamic pop up that can’t be blocked. When people have to take an action, they are more likely to really want the information you are offering. Just clicking ‘ok’ means you will get more names, but also more curiosity and ‘freebie’ seekers so you have to decide on the balance.

3 Pay Per Click By using the PPC search engines such as Google’s Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing you can drive targeted traffic to your website. PPC is an ideal way to build your list quickly, but you need to understand the basics of cost per sale and conversion rates. I suggest you spend time researching it and a great start is Perry Marshall’s free 5 Day Course which you get by searching for Adwords on Google.

How to Manage Your List Automation is key here, so put a process in place at the beginning to automatically add and delete subscribers and send out emails and mini courses to your list. Again there are options, so do your research and cost comparison, but ones I use and highly recommend are Aweber and Shopping cart.

Last word These are the the basic principles you need to follow for building and managing your own customer list. Just put them into practice and see your list grow.

Of all the article marketing tips I could give you, writing articles for free advertising online is likely the most beneficial to you if you currently spend money on advertising your website. There are several reasons for this, but the major reasons why article writing can bring you better results than expensive pay per click (PPC) adverts or taking a chance with reciprocal links are detailed below.

Keep in mind that Google is not keen on reciprocal links unless the page you are reciprocating with relates to the page on your website that the link points to, and the link is no good to you in any case if it is one of many others on a ‘links’ or ‘partners’ page created predominantly for such links. You only get a share of the PR of the page your link is on, not that of the ’site’, and even that is shared between all the other links on the page.

Being one of 5 links on a page with a PR of 1 is better than one of 50 on a page with a PR of 8. If you take these article marketing tips, writing articles can offer you a form of free advertising online that Google itself provides willingly, and that can work for you for many years to come. Here is how to go about writing articles to get you the benefits that free online advertising has to offer:

1. 1. Write an article about your niche, using a conversational style as if you were explaining what you are writing if talking to somebody face to face – just as I am doing now in fact. Offer interesting information that anybody involved or interested in your niche would find useful. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering news, but what you write must be factual and show that you have a firm grasp of your subject. You want people to continue reading once they have started.
2. 2. At the end of your article, provide a link to your website. You can say something about yourself if relevant, such as a brief word about your qualifications and experience if the topic warrants it, or do as I do and simply offer a link to your site for more information. You can use more than one link if relevant. When writing articles for free advertising online you should keep in mind:
   1. You should never include a live link within the body of the article. Directories do not like these (more on article directories shortly).
   2. Only use multiple links in your resource if relevant. Thus, I include a link to my product and also one to my Article Services website that is focused on writing articles and my own ghostwriting services. c) Most article directories offer a special box for your link and other details (known as the ‘author’s resource’), but if not then you should add it to the end of your article. Never write an article without a link back to your website. That’s what gets you the free advertising.
3. Having finished writing your article, the power of writing articles and article marketing now comes into play to get you a ton of free advertising. You get that by submitting your articles to article directories. This can be done in a number of ways, the most common being:
   1. Manual Submissions You should choose a number of the top article directories, register with them and then submit your articles manually. This will take you about 5 minutes per directory. Your articles should be submitted in plain text format, so if you have written them in Microsoft Word, copy the Word text and paste it into a text editor such as Notepad. A Google search for ‘article directories’ will give you lists of the top directories.
   2. Software Submissions You can use software to make the submissions for you. Most of these work whereby you enter each part of your into a box provided for it: Title, Summary, Article body, Keyword list, Resource – parts of these will be in plain text and HTML, particularly the resource. You then scroll down a list of directories loaded into the software, click on those to which you want to submit, and the article submission is made automatically. You have to provide the software with your login details for each directory, where relevant (no all directories need a login), or log in to each individually.
   3. Article Submission Services You can use a paid article submission service that will submit your articles to a number of directories for a fee – either paid individually or monthly. I use all three of these methods for my submissions for maximum exposure and best results.
   4. Don’t worry about duplicate content when you submit the same article to loads of directories and ezines. That will take a few months to come into play and you can make up for it by writing an article each week.

Using these article marketing tips on writing articles will get you free advertising online in the following ways:

• Your article will be published on a number of article directories. If you use the right directories, these will further syndicate your articles to other directories and ezines and so on. It is viral, your articles being distributed around the internet. You get a back link to the pages stated in your author’s resource from every directory and ezine that publishes your article. That link is valuable in attaining you a high search engine listing position.
• People read your articles on the directories. This is fact, irrespective what others say. If you have done the job properly, these readers will possibly click on your link to visit your website for more information. Make sure that your link leads them to a web page related to the title of your article.
• An article published on a directory page is a single web page, just like any other. It can therefore be listed on Google or any other search engine. I have literally tens of dozens of articles scattered around search engines on various topics, optimized for specific keywords. That’s what free advertising is, and writing articles can achieve that for you if you take these article marketing tips.
• Many people will copy your article as content for their own website: to do that they must retain your resource containing your link. Writing articles just got you even more free advertising!

These are just some of the ways in which writing articles can get you free advertising online, and if you take these article marketing tips seriously then you could save yourself a lot of money on advertising costs, and get better results by doing so!