SEO Blog, Web Hosting & Website Development Guide

Archive for March, 2011

You may all know about these methods in some way but let’s take a look at the 3 most reliable and efficient ways to boost traffic to your website in good time.

Being a web developer, I know how to build an attractive and functional website that is worth more than the price charged to the customer. If in my head it wasn’t adding value, I wouldn’t bother trying to sell it. I soon realised that building the website was only half of the challenge for my customers, and gaining traffic was the next. The three main ways that we’ll talk about are paying for traffic, sending an email to your mailing list (that itself takes time to build) and lastly to joint venture with another website owner. This means they send you traffic, and you split profits with them 50:50. You can use software to track the number of hits produced from their mailouts.

1. By buying traffic, you can target the people already looking for your product. The biggest player here is Google. I’m sure you know them well  For those new to this industry, whenever you run a google search, the listings that show up on the right hand side can be bought by anyone. You pay 5 cents and upwards for each click. You can have traffic showing up to your website 5 minutes after setting up a Google Adwords account. Other search engines also offer this ‘pay-per-click’ (PPC) service.
The next step after paying for traffic is to monitor results. You can track the number of hits from various sources to focus on those that are producing sales. Let’s say you had 4 different advertising sources producing a total in sales of $200 and you spent a total of $80. That’s a profit margin of 250%. If you were able to see that the $20 you spent with PPC advertiser A produced 0 dollars in sales and the same for advertiser B. Advertiser C brought in $20 in sales but advertiser D brought in a whopping $180 in sales. That’s 900% profit and you could then focus your advertising dollars on that source to maximise profit. Every type of advertising must have a tracking system with strong accuracy.

2. Emailing a list is the next method that becomes your greatest asset with time. There are no overheads and you can create a huge rush of sales everytime you send an email. In a previous article I mentioned that a signup should be between 10 and 33%. That is the percentage of visitors you can expect to sign up to a mailing list. By having autoresponders, you can attract these visitors back to your website again. There’s a good chance they’ll buy the second time around. If they leave, you can send them another email to ask them to return and make them keep returning until they eventually buy.

Knowing how often to send emails to your list is also important. The key here is to add value and send regular free content. Imbetween asking them to buy something, send something free that is of value. Generally, once a month is an appropriate time period between emails, or more often depending on your market. Some people send emails three times a day and it works for them but here’s what works for my mentor so that’s the best of my knowledge.

3. Joint Venture.

The strategy is simple, other websites send out emails and place strategic links on their website to attract visitors to your website. YUou only pay them for the sales produced from any clicks. Generally 50% of the profits is the best since it’s an equal share.

The key here is to make it as easy as possible for you JV partner. Create emails for them, banner ads and any other promotional material that will help them.

JV deals allow you to create a lot of traffic to your site in a short period of time and for you to build your mailing lists very quickly. You can receive JV support from all of the established companies in the field you wish to enter if you approach them correctly.

What keeps you up at night?

It’s a good question for you to ask yourself once in a while. For most eCommerce entrepreneurs one of the answers is the thought of revenue lost as potential customers abandon your web site without buying. That’s 97.4% or so of your visitors, according to the accepted industry average conversion rate. Are you confident that your site converts visitors into customers at the best rate possible? If so, you’re probably getting a better night’s sleep than most.

If not, you’re probably tossing and turning, thinking about ways to increase web site sales. You might think you have already tried every little conversion rate optimization tip or trick. Do you have a strong “Call to Action” benefit? Have you ever tested different messaging with tools such as split A/B landing page optimization? The web is always changing. Unless you are sure that there is no room for improvement, its clearly time to consider how you can take your website to the next level to increase online sales with a value added promotional benefit.

1. Bait your prospects with the right cheese.

Online shoppers are more sophisticated today. You should assume that your prospects will evaluate three to four competitors before deciding to purchase. You need to stand out and provide the right bait to get your prospects to stop and buy at your site, rather than move on to a competitor.. In some cases, merchants need to find a special kind of cheese that will get the mouse to click on certain shipping options or up-sells. Getting creative in what bait you use is what will increase conversion rates if you know what type of cheese will make that mouse click.

2. Create a value-added offer.

Sometimes you need to go beyond your product line to find a potential partner that could benefit from a cross promotion. Some gift items can be presented as bonus offerings that would bring a high perceived added value, such as. Phone cards with a volume discount. Such an item could even be co-branded as a special value- added thank you gift.

3. Offer free gifts that create viral marketing buzz

Think of a gift or promotional item that prospects will keep on them at all times such as inside their purse or wallet. Giving this item away is what creates the viral marketing buzz for increased “buzz”, brand awareness, and ultimately more Internet sales. The example of a free co-branded phone card giveaway is a great way to get your customers to carry your brand at all times and increase repeat orders and referrals. Gifts like phone cards are especially effective because they are designed for repeated use. As a result, the customer will be exposed to your brand for the seven plus times experts say are necessary before a prospect is ready to convert to a sale or reorder. It’s also likely to more than carry its weight in referrals.

4. Create a personalized benefit

Always look for ways to personalize your offer. Instead of “we” or” I”. talk to the customer individually as “you”. Make your prospects feel special, elite and make it personal in any way possible when giving away a value added benefit. Personalize your gift when possible and find a partner with whom you could cross promote a co-branded personalized items.

5. Give away a high perceived value item:

Offering something for FREE is always nice. But the word “free” can carry negative connotations. You always want to keep the perceived value of any gift or offer high.

Example:

Get a Free phone card with your order today

Vs.

Receive a complimentary phone card worth more than 1 hour of free calling to the U.S. and many other countries as a personal thank you gift for your order today.

Grab your prospects today, and give them an incentive to buy on your site. Now its time for you to find your special “cheese” that will get your prospect’s mouse to click on your personalized high perceived-value benefit.

Link Popularity as you know plays a BIG part in your websites ranking within the Search Engines.

So, the basic breakdown is, the more links pointing to your website, the higher up the search engines will rank your website.

More importantly though is getting those High PR websites linking back to yours.

The question at hand is… “How can I get those High PR links without having to buy High PR links and/or spend countless hours surfing the web for link partners with the possible potential of being denied?”

And as webmasters, we can not afford to waste time, especially if your starting out on a part time basis.

We must utilize every minute we can to getting the most out of our efforts.

So with that being said, I’m going to reveal to you the ‘Back Door’ strategy I use for getting those High PR links to your website Absolutely FREE and have them begging you to come back.

And the cool thing is this can be done following these 3 steps I’m about to mention so pay attention because if you do just this, you will not only get hundreds of backlinks to your website, you’ll also get hundreds, if not thousands of Targeted visitors to your website at the same time…

…all for FREE!

Are you ready?

Good, because I am.

Step #1. First you must write an Article.

The first step is to write an related article about your Product or Service that draws the reader in and gets them to click through to your website once they finish reading it to find out more about you and your Product or Service.

Now, your probably wondering why you have to write an article.

Well, it’s real simple actually because what do you get to put at the end of your article?

Your ‘Resource Box’ with your website information and most important of all… your URL pointing back to your website.

So when someone chooses to publish your article in their newsletter or on their website, blog or article directory, they MUST add your ‘Resource Box’ with your website information and URL.

I know some of you are saying… “I don’t know how to write an article” … well, your not alone.

Here are a few resources I’ve put together for you so you can get the basic idea of How-To structure your articles with ease or get someone else to write them for you.

The first is an article I wrote called… THE 7 Step Formula For Writing POWERFUL Articles In Less Than An Hour.

It will show you How-To structure your articles for easy writing. http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_11.html

The second resource is Elance.com – http://www.elance.com – which is basically a place where you can go and submit a project by category and freelance writers, etc. will then bid on your project. You pick the winner and you set the budget.

This will get you started in the right direction.

Remember, your article is the Nuts and Bolts of this ‘Back Linking’ strategy, so make sure you put some effort into it to get it as much exposure as possible.

Step #2. Submit your article to Article Directories.

This is the next step and an important one at that because this is where your article or articles are going to get picked up by website owners and/or ezine publishers who are in constant need of fresh, quality information to feed their audiences hunger for information.

There are literally hundreds of Article Directories out there and thousands of ezine publishers looking for quality content on a daily basis. And if they choose your article for publication, they must include your ‘Resource Box’ with your websites information and URL.

It’s all about the numbers. The more Article Directories and websites you submit your articles to, the more potential Backlinks you’ll get to your website.

And since Article Directories have recently adopted RSS(Real Simple Syndication) technology into the mix your articles will even get More mileage without you lifting a finger, creating even more Backlinks to your website.

More on RSS in a minute.

Are you starting to see the Power behind writing your own articles.

I hope so.

Step #3. Create your own RSS Feed for your articles.

This last step is a very Powerful step as well.

What you need to do is set up your own RSS Feed for your articles.

Now, if you don’t know what RSS is here’s the basic definition…

RSS is by definition – an acronym for ‘Real Simple Syndication’ or ‘Rich Site Summary’, and the .XML extension is the format used for distributing your news headlines via the Web, which is known as ‘Syndication.

‘Syndication’ is where the TRUE power of RSS is unleashed, getting your message or information across the web in an INSTANT to websites, subscribers and/or readers who subscribed to your RSS Feed.

The easiest way for you to do this is to set up your own Blog either through…

WordPress.org – http://www.wordpress.org

Or through…

Blogger.com – http://www.blogger.com

WordPress is a little more advanced so I recommend if you don’t have alot of experience with Blogs or installing scripts that you go set up a Blogger blog which will only take you less than 5 minutes to do.

I’m just giving you some options, that’s all.

Once you’ve set up your Blog the only thing left for you to do is add you articles.

TIP: Make sure you hyperlink your URL and use Anchor Text with your most targeted keywords. By doing this the Search Engine spiders will rank your website higher under that keyword term you specify in your Anchor Text.

After you’ve added your articles all you have to do now is submit your new RSS Feed to RSS Directories and RSS Search Engines.

Here’s a few resources for you to get started with.

Ping-O-Matic – http://pingomatic.com

RSS Top 55 – http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

That’s it.

Now I know I dumped alot of information on you within this article so just take it Step-By-Step because once you implement it properly it will benefit you for years to come with Backlinks to your website and FREE targeted traffic via the Search Engines, Website Owners and eZine Publishers.