11. 12.
All website owners know that you must have website traffic to generate sales. However, not just any traffic will do. The best is targeted traffic. Having the right techniques will help you succeed on your online business.
Targeted traffic involves enticing visitors to your site who are actually interested in the content of your website. If people are interested in buying tropical fish they will find websites about buying tropical fish interesting.
There are a number of methods for obtaining targeted traffic.
Forums – If you are an active participant in a forum you can obtain targeted traffic through the link to your website that you are usually allowed to add to the signature. If you spam you are likely to get banned. However, if you add value by joining in debates and answering questions you may even come to be known as an expert. If others like your style, the quality of your posts or even the promotional text in your signature you can generate targeted traffic that doesn’t cost you anything.
Reciprocal Linking – For most product websites there are usually many other related websites which aren’t direct competitors. You can contact the owners of these websites to ask for a reciprocal link. While a number of them will simply ignore your request, you will start to build up some useful links over time. Again, this can provide a source of targeted website traffic.
E-zines – E-zines are ideal because the readership is targeted. Nevertheless, not all e-zine advertisements result in a good conversion rate so it is best to start slowly with a new e-zine to see it is worth the investment. If you do get good conversions then you can ramp up the amount of advertising with that particular e-zine.
Newsletters – As well as using other web owners e-zines, you should consider starting your own newsletter. In this way, you can build up your own list of targeted people and when the size of the list grows you can start selling your own advertising as well.
E-books – People like to receive things for free. You can give away e-books which contain useful information and are valued (and read). The trick is to include links back to your site. If the information is really useful, the books tend to be passed on from one person to another creating a viral effect.
Joint ventures – Successful internet marketers are always on the look-out for new opportunities. If you have a good product which converts well, don’t be shy in contacting them to offer a joint venture. You only need a few well-connected partners to see a large expansion in your traffic.
PPC – Pay per click will cost you money, but it is the quickest way to get targeted website traffic. If you write your ads well and select your keywords carefully making sure to include negative keywords, such as ‘free’, you can end up with a positive return on investment. Of course, if you choose poorly you can burn through a lot of cash quickly.
By applying a number of these techniques you can increase your level of targeted traffic which, in turn, can increase the profitability of your website. Having the right targeted traffic will bring about success on online business.
11. 12.
A website owner aims to have more website traffic. One helpful tip is using traffic exchange. A traffic exchange is a membership website where the members can promote their own web pages by earning or buying “credits”. Credits can be earned by viewing other members’ web pages – otherwise known as “surfing for credits”.
To surf for credits all you need to do is to log in to the traffic exchange and hit the “Start Surfing” button. You will then be shown a member’s web page and a countdown timer. How long you will have to view the page varies from traffic exchange to traffic exchange and also depends on your membership status, but typically the timer takes 10 seconds to run down. When it hits zero you will have earned a credit and will be able to view a new web page. To do that you usually have to complete a simple “icon matching” task with a click of your mouse.
The more you surf, the more credits you will earn. And with some traffic exchanges you will also stand the chance of winning bonus credits and even cash prizes.
As your credits accumulate you can allocate them to your web pages, which will then be shown to other members of the traffic exchange.
Most traffic exchanges operate a “surf ratio” policy. This simply means that you need to surf more than one page in order to generate enough credit to have your page viewed in the system. Some traffic exchanges offer a 2:1 ratio, 3:1 or a 3:2 ratio, with a 1:1 ratio reserved for members who upgrade.
Another option for traffic exchange members is simply to buy credits. Traffic exchanges often hit you with “One Time Offers” where you can get a lot of credits at discounted rates if you buy straightaway.
As well as page viewing credits, traffic exchanges also offer “banner ad” and “text ad” impressions. Banners and text ads are shown above or below pages that you view when you surf for credits. You can get these impressions at a much cheaper rate than standard page-viewing credits. On the other hand, click-through rates are typically quite low.
Typically, a website traffic exchange is free to join and has several “upgrade” options where you must pay a small monthly fee to secure the benefits.
So what are the benefits of upgrading?
It could be all or any of these benefits:
1. You get several hundred credits added to your account each month.
2. Your “surf ratio” improves.
3. The countdown time decreases.
4. You get new members randomly added to your “downline”.
5. You earn more in credits or commission whenever you recruit a new member for the traffic exchange.
Yes, traffic exchanges are also online affiliate businesses and when you join one you are allocated an affiliate number. If you check your member’s area you will see that there is a section devoted to promoting the traffic exchange. You can go there and get banners for your website or blog, and other promotional material such as email letters and so on.
Since you will be given free credits whenever you recruit someone to the traffic exchange, it makes sense to devote some space on your website or blog to promoting the traffic exchange.
You will also be encouraged to promote the traffic exchange on other traffic exchanges.
A lot of people join several traffic exchanges to gain extra exposure for their web pages, and also cross-promote their traffic exchanges in order to generate a lot of credits in the form of commission when people join traffic exchanges through their links.
When you use a traffic exchange to promote your website, here are a few common pitfalls that you will want to avoid:
1. Don’t promote pages that take a long time to download.
2. Don’t try to promote your main product with a long sales page. Keep your pages clean and simple with a basic message and either a sign up form for more info, or a “click here” button that will open up your main promotional page in a new browser window.
3. If you use a video promotion, don’t take more than ten seconds getting to your main message.
4. Make sure you do not run out of bandwidth – it is amazing how many times you see a “bandwidth limit expired” message instead of a member’s page when surfing traffic exchanges.
5. Do NOT promote XYZ traffic exchange on XYZ traffic exchange!! This sounds unbelievable, but a number of clueless people try to get traffic exchange members to join the traffic exchange that they are surfing on and are therefore already members of! Duh!
Website traffic exchanges offer website owners a cheap and cheerful method of promoting their website pages and can be very effective if you know how to work them. Being able to learn and applying these techniques will greatly improve a person’s online business.
11. 12.
One helpful tip to promote a website is using Traffic Exchange Programs. Website Traffic Exchange programs are services that online users with a common objective use, in an effort to gain more exposure for their business.
There are different types of traffic exchange programs. There are some that will let you surf the Internet as you normally would, with the only exception being that you set your browser’s start page to their default advertising page. Once your homepage’s browser loads you earn a certain number of advertising credits. You get additional credits for clicking on links of other members in the program’s network. You can then use these credits for exposing your links to the network, with a chance of potential visitors and sales.
Some other traffic exchange services will make your surfing experience a bit more complex, since you would have to wait for a timer to expire in order to be awarded credits, and while that timer counts down you are forced to view another person’s website from the network.
Some of these measures were taken by the traffic exchange programs in an effort to minimize or eliminate cheating, since some users came up with ways to cheat the system by using software programs that auto surf and earn them credits.
Typically, participants to these traffic exchanges will surf the Internet with a slight modification of how they normally would, in an effort to collect credits.
One can conclude that the less distracting from the normal surfing experience, the more the webmaster would be willing to use that traffic exchange program. Also, the less forced an ad/website on a user, the more targeted he/she will be for that product or service. For example, someone who is reads a headline in a traffic exchange and clicks on it to view the website is more targeted than someone who views it because he/she is forced to wait for a timer to expire.
Now that you have an overview of what website traffic exchange programs are, and how they work, we can go over their main benefits:
1. Free
Almost all traffic exchange services are free, although you can upgrade your membership to get additional benefits in some. This means that someone with a low or no budget can start advertising their website fast and for no cost.
2. Targeted Traffic (for Internet Marketing)
If your product is Internet marketing related then the traffic you would receive to your website will be somewhat targeted because it will be people like you, who are looking for more ways to increase their online income.
3. You can build a list.
You can have a page designed to give out a freebie or a 5 part e-course in exchange for an email address. You can then follow up with these leads and sell them more stuff in the future.
4. You can recruit affiliates
If you have your own product and affiliate program, you can recruit affiliates to sell your products for a commission. The more people selling your products, the more passive income you will make.
In conclusion, website traffic exchanges offer a great free way of promoting your business. They should be included in your advertising arsenal but make sure that you leverage your time effectively, and you don’t surf for hours for those advertising credits. Try to find a traffic exchange program that will not hinder your normal surfing behavior, while advertising your business, and you will be one of the few people who maximize their time and effort with this free marketing tool. Finding the right tools will definitely help a website owner gain more traffic and achieve success in the online business.
11. 12.
Website traffic is a very crucial aspect of any website. Anyone who has an online business will know the importance of a consistent flow of visitors to their website. Without traffic, your website will not be seen by anyone and will not result in any sales.
When it comes to free traffic, search engine optimization (SEO) is the main strategy to tackle. You want to get your site ranked on the first page of the search results for terms that you are targeting. Having a good ranking for a select few highly searched terms can bring you loads of free traffic but technically, the traffic is not free. You have to put a lot of effort into link building, optimizing your site, etc. This takes time and as the saying goes, time is money.
For this article, we will focus instead on paid sources of traffic. This is the fastest way you can generate a lot of traffic to test your sales page for conversions. The most effective paid traffic is that generated through pay-per-click (PPC) platforms such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. These three platforms get the lion’s share of PPC traffic so you should focus on them. Master them and you will be on your way to creating streams of traffic on demand.
It is important, however, to be constantly testing new sources of paid website traffic. Social media advertising is another option to advertise your business. MySpace and Facebook have recently launched their own self-service advertising platform. With the ability to target a certain demographic that corresponds to your business, you may see some high conversion numbers. There are a large number of social media and social networking sites that you can test.
Media buying through banner networks is another option. Most of these companies have easy-to-use platforms where you can easily upload your banner to create an ad campaign. Then you can specify your ad budget and also target the categories of sites you want your ad to appear on. Alternatively, you can also approach individual site owners to advertise on their sites. Think of sites that your prospective customers tend to visit, such as forums or blogs.
As you branch out to other traffic sources, be sure to keep track of the results of your tests. After a period of testing, gather all the data and analyze them to make a decision whether the website traffic is profitable. If it is not, drop it and move on to the next traffic source. Do not stick with a source that costs you a lot of money, yet makes a slow improvement on your website traffic.
Another thing you can do is to set aside a portion of your profits for the purpose of testing. This is akin to reinvesting your profits to grow your business. Having a disciplined approach to continuously increase the traffic to your site will reap massive benefits in the long run.
11. 12.
One challenge for website owners is to have more website traffic. Getting visitors to your website has been the ultimate dream of internet marketers. But how can you do it without spending a fortune?
Unknown to many there are a few ways of getting visitors to your site without risking a lot of money. But remember, it’s not that easy. It takes more work. So, if you would rather work instead of pay to get visitors to your site, then here are a few things you can do:
1.Submit articles to article directories. This is probably one of the most effective ways of getting website traffic to your site. By submitting articles with a link that points to your website, you are assured of long term traffic. As long as your article stays in the directories that you submit to, people can find it and the chances of getting traffic to your website is increased. A few of the article sites where you can submit to are goarticles.com, ezinearticles.com, ideamarketers.com, articlecity.com and articlesfactory.com.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s not really rocket science. SEO is simply a technique that you implement on your site to rank higher in the search engines. Here are the things you might want to implement right away:
a) Your domain name should have your keyword in it.
b) Title tag of each page of you site should contain your keyword.
c) Your keyword should be on the first paragraph of your page.
d) The image alt tags should contain your keyword.
e) The file names of each page of your site should also have your keyword.
3.Create a blog then link it to your site. Postings at Blogger are easily indexed by Google. Updating your blog is feeding the search engines. Each time you put fresh content out, the search engines will notice it and come running to eat it all up. Putting your keywords in this fresh content will help you rank higher in the search engines. Your site gets updated a lot if you link your blog to it. Blogging is easy and it adds a lot of pages to your site. You can get free blogs at blogger.com and wordpress.com.
4.Posting in forums related to your topic. By participating in forums you’ll have the opportunity to place your link in the signature line and get traffic from forum members. You can find a forum related to your topic by going to a search engine and typing your keyword + forum. Make sure the signatures you post in forums are catchy to attract readers and make them click on your link and come to your site.
These are simple, cheap and very effective ways of improving your website traffic. Implementing the above would guarantee a stream of traffic not only for the short term but also for the long haul. By achieving this, you will have an edge to succeed on your online business.
