11. 12.
An online business is only successful if you have enough website traffic coming into it. In fact, traffic generation could be the most important part of your online business promotion. Without traffic your business is dead and is no longer useful. Here are some free and easy ways to get traffic to your website
The first one is Blogging
Chances are, you probably have a blog or have at least have heard of blogging. But do you know how important it is to develop an informative blog that people are going to follow?
To have a successful blog it should be updated daily and it should have only quality information on it. A great way to keep people coming back to your blog is to frequently give away free stuff that is related to your business. It could be a free e-book that you have written or a free template that will be beneficial to the people that are reading your blog.
The reason that blogs are mentioned first in this article is because search engines love them and they will crawl all over them when new content is added. If you have a blog that is updated on a daily basis the chances of your blog getting ranked high in the search engines is very good. Two of the more popular blogging sites are Blogger.com, which is very user friendly and Wordpress.com, which is a little more advanced. both of these are free to use.
Next are online forums.
This is another free way to get website traffic. All you have to do is start posting on forums. Do a quick search in your favorite search engine and find a few active forums that are related to your business topic. Sign up for the forum and then read through a few of the posts to get a feel for the way that things are done. Find out what people are talking about. Find out what questions they’re asking. Once you get familiar with how the forum operates then simply start posting.
One important point to remember when posting to online forums is not to spam the forum. It is considered spam when you jump right in and start posting all about your business and products with a bunch of links to your website. In most cases doing this can get you promptly removed from the forum. This is easily avoided by just posting relevant information that will help solve some of the problems that the people on the forum are talking about. Just make sure that each time you post it has value to it and you’ll never be accused of spam.
Something to remember with both of these traffic generation methods is that they are all about building up your reputation. If you spend some time and develop a reputation on your blog or an online forum as someone who is an expert and as someone who is willing to help other people with their problems, then people will actively seek out your posts and comments to see what you have to say next.
Then in your signature line or on your about me page, you can insert a link to your website or favorite affiliate program. If you have a good reputation and people value your opinion, they will click on your links almost every time to see what else you may have to offer. Both of these methods of traffic generation are free, easy and have the extra added benefit of getting targeted traffic.
So there you have it, two free ways that you can drive website traffic into your online business. There are many more ways, but these two are simple and you can start using them right away. These tips are easy but could make a great change on your website.
11. 12.
Many who decide to put up a website and make a living online have the idea that website traffic to their site will not be a problem. “If I build it, they will come.” It seems to be a popular approach for a lot of webmasters. They are not properly equipped with the right tools in order to succeed in the online business.
The sad truth is that traffic doesn’t just show up at your website without some planned, consistent effort on your part. They aren’t knocking your front door down just because you have a fantastic looking website.
Someone once said: “Running a business without advertising, is like winking in the dark. You know what you are doing, but no one else does.” It is important that you let people know what you are offering and you should make them interested in what you are offering.
If you are needing more traffic to your site, here are three specific approaches that are guaranteed to work:
BUY SOME TRAFFIC-
One of the fastest ways to get some traffic is to buy it. Google AdWords is one of the better known and largest place for you to throw some money at this traffic issue.
You pay only for actual clicks on your Google ad to your site or affiliate link, but you need to be careful and watch your advertising budget. It can get quite expensive if you end paying for clicks that aren’t producing sales. Be sure to track your ads to determine your return on investment for your keywords and search engine.
As a note there are several other places beside Google to buy PPC website traffic. Yahoo.com, Amazon.com, MSN.com and dozens of other places provide the option of PPC traffic. They all operate about the same way. You only pay for targeted visitors to your site who have clicked on one of your ads.
BORROW TRAFFIC FROM OTHERS-
Locate those who have mailing lists related to your area and ask them to post an ad in their list in exchange for a link on your site.
If you have your own mailing list, you could propose an ad swap. “I’ll run your ad in my list; You run my ad in your list.” You might have to offer a commission to the publisher to induce them into running your ad. That way they make a profit on it too.
You can locate these prospective publishers at a good search engine or publications like the Directory of Ezines.com. Be sure to target publishers who readers will be receptive to the type of offer your ad is offering.
If you are selling something to do with internet marketing, your targeted readers should be those interested in marketing on line.
BUILDING YOUR OWN TRAFFIC-
One of my favorite and time-tested ways to promote and market on line is to write and publish original articles. Other newsletter publishers will sometimes reprint my articles and send them out to their readers.
To save a lot of work and aggravation when sending these articles out to publishers and article directories, you may want to consider a distribution service like iSnare.com . For a nominal charge you can have your articles widely distributed in a very short time. You get what you pay for and this is one service that has proven its worth.
Be sure to include a resource box at the end of your article so that interested readers may follow your link to your site or your affiliate link you are promoting. Ideally your article has prepared the reader and motivated them to be receptive for the type of offer you are making in your resource box.
Write many articles. Publish and distribute lots of articles.
If you will consistently apply there three website traffic tactics discussed above, You will benefit from it with lots of traffic and permanent links (more or less) to your site which can benefit you for years to come. It takes dedication and hard work.
10. 12.
You set up your website, added your RSS feed and started a monthly submission routine. Now what is the next thing to do?
Well, let’s compare this to an off-line business. What you have done is set up your business “store” and put the open sign in the window. Now its time to start bringing in some potential customers. If you opened your store in a busy mall then you could naturally expect to receive traffic from mall foot traffic. But wait, what if you opened your store on a quiet back street? You may have a great product and great parking but no one will find you. This is the situation you are in with your website, no one knows where your website is and therefore there is no website traffic and no conversions.
An important concept to keep in mind about website traffic generation is to go where the traffic is and where you can redirect the traffic to you. Let’s look at some ways an offline business would generate traffic that we could apply to our online business.
Offline, business owners will network, join the local chamber of commerce, and other networking organizations to get the word out about them and their business. You will find them with small kiosks in malls and display booths at trade shows and community events.
Now how would we apply this concept online? Online this would be comparable to:
(1) Joining social networking sites. Creating profiles and adding your website url on social networking sites gets you in front of the traffic these sites generate.
(2) Building your own satellite sites. These are high PR (page ranked)sites such as Hub Pages or Squidoo that allows you to add your own content to their site. Creating these satellite sites are much like the kiosks at the mall, all directing traffic back to your website through the content and the links you have placed on your profile and satellite sites.
As an online business owner, you will need to create profiles at high pr social networking sites and create satellite pages directing traffic to your website. Sounds, good so far, but creating, maintaining and updating these off page traffic generation sources, while beneficial to your business can be labor intensive without the right tools.
Use the free tools listed below to redirect website traffic from high page ranked sites to your site.
Google Gmail:
Create a Google Gmail account. It is fast and easy to set up. Keep it separate from your regular email. You will need it to confirm emails from the social networking sites and to “dump” the occasional or regular emails they send you.
Firefox Browser:
Next download the Firefox browser. It’s free. It does not interfere with internet explorer. And best of all, it has many add-ons that you will find useful. You will need its multiple tab feature to jump back and forth between opened tabs to make your online business more efficient.
Go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Roboform:
Roboform is a password manager. The trial version is free. You will need this to save you logins and passwords to all the social networking sites you create.
Go to: http://www.roboform.com
HelloTXT:
HelloTXT is a micro-blogging and social networking status updating site. Join the site. There is 28 different sites to sign up with inside. Join each one and make sure to confirm the link inside each email you will receive from each site. Add each site to your HelloTXT profile. Now you will be able to update all your social networking profiles from one interface. Fast and easy. Over time you will build up your website presence and receive traffic, both, from the links inside your profiles and also from the search engines because of the page rank juice of the links leading to your website.
Go to http://www.hellotxt.com
Follow the process above. Do not put this off, schedule it. This kind of traffic is time consuming to set up but very easy to maintain with the tools above and following this traffic generation process will prepare you for the next step. It takes patience and persistence.
In the next article we will be discussing how to multiply the power of the website traffic you will generate by using bookmarking and pinging. Apply what you’ve learned here and expect to receive more traffic and buying customers soon. This will improve the effectiveness of your online business.
5. 06.
There are so many REO (Real Estate Owned) properties with banks that they are trying to sell them off at very deep discounts. These properties are obtained when the owner is not able to pay the mortgage and the bank decides to foreclose on the properties. These foreclosure properties are a great opportunity to make some money! What if you are not interested in buying the properties for you but you would like to make use of this opportunity to make some money for your self? It is possible and without any money of yours. There are two proven ways to make this happen.
The most important thing in real estate property - Location, Location, Location!!!
The first step is to identify a property in a good location and a reasonably good condition with repairs less than $15,000. Typically, properties that sell quickly have three or more bedrooms, one or more bathrooms, basement, yard and garage. This rule applies to properties anywhere After you identify the property, negotiate with the bank and bring down the price to at least 40 cents on the dollar. Your intention to flip it immediately should not be revealed to the bank. While some banks don’t mind that you are flipping “as is” (i.e., without any remodeling or fix up of repairs), others do.
Typically, a real estate is flipped “as is” using an assignment contract. Assignment contracts are written by adding the clause “and/or assigns” after the buyer’s name (either the individual buyer or the company’s name). For example, John Doe wants to flip a property “as is”, then the offer to purchase property for $40,000 will contain buyer’s name as “John Doe and/or assigns”. This clause gives the John Doe the authority to assign/sell the purchase contract to anyone for a fee (for example $10,000). So, now John Doe makes $10,000 by selling the contract Mary Smith and she can purchase the property for $40,000 from the seller. But the problem with banks is that they will not accept an offer to purchase document that has the clause “and/or assigns” after the buyer’s name.
So, how do you flip REOs “as is” without using any of your own money? You have two options:
1. Purchase Property to Land Trust: Land trust has several parts to it. The important parts for this article will be the Trustee and the Beneficiary. The trustee can be a reliable relative, friend or an attorney. The beneficiary has all the powers to this property and hence the owner. You have to inform the bank that you will be buying the property to a land trust. Normally, they will agree. If you (John Doe) are buying property at 123 main street, then in the offer to purchase, you will write the name as John Doe, 123 main street Trust, Trustee, exact vesting TBD at closing. The phrase “exact vesting TBD at closing” allows you to assign the beneficiary rights to anyone who pays you an assignment fee. You can tell the bank that you are not sure how many investors will be partnering in this deal and that’s why you have not mentioned the beneficiary. So now, they will allow you to purchase the property even though you do not have a beneficiary listed. The Trust does not have to be created before making the offer to purchase as long there is an intention to create a land trust later. If this is the first time you are using land trusts, then it is best to get help from a real estate attorney who has experience in land trusts because the rules can be different in different states in the US. The two keys to flipping properties successfully using land trusts are finding the right title company and the right attorney.
While you are negotiating with the bank, you can also start finding a buyer of this property. One of the easy ways to find a buyer is to post an ad in free websites like Craigslist and others. For example, you are purchasing a property that is worth $100K in its present condition. You managed to negotiate the price $40K. From Craigslist ads, you find your end buyer to purchase it from you for $50K. Request the buyer to pay you $10K so that you can add his/her name as the beneficiary. Tell the bank your buyer is your investor partner. After you receive the $10K from your buyer, put his/her name as the beneficiary. So, now you have made $10K profit without using any of your own money!
2. Double Closing: Double closing is when you are closing the seller and the buyer on the same day i.e., you are using the money from your buyer to close the property from seller and the difference between your purchase price and your sale price will be your profit. In one or two states, land trusts are not allowed and in a few others land trusts are frowned on. In such state you have to use double closing method. As mentioned in method 1, while you are negotiating you have to find a buyer using the same methods.
Here, you may lose some money in fees for closing costs and also if you have to bring money for a few hours from hard money lender, they (hard money lender) will charge you around $2000 to $3000 for this service. If you search on Google for money for a few hours until you close with your end buyer. To obtain these funds, there are no credit score and history checks. To summarize the two fees involved in this method of flipping: a) there are closing costs of around 3% of the sale price. b) The double closing funds fee of $2000 - $3000. You have to negotiate with the bank and your buyer in such a way that you make up for the loss in these two fees. It is good idea to inform the title company that you will be double closing. First, bring/wire the double closing funds to the bank/title company and pay for purchase of the property from the bank and get the title in your name. Next, have the buyer bring funds for the purchase of the property from you for a higher price. The difference between your purchase price and sale price minus closing costs minus the double closing funds will be your profit!
While banks frown on “as is” REO flipping, they are badly in need of clearing the properties from their ever growing inventory so sometimes they do not mind at all unless you make it too obvious by using the clause “and/or assign”. So it is best refrain from using this clause. Also, it is best to refer to your end buyer as your investor partner instead of making it obvious that you are selling your property to the end buyer. REO flipping is a great real estate opportunity with low risk. The banks are badly in need of selling their foreclosed properties so start contacting banks’ loss mitigation departments for REO properties in your area.
20. 05.
The Key to Improving Conversion Rates
With Internet Marketing, conversion rates are everything. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you pull in, if you don’t convert that traffic then you won’t make any money. You can market as much as you want but if you can’t close the deal then your business will fail. To help your business, here is the key to improving conversion rates.
Before we actually get to the one key to improving conversion rates, there are a few conversion rules that you have to know. One of the best ways to improve conversions is to add value to the deal. Give a special gift to anyone who decides to buy. Offer a discount on another product or give away a free service. Do anything you can to sweeten the deal.
Another great way to improve conversation rates is to create urgency with the purchase. In other words, give the person a reason to buy right away. Offer them a one-time deal or offer to knock 25% off if they buy within 24 hours. Create urgency anyway you can and your conversion rates will improve.
Yet another great tip for improving conversion rates is to make your offer unique. If what you are selling isn’t unique then you need to find an angle to sell it so that it seems like it’s completely original. If it is unique, or a part of the product is unique, then you need to make sure you highlight that part. You need to make the potential customer feel like you’re offering something that can only be gotten from you and your product.
While the above 3 tips are all great conversion tricks, they aren’t the actual key to improving conversion rates. In fact, a major part of conversion is just getting a reader from your content somewhere on the Internet to your site. For example, getting the reader from an article on Ezinearticles.com to your site where you can try to sell them something or try to get them to perform some other action. Taking them from one spot on the Internet to the place where you can try to sell them a product or service.
The above tips don’t help with this at all. But there is one key that will help get people to your site and will also help people buy what you’re selling. That one key is quality content.
Everything you do online has to be valuable. Your sales pages need to offer value to the reader or they will click away. Your videos, blogs, articles, social networking sites, and everything else online has to give people value. Otherwise, they’ll simply click away and you won’t make the sale. So don’t ever forget to always give readers valuable content. That is the key to improving conversion rates.
