How to Increase Your Website Traffic in 2012

 

How to Increase Your Website Traffic in 2012

 

By: Matt Bacak

No matter how revolutionary the concept behind a website is, it will never gain any traction without a significant number of converting visitors. This means that you should spend a significant chuck of your resources to increase your website traffic. There are many ways of how to increase traffic to your website without necessarily spending a lot of money. Some of the most common include:

1.           Backlinks

What are backlinks on a website? These are basically links pointing to external websites or webpages and are primarily used to funnel visitors to said webpages. Obtaining as many high quality backlinks website is one of the most effective ways of marketing a website. One of the ways of getting these backlinks website is by guest posting for related blogs, websites, article submission sites and the like.

All you have to do is research and write down high quality articles and request or pay webmasters to publish them on their sites. These articles should either have unique, revolutionizing content or common information represented in a unique manner. You should also include one or two backlinks website in the articles for readers to come to your site for more information. Gaining backlinks website will increase your website referral traffic from the related site and from search engines as your site gains higher SERP ranking over time.

2.        Internet marketing

Marketing a website will also require you to spend money in buying traffic from search engines and social media sites. In the case of search engines, you should look for keywords related to your content, create ads and entice people to visit your sites.

This is one of the best ways to instantaneously increase your website traffic and therefore works well if you are selling a something or want to increase your website each i.e. in branding and PR. This method of marketing a website usually costs a lot of money but can result in a lot of sales and permanent visitors depending on the content and campaign set up. Some of the most common internet marketing methods include email marketing, PPC, PPV, mobile marketing etc., all of which have their merits and demerits.

3.         Creation of conversation

Most of the successful webmasters have ways of conversing with their readers since people like their presence being acknowledged. This method of how to increase traffic to your website can be done in any of the following ways:

  • Social media fan pages – These are very effective in marketing a website since you can easily start off topic conversations with your fans. They are also very effective in announcing website layout changes, giveaways and contests etc.
  • Email marketing – You can have your visitors submit email addresses in order to get updates in their inboxes. You can also use these email addresses to give out breaking news releases, market related products and the like.
  • Live chat boxes – This is an effective method of increasing your website traffic, particularly if you deal with technical topics. You can have your visitors connect with you any time they need help. This will bring you a lot of referral traffic as word gets out about your customer service.

In a nutshell, effectively marketing a website just requires creativity and some financial input.

 

 

5 Awesome Ways to Add Backlinks to Your Website

5 Awesome Ways to Add Backlinks to Your Website

 

By: Matt Bacak

Getting high quality traffic to your website is key for ranking high in results on most search engines as well as getting new customers to visit your site (and eventually buy your product). In a previous post, we discussed various ways to increase free traffic to your site such as selecting the right keyword(s), producing and posting videos on YouTube and commenting on other blog posts.

Generating backlinks for SEO (search engine optimization) is another important part of the equation for getting high quality traffic to your site. What is an authority site? An authority site is one that has a high page rank (PR) on Google and one that has a lot of backlinks. University websites, government websites and major organizations most likely have a high page rank and ultimately are considered authority sites. PR backlinks are considered the premium backlinks for this reason.

Here are 5 ways to get quality backlinks to your website:

1. Article Marketing Sites – There are several article directory sites that let you post articles on any topic. If done correctly, you should be adding “keyword” anchor text within the article with a hyperlink back to your website. Ideally the link will be listed once or twice in the body of the article, but posting a link in the author’s bio section works just as well.

Articles should be original or they will be rejected. Until you establish yourself as an authority in the topic I would avoid article spinning as well. If you are not creative enough to create content for several articles, then hire someone to do it for you. Check out the following articles directories www.EzineArticles.com, www.GoArticles.com and www.ArticleDashboard.com. A search in Google will produce dozens more to check out.

2. Squidoo Lens – Many inspiring entrepreneurs have discovered Squidoo lens as one place to place backlinks back to your site.  As with any of the other suggestions we offer, make sure your comment is relevant and topic related as spamming is not allowed. Check the website’s Terms of Service for conditions. To find a Squidoo lens that is relevant search using “add+to+this+list”+site:squidoo.com or “add+to+this+list”+ “keyword phrase”+site:squidoo.com for lens that discuss specific keywords.

3. Web 2.0 – Prolific entrepreneurs create a list of web 2.0 websites and create profiles for each website.  Sites such as www.linkedin.com, www.flickr.com and www.zoominfo.com allow you to create profiles, post updates, photos, link to social media and other helpful information to establish a presence. The same goes for video sharing sites as well.

4. Giants of the Internet – Think about ways you can leverage using the giants of the internet to link back to your website. Sites such as iTunes, Amazon and Wikipedia offer opportunities to interact with them. For example, if you are writing books consider offering them for sale on Amazon or publishing hard copies through their publishing site Create Space. Amazon doesn’t restrict what you can offer to just books, they consider white papers and smaller reports as well. ITunes recently entered the online magazine market; if you currently have a newsletter – is there a way you can convert that newsletter into an online magazine to sell on iTunes? And finally, is there an option for you to post an entry under your topic on Wikipedia with a link back to your website?

5. Education and government websites – Both education and government website carry a lot of authority and as such would carry a lot of weight if you were able to backlink from their website back to your website. To search for available educational or government websites try a search in Google using the following phrase: site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”you must be logged in”

You may have to tweak your search if the results include older posts but all you need is 2 or 3 comments with links back to your website to be successful.

Another opportunity is to find a college student who has web space available on his/her university website (students are often given web space to post biographies or profiles). Ask the student for permission to post your article on his/her website with links back to your website.

With a little time and a lot of determination you can easily build a series of backlinks to increase traffic to your website.

 

 

12 Google Keyword Research Tool Tips

 

12 Google Keyword Research Tool Tips

 

By: Matt Bacak

Google keyword research tool is the best free keyword tool I have come across. I was introduced to it when I started out internet marketing by my tutor. I actually thought it was the only genuine keyword tool I would appreciate because it was marvelous in getting winning keywords.

Today there are many premium tools which are great, but I still rank Google keyword research tool as the best because almost all of the other keyword tools rely on this tool. They owe some credit to Google, most of it I think.

However, is keyword research with Google keyword tool best for everyone? Is it as powerful to you as it is to most of the great internet marketers? In case you do not consider it a powerful tool, then I bet there is something you r not doing with it. I’m happy to help you make it as powerful as I have, by sharing with you the following outstanding tips.

  1. When starting keyword research with Google keyword tool, make sure you set your keyword match to exact on the left sidebar.
  2. Keep the search simple. That’s how laymen use Google search keywords.
  3. Search for three to five worded phrases when starting your keyword research process.
  4. If you have no idea of a keyword, go to a website in your interested niche and paste its URL in the URL area on Google keyword tool. Hit search and voila!
  5. Always find two to three keywords that are related to use.
  6. Narrow down your searches to various countries and concentrate on the local searches as well. They are much better than global searches at times.
  7. Longer tailed keywords are a good suggestion from Google keyword research tool. They have less competition.
  8. Google keyword research tool is sortable just like a spreadsheet column. Sort them to match your desired matches.
  9. Focus on the most important words in your keywords research. Avoid unnecessary terms and words.
  10. The mobile market has grown, filter your searches and narrow down to other gadgets as well.
  11. Keyword Research hardly gets over as well. Keep carrying out your keyword research with Google keyword tool.
  12. I know we all write for money. If you are like me, do not ignore the cost per click column as you do keyword research with Google keyword tool. You need it if you will register for Google AdSense.

Are you planning to do ppc? This is the main reason why this Google keyword research tool exists. Here are some of the best few AdWord tips:

  1. The competition column is for you to use. I always come across many keywords with many searches but low competition.
  2. DO NOT BID with the value on the average bid column if you want early returns. Start high to start seeing results early and lower the bids as the campaign continues.
  3. Do not spend time on bidding wars; there are many keywords to use. Think of them before you are caught up in Google’s keyword auction.
  4. There are new enhancements that have been made by Google. Check them out next time you are doing keyword research with Google keyword tool. They are very helpful too.
  5. Do you need Meta tags for your post or page? Just paste your URL address in the URL option and Google keyword research tool will give you more than you need.

 

Online Internet Marketing Strategies 101

Online Internet Marketing Strategies 101

 

By: Matt Bacak

Online internet marketing strategies includes two different strategies: in-bound marketing (marketing strategies used to get customers to come to your website) and out-bound marketing (marketing out to customers). Out-bound marketing includes activities such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or buying ad space on other sites and will be covered at a later time.

What is a marketing strategy?

In-bound online marketing strategies include providing valuable content to motivate potential customers to visit your website and ultimately buy your product. By contributing valuable content using web 2.0 marketing such as social media websites, article directories and video submission services potential customers will visit your website because they are interested in your products or services.

The following market strategy explains the process:

1. Identify your target audience. Inexperienced internet marketers fail at marketing because they try to market to everyone. The problem with this type of marketing is that it doesn’t attract serious buyers just tire kickers. If you want to be successful in online marketing, you need to market to a target market. Who is your target market? It’s a specific group of people you’ve identified by asking such questions as: What are their demographics? What do they do in the spare time? What are their interests or hobbies? For example, if you discover your target audience is women between the ages of 25 to 34 who spend a lot of time on Facebook and love sports, you can develop a business strategy to motivate this specific group to want to learn more.

2. Determine your purpose.  In order to develop the right message you need to determine your call to action; in other words, what do you want your target audience to do? If your purpose is to generate leads, then offer something of value for free by placing an opt-in above the fold. If your purpose is to sell them something, then write dynamic sales copy listing the most important benefits and place the order form at the end of your sales copy. As you can see, each one of these business strategies has a different strategy.

3.  Spend time on keyword research. Finding the right keywords for your campaign is one of the most important online marketing strategies. Start by thinking like a potential customer – what words (or phrase) would they use to search for your product or service? Aim for 3 to 5 keywords with each keyword containing 2 or more words. Keywords like “insurance” or “mortgage” are competitive and will be difficult to rank for. A keyword phrase like “long term care insurance Albany New York” is less competitive and will be easier to rank in the search engines. Assign a different group of keywords for each page of content you create.

4.  Create multiple pages or posts. A few internet marketers create a few pages for their website or write a handful of posts to their blog and then wonder why traffic to their site is non-existent. Although your objective with a market plan is to attract visitors (and potential customers), you have no way of predicting which page or post will bring the most visitors or convert into buying customers. The solution is to create as many pages and posts as possible with the intent that some of them will successfully bring visitors to your site. The same advice goes for video – the more videos you produce the better your chances of having one of them go viral.

5. Be social. Once you’ve determined where your target audience hangs out, integrate your videos or blog posts on the social networking sites where your target audience frequents. Your goal is to get visitors back to your website, so encourage people to like your Facebook fan page (some rules apply), retweet your pitch, or pin it on Pinterest.

Finally, be sure to track your results. There are a number of tools available that can show you what online marketing strategies worked and which ones didn’t. Get rid of the strategies that don’t work and duplicate the ones that do.

 

Google AdWords with Perry Marshall August 9

Nobody in 2012 can afford to be ignorant about Google AdWords. Most people have tried it and failed. Maybe you spent a few hundred or a few thousand bucks and got nothin’. Maybe you’re giving Google money now and only getting half the clicks you deserve.

Tomorrow, August 9 I’m doing a webinar with Google AdWords expert Perry Marshall, author of the Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords. Perry’s going to deliver material for both beginners and advanced intermediate players, with generous time for live Questions & Answers.

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Register here = >>   http://www.perrymarshall.com/r/bacak.php

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He’s going to deliver:

-How to find the un-scratched itch in any market, so that you can penetrate even the thickest competition

-What you can expect from the AdWords learning curve if you’re brand new, and what you need to bring to the table

-3% of the advertisers get 50% of the clicks. Find out who they are and what they know that you don’t

-Five different ways to target customers on the Display Network – sites like the New York Times and literally 100,000 others (this is the secret to ad campaigns that go semi-‘viral’)

-As much Q&A as he can squeeze in after his fast-paced presentation

Date: August 9

Time: 2pm ET / 1pm CT / 11am PT / 19:00 London

Register here:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/r/bacak.php

Matt Bacak

21 Free Methods of Increasing Your Website Traffic

 

21 Free Methods of Increasing Your Website Traffic

 

By: Matt Bacak

If you are a website owner or blogger, you would be interested in increasing traffic to your website or blog for free. There are numerous ways that one may use in marketing a website such as: pay per click, article submission, paid bookmarking, etc.

However, most of the best ones are paid for. Does this mean that you need money to increase your website traffic? Not at all, there are free, powerful techniques of increasing traffic to your website or blog. I bet you would be interested. Here are 21 of my favourites:

  1. Have your own domain which you have all the rights to. Your visitors will take you more serious for this.
  2. Have a good website design. Every time I land on a website or blog, I take around 5 seconds checking it out before reading its content. If am not comfortable with the layout, I might never come back.
  3. Optimize your website. Every webmaster considers getting organic traffic from the search engines. It is the most basic way you would use to increase traffic to your website.
  4. Social bookmark each post and page on your website. This helps in marketing a website on the social media.
  5. Offer to write a post on someone else’s blog with a link to your website. This is easy backlink building.
  6. In case your readers comment, do not take long to reply to their comments. Interact with them and build your brand.
  7. Focus only on activities that would help in marketing a website. Do not waste time on other non-value activities. If a method will not increase your website traffic, forget about it.
  8. Make credible comments on other people’s blogs and posts. Your website backlinks will be loved in return.
  9. When building your website’s backlinks, focus on powerful backlinks for your website. Quality beats quantity.
  10. Write list posts on some of the amazing things in your niche e.g. “31 vinegar uses”, etc.
  11. Make lenses on Squidoo. It has great traffic and you can leverage it for marketing a website.
  12. Submit your website or blog to article directories. Use your keywords and it will boost your website traffic.
  13. Exchange your link with other people in your niche. This will tap into target traffic and market your website further.
  14. YouTube is a great avenue. It ranks faster and gets more traffic. This will definitely increase your website traffic.
  15. Use image bookmarks such as pinterest. It is a whole hub of traffic.
  16. Write about major holidays that may roll out. E.g. Easter, Christmas, Labour Day, etc.
  17. Incorporate keyword in your post titles and urls. This improves ranking.
  18. Offer free and quality stuff on your website that your niche requires.
  19. Write entertaining and humorous posts. These are easily shared and effectively increase your website traffic through social media.
  20. Do not start off with ads. You look and sound more serious and devoted without them.
  21. Conduct a contest on your website and give a special prize to the winner. This increases interaction with your visitors.

 

3 Innovative Ways to Use Google Keyword Research

3 Innovative Ways to Use Google Keyword Research

 

By: Matt Bacak

Although Internet marketers strive to rank on page one of search engines for their product or service, they strategize for the coveted position, planning and tweaking each detail until they reach their ultimate goal.

There is a number of commercially marketed software available to help you research the best keywords to use on your website, but many entrepreneurs begin with the Google Keyword Research tool.

The Google Keyword Research tool is affiliated with Adwords, Google’s main advertising program. While you don’t have to run a Google Adwords campaign to use the tool, if you sign up for an Adwords account, the tool will group your keyword results by category. This strategy will allow you to spread your keywords across different pages in your website.

If you are considering starting a business or taking your existing business to the next level, you should spend the most time doing keyword research. The following steps show you how to get the best results:

1. Find a niche. Whether you chose a niche you are passionate about or one you have extensively researched, it’s important to understand the consumer buying behavior in every niche. What are consumers searching for? What is their main source of frustration? What is their number one problem?

One option to finding this information is to do a Google search on your “niche+issues”. Look at the number of websites (and issues) as a result of your search. A results page with 1,000,000 hits is more competitive than one with 200,000 hits. Look for forums or chat rooms to see what types of questions or concerns people are discussing as it relates to your niche.

Another option is to use a free question tool to obtain a list of questions potential customers are asking regarding your niche. Look at the types of questions people are asking. Based upon the questions, tweak your keyword phrase until you find one that has high traffic and low competition.

2. Focus on keywords that have high traffic but low competition.  As mentioned in a previous post, as a small business owner or budding entrepreneur, it will be extremely difficult to rank on page one of search engines with a broad keyword like “mortgage”. Many larger corporations have dedicated staffs whose only job is to rank for broad keywords.

Using a keyword tool, you should find keyword phrases that are less competitive with high traffic. For example, using the Google Keyword Search tool for a broad search of “mortgage” produced 13,600,000 results. A second search, this time looking for a phrase search of “mortgage” offered one option of “mortgage payment” which produced 246,000 results.

3. Compile your research. You may be wondering “why ignore the keyword mortgage with 13,600,000 hits and focus instead on the phrase ‘mortgage payment’ with only 246,000 hits. Won’t that give me fewer potential customers?” Actually it will do the opposite. By focusing on a narrower keyword search phrase you will reach a pool of potential customers who are looking specifically for your product; those who are ready to buy.

You can fine tune your results even farther by using another tool: Google Insights. With Google Insights you will be able to research the latest news on your topic, what regions potential customers live in, and the top 10 popular search terms.

By entering our keyword phrase “mortgage payment” in Google Insights, and limiting the results to the United States and Canada, a sample of the results show:

A. Regional interest (by city)

B. Search terms

C. Rising searches

D. Top headlines (media)

Armed with this knowledge, you can further define your original keyword search phrase of “mortgage payment” to include “mortgage payment Charlotte” or “mortgage payment Washington” to see which search phrase produces high volume of traffic with the least competitive results.

You can also write articles supporting those articles that are trending with links back to your website. Finally, if you are looking to generate leads, you can add a mortgage payment calculator to your landing page and offer people the opportunity to use the calculator (or get the results) in exchange for their email address.

17 Online Marketing Strategies

17 Online Marketing Strategies

 

By: Matt Bacak

Online Internet Marketing is one of the cheapest ways to promote your business in this day and age. It gives you access to all markets and market analysis tools which are cheaper, faster and more efficient compared to offline marketing strategies.

However, online marketing business has drastically changed over the years. Some strategies which were cheap and highly profitable several years back cannot be talked of today. Each online marketer has no otherwise but to keep up with new trends.

Good online marketing strategies are today based on 3 factors: quality, credibility and sociability. Below are 17 tips that can help you meet these goals:

  1. Brilliant seo content: This comes first. ALL content made for any online marketing business must be search engine optimized. This includes your videos and pictures as well.
  2. Make sure your content has credible information. It must be true and verifiable by others who know about it.
  3. Talk of what you know. You wouldn’t want to be in a situation where you cannot answer a question in relation to what you talk about.
  4. Analyze your competition and identify anything you can do better your competition does. Use that to rise up your niche rankings.
  5. Produce videos and slideshows for your online marketing business. They rank better than most content nowadays. Many also prefer them to reading.
  6. Engage your readers in your content: Ask them questions, offer to help them with their problems through your website comments and forums.
  7. Produce either educative or humorous content for your online marketing strategies. These are easily sociable and can go viral.
  8. Social Bookmark your content. More than half the internet users are on social media. Your internet marketing strategies should therefore involve social media marketing as well.
  9. Participate in professional forums that are related to your niche. This is where you establish your credibility and build your brand.
  10. Participate in powerful link building activities such as writing posts on other blogs in your niche; participate in more respected websites’ online activities, etc.
  11. Use Image Bookmarking Sites. I never realized how important this one was until I found myself becoming fond of pinterest. Furthermore, its popularity has grown quite fast. You must incorporate it in online internet marketing.
  12. Do you have a mailing list of subscribers? It is one of the oldest most effective online marketing strategies.
  13. Be on mobile too: If your website is not on mobile, you risk missing about 80% of internet traffic. How many people in the world use smartphones today?
  14. Pay per click works wonders. Here’s a secret: Google’s updates were out to protect their ppc customers. With other supportive aspects right, you will yield results.
  15. Article marketing still works, do not ignore it. It will as long as people won’t stop reading.
  16. If you have too much work to do for your internet marketing business, outsource the work. There are many good freelancers ready to do you a good job.
  17.  Offer quality content on your website for free. Produce a document and use it to build your mailing list.

3 Effective Internet Marketing Strategies

 

3 Effective Internet Marketing Strategies

 

By: Matt Bacak

Internet marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to gain a lot of exposure for a business with a relatively small budget. This is because all that’s needed is some research about internet browsing habits by potential customers. This information is then used in monetization. That being said, the following are some of the main online internet marketing strategies that anyone can use:

1.           Email marketing

This is one of the most effective online marketing strategies since it allows anyone to easily create a long list of clients. This online marketing business strategy just requires that you convince people to submit their email addresses and some other relevant information. This is usually done by enticing them with free gifts, high quality content, breaking news releases etc. Having these email addresses, locations, names etc. allows you to form very effective online marketing strategies by creating conversations about relevant topics.

As time goes by, you can send out emails selling a related product. The conversion rate from a well maintained emailing list will be very high because trust will have been built up over time. For this online internet marketing strategy to work, you have to make sure that the products being sold are of very high quality.

2.        Article marketing

This is another effective online marketing strategy since you will be creating beneficial content while simultaneously selling related products and services. Article marketing is where you create content written to provide information on a certain product, business etc. in a way that readers will be enticed to find out more information through a  link provided, by contacting the writer etc.

For this online marketing business strategy to work, the articles have to get the highest level of exposure possible. This means that you have to post them in high traffic websites. There are a number of these types of websites that allow a lot of user submitted content e.g. Ezine articles, Articles base, iSnare etc. You can also get the articles posted in high traffic blogs and websites by asking the respective webmasters to publish your articles as guest posts. A simple link back to your site can funnel a lot of converting visitors to your site as they look for more information.

3.         Contests and giveaways

Most web surfers like free things making contents and giveaways one of the cheapest and most effective online marketing strategies known. All you need to do is announce a contest on websites, social media fan pages etc. A person has to undertake a predetermined action to be eligible e.g. suggesting a webpage to their social media friends, submitting some personal information, taking a small survey etc.

For this online internet marketing strategy to work, the prize being given away has to be worth the effort to be put in e.g. give away a gift card if you simply want email addresses, run a contest for an iPad if you want contestants to write an honest review about your website or product etc.

There are many other online marketing strategies available that anyone can use irregardless of experience level. The most important thing is that they have to be presented in an eye catching fashion.

 

How to do Effective Online Video Marketing in 2012

 

How to do Effective Online Video Marketing in 2012

 

By: Matt Bacak

Video marketing is something every webmaster has to be versed in since the internet is becoming more interactive as time goes by. More surfers prefer to watching videos to reading making information about creating videos for marketing, video marketing tips etc. almost priceless. Some of the most effective include:

1.    Video submission

After creating the video, you have to submit it to all credible video sites. Most webmasters concentrate their video marketing activities to YouTube therefore neglecting other popular sites like Vimeo, metacafe, daily motion, MySpace vides, Yahoo! Screen etc. All these sites have a high user base making them potential sources of leads and clients.

It should be added that each of these sites have mechanisms that allow submitters to make their videos easy to find. This is done by adding tags, categories, interesting topics etc. The rules on these Video sites tend to be lax allowing anyone to use a variety of video marketing tips.

Most marketers prefer using video submission services that automate the process therefore saving a lot of time.

Using Video submission services will also allow you to reach an international audience on video sites you would otherwise not know about.

2.    Create conversation

The most popular video marketers have an uncanny skill to create conversation on any topic and product. When working on creating videos for marketing, research on ways to make the product generate interest in viewers’ minds instead of using aggressive upsell mechanisms. You may also have to invest in staff qualified in video editing, specialized editing software, high quality cameras etc.  You should also add humor, controversy etc. and present information in an easy to understand fashion.

Making the video as presentable as possible while generating conversation will allow your online video marketing endeavors to result in a lot of conversations will a lot less work. In that same vein, create videos that allow viewers to know a few personal details about you e.g. a personal video blog, YouTube channel etc. This will allow your readers to convert better since they will be able to connect with you.

3.    Build relationships

No matter how high your online video marketing endeavors are, there is always another marketer with more viewers. You should find ways to develop relationships with them so as to help increase your viewership. You could do this by adding a link to their channels on your videos, doing reviews of their products on your videos etc. This gestures tend to be appreciated by most markers causing them to do the same for you. This relationships can also be built with other types of markers that will provide SEO friendly link backs to your videos from their social media fan pages, blogs, etc. This therefore means that you should make your videos easy to share by adding bookmark buttons. The end result is higher viewership and therefore more conversions.

In a nutshell, it will take a lot of time and money before you start seeing wild success from your video marketing endeavors but the end result of passive income, business relationships etc. is usually worth the hard work.