Effective Strategies to Guarantee Targeted Website Traffic
Website traffic is a sure way to boost your income. The more targeted your website traffic, the better your potential for profit. The good news is there are many ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. Here are just a few to help you get the ball rolling.
* Article marketing – Article marketing is a tremendously successful way to drive targeted traffic to your website. When you write and publish quality content, you attract readers. These readers will click through and visit your website for more information. And when you write and publish quality content, other website owners will republish your content. This exposes you to more targeted traffic.
* Blog and guest blog – Blogging and guest blogging is another great way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Again, when you publish quality content, people tend to click through to your website to find more great information. Include a website link in your blog posts. Include an author’s resource box in your guest blog posts.
* Comment on blogs – Registering and commenting on blogs is also a great way to generate traffic to your website. Make sure you’re doing two things. Provide a link to your website when you register. Provide a thoughtful comment. Intelligent conversation will generate interest for you and your
website.
* Social networking – Social networking can send tons of traffic to your website. However, in order to ensure it is targeted traffic, make sure you’re publishing relevant information and links to your site.
* Post answers – Websites like MerchantCircle and Yahoo!Answers provide you with an opportunity to provide valuable information. Answer questions related to your niche and link to your website.
* Podcast – Publish podcasts on sites like iTunes and create a following. Make sure to include a link to your website or your URL in your podcast name and information.
* Reviews – Visit review sites and publish reviews for products or services in your niche. Share your expertise and experience with others.
* Local search and Google Places – If you have local customers, be sure to take advantage of local search directories and sites like Google Places.
* Social bookmarking – Don’t forget to pay attention to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. Use these sites to drive traffic to one or two key web pages.
* PPC ads – Finally, while the other traffic tactics discussed are free, you can also pay for targeted traffic. PPC ads are great for driving targeted traffic to specific web pages. Use this tactic to drive traffic to a squeeze page, opt-in offer, or sales page.
The more targeted your traffic, the easier it’ll be to convert visitors into customers. Use these targeted traffic tactics to build your business today
Five Questions to Ask about Your Competition
Understanding your competition is important. When you understand them, you can position your business to stand apart. You can create an effective SEO and keyword development strategy. You can maximize your competition. And finally, you can position your products and services to sell.
When you created your business plan, you likely did a competitive analysis. If you didn’t, then now’s the time. Once you have a solid competitive analysis, the work’s not done. The world changes and so too does your competition. It’s important to stay abreast of their change. While it’s not a good idea to stress about your competition, it is important to review them semi-annually or quarterly.
So…how well do you know your competition? Here are five questions to get you thinking about your competition. Answer these questions, take action, and achieve better profits and a website that sells.
Question #1 – Do you know who your competition is? Do you have a competitive analysis? It’s difficult to differentiate your business if you don’t know who your competition is. Your USP, Unique Selling Proposition, is often created with your competition in mind. You need to know what you do better or differently so you can offer value and benefit to your audience.
Question #2 – How often do you presently analyze and evaluate your competition? Again, it’s not wise to obsess about your competition. However, it is wise to create an analysis strategy. Semi-annually, annually or quarterly are common periods to review your competition and update your analysis.
Question #3 – What are your competitions’ primary keywords? What are their Alexa stats? How do you compare? It’s important to know not only where your competition stands, but also where you stand in comparison. Create a chart or system to track this information.
Question #4 – Do you follow your competition on social networking sites? Do you receive alerts when they publish new content? Do you subscribe to their blog or newsletter? Simple strategies can help you stay abreast of your competition. You can collect the information and review it when appropriate. Or you can review it as you learn about it. Often, your competition’s actions and content can be helpful to you. Their actions might inspire a new content idea, product or service.
Question #5 – Does your competitive analysis and strategy include:
* Keyword analysis
* Linking analysis
* Products/services analysis
* Content analysis
* Advertising analysis
* SEO page ranking
Rest assured your competition is watching you. You might return the favor. Take advantage of automated technology to track their activities. Create a plan to assess your competition and reassess your strategies and tactics. There’s a lot to learn from the people that challenge you. Your competition may be the motivating force you need to take your business and website to the next level.
Four SEO Tools and How to Use Them to Build Your Business
Search engines matter. They send traffic to your website. Use them well and they send very targeted traffic to your website. Targeted traffic turns into customers and repeat visitors. This means it’s not only where you're placed on the search engine rankings, but the keywords you use as well. You want to make sure you’re attracting targeted traffic to your site.
The world of search engine optimization and keyword development can feel overwhelming. It seems there’s a lot of information to learn, know and use. However, when you drill down, it’s actually quite simple. You want to optimize your website for a few primary keywords. These keywords ideally will have an acceptable amount of demand and supply. They’ll also be keywords that your audience is likely to use to find your information.
Then you optimize your pages for those keywords. You also choose some secondary keywords to support the primary ones. These may be keywords with less demand and less supply. However, they’re still keywords your audience is using to find your information.
How do you use these keywords? Content, content, content. Content gives the search engine spiders something to index. It also provides material that others may link to. This is an important part of SEO.
To help you manage and master your SEO efforts, there are literally thousands of various tools and gadgets. Some of these tools help you check the keyword density on your web page. They make sure your keywords are represented enough to help but not so much that your content reads poorly. There are also link checkers, keyword research tools, and so on. Here are four SEO tools you might find useful.
#1 Keyword suggestion tools – This is where it all begins. Keyword suggestion tools help you learn and research your primary and secondary keywords. The most common of these tools is the Google AdWords tool. It’s free and quite useful. There are also keyword tools that you can pay for. They offer a bit more information than the Google tool.
#2 Ranking checkers – Ranking checkers help you determine where you rank for various keywords and search engines. It’s a great tool for setting goals and tracking your progress. For example, you might set a goal to move up two pages in the rankings using article marketing. You can use a ranking checker to test and track your success. (You can also check to see how your competition is doing.)
#3 Link checking tools – Link checking tools help you determine the effectiveness of your back links. You can learn who is linking to you and how popular their links are. Again, you can also check to see who is linking to your competition. There are some basic, free tools that provide basic information. Or you can hire a service to analyze your back links for you.
#4 Keyword density tools – These tools can analyze a page or your URL for keyword density. There are a number of keyword density tools. Again some are free and some are paid tools. If you’re going to pay for this service, make sure it analyzes keyword phrases and not just one or two word keywords.
New SEO tools are being developed every day. Take advantage of these resources to strategically position your business. The easier it is for your prospects to find you, the faster you’ll achieve your business goals.
Three Ideas and Strategies to Give Your Visitors a Reason to Return
A website generates two main types of visitors. There are the visitors that stop by and leave. They never return again. Then there are the visitors that stop by. They bookmark your site. They sign up for your opt-in list. They subscribe to your blog. These are the visitors you want. When you can motivate more new visitors to come back, you’re on your way to converting them to customers.
The majority of people do not make a purchase the first time they visit a website. A website has to earn their trust. It has to establish credibility, liking and authority. These are all buying triggers, and for most websites they’re earned over time. They key is to give them a reason to come back. Here
are three ideas and strategies to give your visitors a reason to return.
#1 Valuable content is definitely required. If you provide a consistent flow of great content, visitors will come back for more. However, there’s more you can do to ensure their loyalty.
#2 Provide a free membership. Take a look at your website. Why do people visit your site? What benefit can you offer on a regular basis? Now instead of offering that information to random visitors, consider creating a membership site. Membership implies exclusivity. It also implies extra value.
When people sign up for your membership program they will receive “extra” content, products or services. For example, you might create a “Report of the Month” club. The information is free for members who have signed up. Each month you deliver a quality report. You can use the report to promote affiliate products and/or your own products/services too.
#3 Include user generated content. Enable visitors to provide their own content for your website. Blogging is one way to accomplish this. You can include a “blog for us” form on your site. You can also turn the “Commenting” feature on and allow visitors to respond to your content. However, if you don’t have a blog site, then consider adding a plug-in or feature that enables them to add content.
For example, you might include a “Best Tips” category. You can then enable visitors to post or submit their best tips. You publish their information and you now have an interactive audience.
Finally, take a look at your usability features. What can you add to your site or blog to make it friendlier? For example, are other commenters notified when a comment is published to a post they also commented on? Can they forward your content to a friend? Can they print it?
The easier you make it to interact on your site, the better. Provide great content. Enable visitors to receive more via memberships and let them share information. The more repeat traffic you have, the faster you’ll build a loyal customer