Article Marketing To Increase Traffic To Your Website

Do You Know What's SEO ?

You must be wondering why traffic is so important for your website. Well, even the most well designed and informative website is useless if no one visits it. Your website could be the most informative on a particular topic but what use is all the information if no one sees it or reads it. Less or no visitors means no business can be generated through the website. Let us discuss a few inexpensive ways which you can use to generate traffic and turn your non-performing website into a real money spinner.
Trading links with similar websites
It is recommended you trade links with websites with similar content but ranked higher than yours. It is important to have a large volume of traffic but it is even more important to have targeted visitors visiting your site. If your site is related to animal lovers it would be extremely silly and irrelevant to trade links with sites that feature hunting equipment or hunting techniques. In fact it will be counterproductive. It is beneficial to trade links with sites that have similar tastes and products as yours.
Blogs
This is a vast subject and let us consider a few things about blogs that will help you. One : blogs are loved by search engines. Two: bloggers often link to other blogsites.
Publishing newsletters
This is not an easy task by any means and involves a lot of work, but if you love what you do, then it is no work at all. Writing newsletters on something of your interest is more pleasure than work. If you are not inclined to write one or do not have the necessary skills then you don't have to worry. There are many places online where you can find free content regularly which you can use. All you have to do is go to a search engine and type “article directory” and choose one that you think is right.
Offering Free Relevant Content
Marketing gurus will tell you that they have yet to come across a person who does not like freebies, if it is not junk. People just love free stuff, offer free, relevant, and high quality content that pertains to the subject matter the visitor is looking for. It is a good idea to ask for the visitors’ email address before you offer the free content. This way you can build up your mailing list faster.
Swapping advertisements with other ezine publishers
Find ezines that have similar topics and offer to swap ads with them. Ezine publishers will be more than pleased and readily agree to this kind of arrangement as this will add value to their subscribers. However, ezine publishers will agree to this kind of agreement only for a short time.
It is recommended that you publish your URL wherever possible like books, visiting cards, brochures, etc. Keep yourself abreast with new developments happening on the Internet scene. The Internet is a very dynamic place and things happen very fast. A good way to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments is read ebooks, ezines, and forum discussions. If you come across a good idea give it a try and see if it can help you increase targeted traffic to your website.

SEO
(Search engine Optimization)

Do You Know What's SEO ?

Do You Have A Solid Traffic Generation Plan?

?Why do we need search engines

Do You Know What's SEO ?


• According to a recent poll by Forrester Research, over 90% of Internet users worldwide use search
engines to find the sites they want. Search engine listings are the number one way to generate
qualified traffic to websites.
• More people use search engine to finds products and services as compared to phone directory and
yellow pages. Potential customers can compare prices online
• According to a Nielsen Ratings, 9 out of 10 web surfers visit a search engine, portal or community
site each month. They also revisit frequently, nearly five times per month.
• According to a Direct Marketing Association poll, search engine positioning was the top method
cited by website marketers to drive traffic to their sites.
• 85% of qualified Internet traffic is driven through search engines, however 75% of search engine
users never scroll past the first couple of page results.
• According to Forrester Research Media Field Study, attracting a loyal audience to your website is
best achieved through top search engine listings.
• 97 percent of Fortune 100 companies had some type of site architecture problem that might give
them problems being found by search engines. iProspect, May 2001
• Nine out of ten web users visit a search engine, portal or community site each month. They also
revisit frequently, nearly five times per month. Nielsen//NetRatings
• Users looking for products are far more likely to type the product name into a search engine's
search box (28%) than browse shopping "channels" (5%) or click on ads (4%) Jupiter Media Metrix
& NPD
• Search engines are the number one way consumers find new websites online, used by 73.4% of
those surveyed. Forrester
• Search engine positioning was the top method cited by website marketers to drive traffic to their
sites (66%), followed by email marketing (54%). Direct Marketing Association
• On average, people experience "search rage" if they don't find what they want within 12 minutes.
WebTop Search Rage Study
• Meta tags are the most popular search engine optimization technique, used by 61% of those
surveyed, followed by optimizing page titles (44%) and link building (32%). Iconocast
• Contrary to any sales hype you may read elsewhere, there are no software products available, nor
will there ever be, that can automate the search engine optimization process
• People who actively searching for your products or services are qualified prospects who, in
most part, have already made the decision to buy! Focused search engine optimization brings the
searcher and the supplier together
• Research shows that most search engine users don't look past the first two or three pages of
results returned by a search engine.

SEO
(Search engine Optimization)
Do You Know What's SEO ?

?Do You Have A Solid Traffic Generation Plan

Do You Know What's SEO ?

Once you have launched your website, your attention shifts to traffic building and sustaining the traffic. Traffic is the most important aspect of any e-business, as the number of people visiting your websites coverts into the revenue you can generate from your website.
Like any long-term activity, you need to have a plan for traffic building. A traffic generation plan essentially charts out the things you need to do and when you need to them. The traffic generation plan gives direction to your efforts and you will be able to achieve your goals more effectively. Given below are some of the key components of a good traffic generation plan-
Set your goals- whenever you make a plan, you do this with an intention of achieving some goals. So the first step in making a plan is to set your goals. For a successful traffic generation plan, set goals based on your immediate, near future and long term goals. The first goals will of course be building the immediate traffic for your newly launched website. Then comes the traffic goal for the period immediately following the launch phase till say may be six months. Then come the long-term plans that would be the minimum traffic you must have everyday to profitably sustain yourself.
Achieving your goals- what use is a plan if you are not making any efforts to achieve your goals. A good traffic generation plan should include the steps you should undertake to get to your goals like a road map. When you know what you need to do, you can actually begin to do it. For instance, your website is about to launch, your target to get the maximum visitors in first few weeks. For this you need to plan for promotions through various media like other Internet sites, newspapers, and special promotions and so on. For the long run you need to sustain a minimum traffic of say 50 visitors everyday. So you will need to continuously market your website through various methods like forum postings, affiliate marketing and so on.
Review your plan- review your traffic generation plan from time to time to see if it is working. If your plan is not working, that is you are not generating the projected traffic, then you need to make changes in your plans. It is important to get the traffic or in the least make the projected sale. Checking on your plans will allow you a chance to adjust your path to get what you want. Remember that plans can be changed and adjusted. Goals are important not the plan.
Websites do not come for free and you have to have enough traffic to cover your costs. A good traffic generation plan will ensure that you have regular flow traffic for years together. The more efforts you put in your plans, the faster you will see the results.

SEO
(Search engine Optimization)
Do You Know What's SEO ?


Do You Have A Solid Traffic Generation Plan?

Page Titles, Meta Data and Content

Do You Know What's SEO ?



Another aspect to consider when analyzing your website is the page titles and meta data that is displayed
on your pages. Page titles are the names of the pages on your website like Home and About Us. If your company was to sell teapots in London, it would be more beneficial for your homepage to be named Teapots for sale London” as opposed to “Home”.

Meta data are keywords that are added to the code of a webpage. Internet browsers do not display this information but search engine spiders use this data to learn more about the page it is crawling
. Using keyword-rich meta data can assist in achieving higher rankings however, make sure extensive keyword research is conducted to find the keywords of most value. These are some of the basic aspects of search engine optimization that can have a positive effect on search engine rankings.

Content is extremely important considering many search engines are starting to bring Latent Semantic Indexing into the mix. LSI means that search engines will hold more weight to pages that have related terms in the content than one term repeated many times. Relevant, timely and unique content naturally gets linked to as well, you will find if you provide this type of content on your website, you may not have to chase links as much as you would if your content is a re-hash of other info on the net.

Ultimately search engine optimization is an ongoing process. Rankings rise and fall with the ebb and flow of the Internet. Competitors will change content and optimize their own website; search engines will
change the algorithms that drive their results.




SEO
(Search engine Optimization)

Do You Know What's SEO ?

?What is a hit

Do You Know What's SEO ?



Hits are described as a request from your server. This means that every time someone downloads a
webpage, image or file, this is classified as a ‘hit’. Therefore, you could have ten visitors to your
who each visit three WebPages pages and download five images.
Visitors = 10
Hits = 50

What is a page view?
Page views are the 'webpages' that are viewed by visitors to your website. If 1 visitor went to 5 pages you
would have:
Visitors = 1
Page Views = 5


Is search engine optimisation a once off process or does it have to be
done regularly?

The answer to this quote simply is it can be both, depending on your industry. In a non-competitive space, once off optimisation may work
If you are in a non-competitive space with a small number of competitors, then once off optimisation may very well work for the next few years, or until the search engines change their algorithms.

In a highly competitive market, competition is much higher with many new websites coming online each day and others being optimised and updated regularly. This means that there is more focus on updating the site and making sure it is optimised as well as it can be.



If you play in a competitive market, we recommend on-going SEO production.

What does on-going mean?

• Monitoring of the website to ensure rankings are constant
• An ongoing link building campaign – This works best when the client is included
• An understanding that search engine optimisation takes time. This is not something that will impact
a site in weeks. It takes months for some changes to take affect
• An understanding that search engine optimisation should be part of an overall online marketing strategy that can drive traffic to the website
• Increasing the amount of targeted traffic to your site is the ultimate goal

SEO
(Search engine Optimization)
Do You Know What's SEO ?
Do You Have A Solid Traffic Generation Plan?

? What are some SEO secrets

Do You Know What's SEO ?



Keyword Research

This is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Knowing what consumers are typing into a search engine
to find your product or service is essential. There are many tools to help you discover which keywords are profitable and help you decide which terms to optimize your website for.

Most SEO firms will guide you in determining the correct keyword terms. One
of the best ways to find out is to ask a user when they ring your company.
“How did you find us?” If they say Google, ask them what words they were
putting into the search engine. Another way to identify keywords is to type
your product or service into a search engine as if you were a consumer and
analyze the websites that are listed in the top ten. Alternatively, you can choose to use tools such as Google AdWords’ Suggestion Tool or Overture. Just remember, what would your customer type into a search engine to find your product? If you are not listed under that keyword term then you may want to consider SEO.



Linking Strategies

A major contributing factor to higher search engine results is links to your website. Do not be fooled into
thinking quantity is king here, quality is far better for rankings than volume.

For example, if you sell lounge chairs and a webpage that is ranked
number one in Google for “lounge chairs” links to your site, this will be
much better than 100 websites linking to your site that have nothing to do
with lounge chairs.

Likewise a site that uses the wording 'lounge chairs' in a link to your
website will be superior than using just your domain name. Another way
to build links to your website is to create unique content that is valued by
readers. One of the methods to do this is to provide regularly updated
content, online newsletters, blogs and podcasts. If you create information
that is helpful, informative or a valuable resource, other site owners may
link to it therefore increasing your rankings. Most SEO firms will make
recommendations about the types of site you should approach for linking
purposes.

SEO
(Search engine Optimization)

Do You Know What's SEO ?

Common Misperceptions about SEO

Do You Know What's SEO ?

“Once I get this running right, I’ll have all the
business I can handle!”

Many think that simply by getting their site found
that the world will beat a path to their door.
That part is true, but it’s what happens after they
come to your door that is vitally important—
even the best traffic will not convert to money in
your pocket if you are not ready technically and
mentally to know how to convert these visitors
to leads and customers. We call that the “now,
what?” syndrome. Your visitor totals go up but
“now, what”? CompassSearch builds your traffic
by making you found by Internet shoppers.
Then it becomes important to convert between 5
and 15% of those unique visitors to registrations
(leads). We install our proprietary lead capture on
your site and make certain that all registrations
are text messaged (where available) and emailed
to you immediately. Also, you may call Customer
Service at any time to request an update on your
site and how it is performing as well as for tips
on how to make it perform better. Various group
coaching sessions dealing with how to utilize
the tools that your subscription includes are
scheduled monthly; you can call in to any or all
of them—are all included in your subscription.
There are no additional costs. It is important for
you to remember that getting found is simply the
beginning of being an Internet realtor; we must
get visitors to register so you can farm them
and bring them aboard as clients. If you will
implement what we tell you to, you will begin to
succeed and then continue to improve

SEO
(Search engine Optimization)

Do You Know What's SEO ?