The Template Temple

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website: A steady flow of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the sites demise. It takes money to maintain an income generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how does big hit sites drive traffic top their site? Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t really have their resources. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I present to you the Top five ways to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Make a Newsletter.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your two cents and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

Subscribe to Gerardas Norkus’ free Internet marketing newsletter at www.netmarketingstrategies.com and discover heaps of tips, tricks and secrets that will quickly boost your online sales and profits.

Let’s face it; the Internet is cluttered with all sorts of guides about increasing traffic to your web site. Unfortunately, most of these guides are outdated or incomplete. In fact, many of the techniques being touted in them will get you in serious trouble. Wouldn’t you like to build up quality traffic that will stand the test of time? The key phrase is “test of time”. You don’t want to be a flash in the pan.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Before you rush out to tell the world that your brand new web site is open for business, set it up properly. Do not even start to think about traffic if your web site still has broken links, empty content, and other unfinished business. While patience can be a hard thing to control, having some will pay off later. Once your web site is completely operational from top to bottom, you are ready to flood it with traffic.

SEARCH ENGINES

While there are many web sites out there which claim to be search engines, you only need to be concerned with a few of the major ones like Google, MSN, etc. You do not need to submit your web site to these enginesthey will find you on their own once your web site is being linked from other web sites. Never pay for a service or software that does this function because it will be a complete waste of money. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to sell you a product or lacks real experience on the matter. The goal is to get your web site linked on other related web sites, which will cause the search engines to index your web site and visit somewhat often to look for changes.

DIRECTORIES

Your first step to building a solid traffic foundation is to submit your site to good directories. Doing so will increase your incoming links, page rank and traffic. Many directories charge a fee for a listingmost are one-time fees. Following is a breakdown of some of the more important directories to get listed in.

The ODP (Dmoz.org)
Submission to this directory is free and it is one of the best to be listed in. It is extremely important that you read their guidelines. All submissions are reviewed by an editor and the approval process can take weeks to months. Many web site owners have waited a long time before having their web site added. It is worth the wait.

Yahoo.com
Adding your web site to this very popular directory will cost $299 annually. Because of the price, you will want to think about this one. Experiences with Yahoo listings are on both sides of the aisle. The best thing to do is see where your web site will most likely be listed and evaluate the conditions for that section.

sbd.Bcentral.com
This is Microsoft’s business directory and it will be a solid listing for you. The current listing fee is $50, which includes the use of their web site tuning service. This service will evaluate your pages and let you know if the page is ready to submit or contains errors such as under-optimization and spam alerts. It can help you optimize your pages for the keyword phrases you are interested in.

SevenSeek.com
This directory has a great page rank and many back links. As will all directory submissions, pay attention to the guidelines. The fee for submission is $40. Seven Seek is a general directory so just about any web site will fit here.

GoGuides.org
Go Guides is another great directory to get your web site into. Their web site is crawled by all the bots daily, which is a great plus. Submission is $40 for this general directory.

Wowdirectory.com
Wow Directory is a large general themed directory. Web site submissions are free but approval can take some time. They offer an express submit for $20 that will ensure your web site is listed within 24 hours.

There are many more directories out there but these are some solid ones to get into first. In time, your web site will begin to appear in the major search engines. Most directories that charge for submission have adopted the policy started by Yahoo where the fee is for “review” only. It is absolutely vital that you read over all the guidelines to be certain that your web site will be accepted.

ARTICLES

A great way to generate traffic and back links to your web site is by writing articles. Here is the general process of how it works:

1. You craft a great article.
2. You submit that article to web sites geared towards web site owners needing content.
3. Owners grab your article, which contains a link to your web site, and use it on their web site.

As you can see, the process is very simple. When other web site owners place your article on their web site, you will be generating incoming links all over the Internet with no work at all. This will not only lead to possible traffic but help to establish the value of your web site to the search enginesso better rankings.

It is very important that your article is written well. If not, quality web site owners are much less likely to use your article and it makes you look bad. Most web site owners skip this important step in traffic building because they can not craft effective articles. If this is you, do something about itvisit Jason A. Martin right now and click on the “Articles for your web site” link. For a small fee, articles can be generated for youand you retain full rights. Once received, simply slap your name on it and submit to places like ContentTycoon.com, Ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, etc.

This is perhaps one of the most important steps of all and after your article is written, it takes no work. The results can be extremely fast. Many articles out there are not crafted well so it is important to not formulate your writing style and perception blindly on the work of others. While many web sites that offer articles claim to “edit” them, it is more of a casual edit.

TEXT LINKS

The goal here is to increase the number of links from related web sites. For example, if your web site is about hot dogs, you will want to obtain links from web sites that are about such topics as: hot dogs, eating, hot dog buns, hot dog toppings, hot dog contests, etc. Obtaining a link from Joe’s Engine Parts will not help much and may actually hurt in regards to search engine rankings.

After thinking up words and phrases that are related to your main topic, visit your favorite search engine and search for those items. Visit the web sites that come up and try to get your link on them. Some might exchange a link with you, some might offer a link on their web site in exchange for payment, and some might simply say no. Keep at it.

IN THE END

By completing these tasks, your web site will have established a solid foundation that will withstand changes the future holds. I invite you to read about ways to promote your web site, improve ad copy, and much more by visiting InternetBusinessEntrepreneur.com. Remember to always keep a sense of pride about your web site. Resist the temptations to do actions which will hurt your web site and build it with the future in mind.

Jason A. Martin is pursuing a Journalism degree and has over a decade of successful Internet business experience. His informational articles can be found at JasonAMartin.com. He also runs ContentTycoon.com – a website where you can get free website content.

There are a number of ways to drive traffic to your website, and
you need to use as many of them as you can as often as you
can. You will not succeed in any business online unless people find
you, and you have something to offer that is of value to them.

Here is a list of actions that will help:

• Provide worthwhile information

• Make sure you please the search engines as well as your visitors

• Give as much as you can; it will come back to you tenfold

It’s a short list and may not be exclusive, but under each category
are several subcategories.

Let’s deal with information first. The Internet is the largest
storehouse of information that has ever existed, and it grows
massively every minute of every day. Users go online most
often to seek information.

What do you do?

Think about your own actions. How do you find the
information you want in this mountain of data? The same
way as almost everyone else: search engines such as Google,
Yahoo, Jeeves or MSN, right? How far down the list of sites
presented to you do you look. As far as Page 21? Not likely.
Most searches are restricted to the first or second pages.
If your listing is on Page 21, it might as well not be there at all.

Search engines are computerized indexes. They make
their money from advertisers. They satisfy their paying
clients, their advertisers, by bringing only the right
types of eyeballs to the specific pages on which
each advertiser presents his message. The computers try
to determine what content specific types of humans will
want to search. They are not yet perfect at what they do,
but they employ hundreds of brainy people whose job is
to make them a little better each day.

Optimization

What do you want when you search for something,
anything? Plenty of relevant information. That is what
the search engines want, too. They are a little
clumsy in their selections so far. That’s why they have
to be fed keywords to get their attention and to make them
‘understand’ the purpose of your page. This is called
search engine optimization, or SEO.

An example: let’s assume we have a page that talks
about search engine optimization. Look on the Web
under that phrase, as you will see something you might
not have noticed before.

Yahoo will offer 27,100,000 pages. In the top spot when I
looked (an incredible feat when you think about it) is one
of several listings that start with the words “search
engine optimization”. The first words in the description
below the title are “search engine optimization….” Go to the
page, and the headline is “Search engine optimization”.
The copy beneath that reads: ” Search Engine
Optimization and as placement strategies are being applied
by more and more webmasters, it is becoming more of a
need than a luxury for competitive website owners to use
effective search engine optimization, placement and ranking
to remain competitive. Search engines couple with good
optimization practices can provide your website with
vast amounts of targeted traffic.”

Even a machine should be able to recognize that the page is
about search engine optimization. It will check to make sure the
same phrase repeats an appropriate number of times, according
to the length of the article, typically about once for every
100 words, or thereabouts. A page will lose points for too
many or too few mentions of the keyword or phrase.

Keyword placement

The keyword should be in the page title (what you see in the
search engine listing), its description (also seen in the search
engine listing), its page heading and in the first 90 characters
of the article. The closer it is to the beginning of each of these
elements, the better it is from a search engine point of view.

Can’t write, you say? Tell someone what it is you want to say.
Give them a note to work from (you may find you have written
your page right there, and all it that needs is a little editing).
But if you truly can’t write, get someone else to write
your message for you. Alternatively, find a company to work
with that will build a free website for you.

Matthew Eigbe has over 25 years experience in consumer marketing
and now focuses on network marketing using the internet.
He is webmaster at http://www.mattlinks.ws, a site that explains
how you can gain Financial Freedom by inviting people to have
their own domain name.

One of the top concerns for anybody with a website is traffic. You need traffic to get them to buy your product, come to your store, or buy your services.

There are many ways to get traffic. Reciprocal link campaigns are good but they take time. Try linkmarket.net, linkciti.com, linkmetro.com, or linkdiy.com. There are plenty out there. You can request links in your category and by being listed people will ask to link to you. There are paid and free programs. Start with the free and then move on to the paid. This helps with your page rank so a link campaign should be ongoing.

Running a PPC campaign with Google, Yahoo or a smaller search engine (like exactseek.com) can work but you need money for that. You can start small and spend more as your business grows.

You can create a free blog at blogger com. There are plenty of other free blog sites. This one is easy to set up and use. As a bonus it is owned by Google. They won’t admit it but I think it helps you in Google. If you are passionate about your site topic or know the subject well you can easily write a blog. Postings don’t have to be long and add a post once or twice a week at a minimum.

Once you have your blog set up and your first post created – it’s time to ping. Ping after every post. A ping is simply an announcement that “I have new content on my blog”. Two free ping services are pingoat.com and pingomatic.com.

Article directories are also great ways to get traffic to your site. There are many out there. Do a search for article directories and you’ll see what I mean. A few good ones are articlecity.com, ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, articles411.com, and ideamarketers.com.

If you need content for your site you can pull articles to use. Post your articles here and people can use them on their site – with a link back to your site.

Submit articles to the directories on a regular basis. If you submit the same article to multiple directories try to change it a bit for each one. And don’t submit them all on the same day. Submit to a directory a day or 2 today and 2 tomorrow. It’ll help get those spiders after your site and keep the article fresher.

And remember it does take time to get traffic steadily coming to your site. Amazon didn’t launch have a million visitors dashing to their site day 1.

Robin Dary is the marketing power behind http://www.parkercomputerguy.com Parker Computer Guy is a computer repair and consulting business in Colorado.

Understanding your Website’s traffic logs is a crucial component of your online marketing mix. It tells you what your visitors do, of their own volition, so it’s “market research that cannot lie!”

If you understand what you’re seeing, you can make some great strategic and marketing decisions, not only for your Website, but for your business as a whole.

Here are seven key marketing elements to study in your traffic analysis:

1. General Statistics

Remember that a “hit” is recorded every time the visitor gets an image or some text from your site — what you need to know is unique user sessions, and how much time people spend on the site — how “sticky” and engaging it is. If you have tons of traffic, but the average time spent on your site is less than a minute — you’ve got a problem!

2. Most and Least Requested Pages

So what’s really hot, and what’s not on your site? The most popular pages give you great clues as to what to offer more of. The least viewed pages may tell you that some of your content isn’t as fascinating as you think, or this maybe a heads-up that your navigation isn’t driving traffic as effectively as it should.

3. Top Entry and Exit Pages

These are great reminders that not all your visitors come through your home page, so you need complete navigation on every entry point to your site. And if people are leaving from pages that you don’t want them to, perhaps you need stronger calls to action in those areas.

4. Single Access Pages

These are the pages where a visitor looks at the site then leaves immediately. Since the job of your home page is partly to filter the traffic that’s not right for you, there’ll always be some of these. But if you have a splash page, and significant numbers of visitors don’t stay through it… perhaps it shouldn’t be there?

5. Cities, States and Countries

No, your site isn’t a huge hit just in Virginia — those are all the AOL users! Unfortunately, because this information depends on where the ISP is based, it can be pretty misleading. But if you are getting a lot of hits from other countries, that might be a hint for some second language content.

6. Referring URL’s

This tells you which search engines are sending you traffic, and which of your advertising and linking strategies are working. It also tells you about sites that may have links to you that you didn’t know about — check these out — it’s a great relationship builder to send a thank you — you might even get some new business from it!

7. Top Search Keywords and Phrases

Once the search engines have listed your site, these tell you what the really hot search terms are for your business. Pay attention to these — they may have some surprises — one of my clients recently wrote a book on a subject that was really sought after on her site — until she saw the top keywords, she had no idea it was so popular!

Is your web site not getting as much traffic as you’d like? One good way to increase traffic is with linking partners.

The question, of course, is how do you do this?

First, learn to network. Get to know people on line. Spend time every week emailing back and forth with people who are in the Internet business. Compare notes. Find out what’s working and not working for them. Ask about their link mates. Create some alliances. Offer to exchange links.

Second, you will need to find web sites where you can become possible link mates. This is actually pretty easy. Just go to a good search engine such as Google and type in words that complement but do not compete with your products or services. For example, if your site sells flower and vegetable seeds, you might search on a term such as garden tools.

As you search on your keywords, make sure you keep a list of those sites that are receiving the highest traffic.

NOTE: You can check the popularity of each keyword with the Yahoo Keyword Selector tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). Just type in each keyword and the tool will show you how many people searched using that keyword the past month. Again, make sure you’re choosing those sites.

Once you have identified those sites with the most traffic, do a WHOIS search (/www.allwhois.com/) to see who’s behind the site. Then give that person a call. That’s right. Call him or her. Introduce yourself. Don’t make it all about you. Ask questions about their site. When it’s your turn, describe your site and your successes. Then try to set up a win-win situation. For example, you might offer a premium position on your site in exchange for a small listing on his or her site.

Will you always get a “yes?” You won’t. But you will get enough link mates to make the effort worthwhile and to increase your traffic.

Here’s another good top. There’s a new technology called HD Radio that enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally. This is a tremendous technological leap from today’s familiar analog broadcasts. These digital broadcasts provide listeners with radically improved audio quality, more radio channels through multicasting, and new data services. To learn more about this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, http://www.hd-radio-home.com, to get all the buzz.

Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio, old time radio and family finances.

Google is the dominant search engine on the net, controlling more traffic than Yahoo and MSN combined. This means you need to get your entire site into Google as fast as possible.

Getting Indexed in Google – Quick and Easy

Millions upon millions of dollars have been made by sites getting ranked highly in Google. Of course, these sites are optimized to get the rankings. While optimization is critical, it is also vital that you get all the pages of your site indexed in Google.

The good news is it is fairly easy to get Google to suck up the pages of your site. There are a couple of different ways, but you need to do one thing before worrying about getting indexed.

Site maps are rarely clicked on by most visitors to a site, but they are critical nonetheless. A site map isn’t vital because it helps a visitor get around the site. It is vital because it helps the search engine indexing robots find all the pages on the site. In this case, you want to create a site map for your site to make sure the “Googlebot” finds all the pages you have labored to put up. Google actually has an xml site maps tool, but I prefer to actually make sitemaps since I want Yahoo and MSN to index the site as well.

Once you have a site map, the easiest way to get the attention of Google is to create a free blog. Go to Blogger.com and open a free account. Just follow the three or four simple steps and you will be ready to go. Once the account is open, create your first blog entry. Type anything you want, but make sure to include a link to your home page and your site map in the entry. Hit the enter button and you are on your way. Why? Google owns blogger.com, so it regularly canvases the blogs and links. Within a week or two, your site should start appearing in Google.

A second way to get indexed in Google is to write an article. Create one on a subject relevant to your site. Make it about 400 words long or about a page in length. Open an account with an article directory. The account should be assigned immediately after opening the account. Login and go to your member profile. Add the domain to your site in the appropriate box and save it. Then submit your article. Make sure to include an author byline where indicated and include a link to your site. The Google indexing robot will crawl the site at least once a week, find your links and follow them to your site. Within a few weeks, you should see your site indexed in Google.

You can also add your domain directly to Google, but this is really a waste of your time. So many people do it on a daily basis that it may take three months for Google to get to your site.

You can use any of the above techniques to get the attention of the Google indexing bot. Regardless of how you do it, keep in mind it will take a few weeks for your site to appear. There are millions of sites on the web, so the robot has a lot of ground to cover.

Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com – providing internet marketing services.