Affiliate Program Reviews

Traffic Tip #0

Domain Name Marketing

Starting at ground zero, it should go without stating, but I’ll state it anyways and that is your domain name should reflect what your website or blog is about.  If, it doesn’t then you are going to have to spend the time and perhaps money to brand your domain name.  So, it’s important to select a domain name that leaves no question about what business you’re in. Free Traffic If You’re Willing to Put the Time in to Get It.  Here Are Ten Traffic Tips:

In choosing a domain name, you want to have keywords or word phrases that are specific to what your website or blog is about, because this may help you with “organic search,” or people typing in your keyword or word phrase.  If, at all possible, don’t sell for anything but a .com (commercial) domain extension.  Imagine having your domain name with a .net or a .us (United States) domain extension, because the .com domain extension is already taken.

Now imagine people typing in your domain name, but they out-of-habit, put a .com.  Who do you think is going to get a visit to their site, you or the person who has the .com website or blog?  Don’t register a domain name unless it has the .com extension, because if you register any other type of domain name that isn’t a .com, you are going to lose traffic to the person who has the same domain name with the .com domain extension.  If, you can try to register a domain name that is also easy for someone to remember, as this will help you in making your site with great content, more viral.  Domain names that people can remember often become the topic of conversation and what a terrific way to generate some buzz for your site.

For example, the domain name “UniversalBluetoothHeadset.com,” shouldn’t leave any questions in anyone’s mind as to what that website is about.  Another example is “Bekq.com.”  “Bekq.com,” is that someone’s last name or is that an acronym for something?  “Bekq.com” could stand for “Best Entrepreneur Key Questions,”, but who knows for sure!  So, choose your domain name wisely and it could save you the time and money that you spend branding your site name.

Traffic Tip #1

Basic SEO Marketing

You want to make sure that you have your Meta tags and header tags within your website’s HTML before you manually submit your website or blog to the search engines, all of them.  You want to use descriptive titles and Meta tags preferably with your keywords.  To get an idea of how to write a headline, just take a look at the headlines in any major newspaper and you will notice that the headlines have the ability to sum up what the content is going to be about even before you read the content.  That’s the kind of headline you want to learn how to write.

Make sure that your website conforms to the W3C Standard and that each page of your site is optimized, so that the search engine robots can easily find you.  Also, make it easy for your site visitors to find whatever it is they are looking for, or they’ll click the back button before they’ve had time to become familiar with your site layout.

Use Google Webmaster Tools to help you make your site compatible with Google’s suggested standards.  Google being the #1 & #2, search engine throughout the day, matters, and you should do all you can to make it easy for Google to index and rank your website or blog.

Traffic Tip #2

Article Marketing

Write your articles for your general industry or niche.  Concentrate on doing “How To” type articles when you first start out article marketing because these type of articles are usually longer than 600 words, due to the need to show exactly how to do something and their informative and illustrative style of writing.

Your “How To” articles will become timeless because people entering your industry or niche will need to be aware of the topic your article addresses and for those already in the industry or niche; your article would be a refreshing update.

Submit your niche or industry-specific articles to article directories for distribution throughout the Internet.  Make your articles relevant with practical advice that others would find value in.

Each one of your articles should be targeted for your industry or niche with the requisite keywords and the one-way links back to your site can only help your site in the long-term with traffic.

Look at the relevant category that you are interested in writing for with the article submission and distribution sites, such as ezinearticles, articlebase, articlesnatch, etc. and find the authors that have the most articles submitted.  If, you look at the articles of the most published articles, you will notice a formula (word count, set-up of article, etc) that they follow, copy their formula and you will have success with Article Marketing.

The most published article authors follow a well-laid out formula that works and they continue with that formula because it ensures their success.  Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, copy their formula and answer whatever question your industry or niche has and you will thrive with your articles.   Also, with each article in your “resource box” at the end of your articles, there should be a link back to your site.

Traffic Tip #3

Forum Marketing

Forum Marketing is getting traffic from forums without really trying to sell anything to anyone.  There are forums for just about every possible industry or niche, do a Google search typing in, “yourkeyword” plus the word forum.  For example, if I were searching for “work at home,” I would type in the search engine box “work at home forums.”

Forums can return fair amount traffic, if you abide by the forum rules, such as no spamming or blatant promotion of affiliate links.  You want to look to see the date of the last post, so that you ensure that the forum is indeed active.  You also want to join a forum that has many topics raised within its theme, because this generally implies that a comprehensive look at the industry or niche.

Remember that on forums your job is to take questions that you know something about and answer them.  Each question that you choose to answer, should add something of practical value to the reader that they can take away and use right away in their business.

You can even start a topic that you are very familiar with and pose a question on the forum for others to answer, if you don’t already know the answer.  This is a sure way of getting noticed, but don’t be boastful with the questions that others ask.  Be diplomatic and you will do well with forum marketing.

Most forums give you the opportunity to put your links in your profile and signature at the bottom of each of your comments.  Read the forum rules to be sure that you are in compliance.

As you continue to answer the questions of others, over time you will establish yourself as someone credible to go to for advice and this form of branding yourself will benefit you and your business online.  The extra benefit of forum marketing is the number of backlinks you will get, which are one-way links to your sites.  If, you’re up to the task, you might even want to add a forum to your site to encourage more interaction with your visitors and to promote user-generated content, something the search engines love.

Traffic Tip #4

Reciprocal Marketing

Linking with sites that are similarly-themed is a good way to get traffic when each site is not in direct competition with one another.  For example is your website or blog is selling laptops and you link with a website or blog that is about laptop reviews, but doesn’t actually sell laptops.  Another example is, your website is about living abroad and you link with a site that sells adventure clothing or overseas airline tickets.

Stick with websites and blogs that are related to your products and services.  You don’t want to exchange links with sites that are not similar to yours, because this will dilute your search engine rankings.  Take the time to send a reciprocal link request by e-mail and even though it may seem a bit much for some people, but the forth the effort and reciprocal links you receive will make all worth while.  Your site can compliment the site you wish to link to and you may have to sell the site owner on this benefit.

Traffic Tip #5

Content Marketing

If, you are comfortable writing articles about your industry or niche is an excellent way to bring traffic to your sites, especially when you post some of your articles on other similar sites as a guest author.  You can also post your articles on social networking sites, such as FaceBook.  Don’t forget to also post some of your articles in ezines and newsletters that may be yours or other similar-themed sites.

It’s very important to post new articles everyday if at all possible to your site, because if your visitors see that you have new content everyday, they are more likely to bookmark and visit your site frequently.  Posting industry or niche-related news and information every day helps to build your credibility with your visitors when you add your “angle” or point of view explaining the impact of this or that to your audience.  Don’t forget to cover some of the pressing problems your industry or niche is experiencing when you write.

The purposes of your articles are not only to answer a specific problem, challenge or concern that people in that industry or niche are having, but also to extend what’s worked for you and what hasn’t.  Remember you aren’t trying to sell your product or service to your audience; you are simply giving a solution in your article.

What helps many successful writers is to write a great keyword title first and then focus your writing on supporting the title.  Every title is essentially the problem, challenge or concern that every industry or niche has and your content is the solution to that problem, that challenge or that solution.

Remember that overwhelmingly people go online for information and if you provide information that helps to solve a problem, challenge or concern, which is valuable to people looking for it.  Stay with what you know and flourish and stray in topics you are willing to learn more about and committed to sharing it with others and you will prevail with content marketing.  The search engines love fresh and relevant content and so too, the person searching for answers.  Give the people what they want and the search engines will reward you with improved rankings.

You can post your articles in off-line publications that are local in nature and welcome guest publications.  With each article that you write, you’ve optimize it for your keyword and in your “resource box,” you’ve included your site information and contact information.  This is an excellent way to grow your audience online and offline, so cultivate your love for writing.

Traffic Tip #6

Video Marketing

Video Marketing may be the fastest way that shows you results for your marketing efforts and builds one-way links back to your site almost within weeks and sometimes within days or hours depending on the content of the video and how many people interact with it leaving comments and ranking it.

When you do your video, make it about your website or blog.  Tell people what your website is about and why your website or blog is different than other similar sites out there.  Give people a reason to visit your site and give them a reason to return.

Traffic Tip # 7

PR Marketing

Press Release Marketing comes in two flavors, free and paid submission.  If, you have something interesting or unique that you think others would be interested in knowing about, by all means do a press release.

Put the keywords necessary in your press release to support your interesting or unique content and include links that bring readers directly to your site.

Traffic Tip #8

Directory Marketing

Submitting your website or blog to similar-themed directories is just another way for people to discover your site.  Seek out the higher pagerank directories that are about your site.  When you choose higher pagerank sites (a pagerank of 5 or higher) you maximize your exposure because generally these higher pagerank sites will have pretty good daily traffic.  The more traffic a directory has the more likely your site will be discovered within the directory.

Manual submission is time-consuming and the preferred method even though there are directory submission software available, no directory submission software is going to give you the attention to detail that a manual submission will.  You don’t want to be accused of duplicate content by using the same site submission information for 50 or so directories, do you?

Each manual submission should have a different description of about your site and if your site is truly interesting and unique, it won’t be too difficult to have many descriptions about your site.  Another benefit of manual submissions is that you can tailor each of your directory submission to be about a page within your website with its targeted keywords and that is something that is next to impossible to accomplish with an automated directory submission software or service.

Traffic Tip #9

Classified Ad Marketing

Online Classified Ad Marketing is another tried and true method of getting one-way links and gives you additional exposure and pagerank benefit over the long-term when the page you’re linking to has a higher pagerank and the “dofollow” attribute.

Ebay Classifieds is a little less sought-after and often overlook place to get traffic to your sites, but it has proven time and time again to deliver.  Most of you may already be familiar with Craigslist, BackPage, Gumtree, and Kijiji to name a few, while some allow links in your classified ad if you pay for the upgrade, while other classified ad sites may not.

One way to get around having to pay extra to put a link in your classified ad is to do a clickable image or just put your image with your classified ad with a watermark on it or you can just pay for the upgrade.  No matter which method you decide on, it will help to get your site noticed.

Traffic Tip #10

Blog Marketing

Blog Marketing involves writing for your own blog or blogs and commenting on other blogs that are within the same industry or niche.  This may seem like a lot of work and in the beginning it could be a bit overwhelming at first, but as you get use to doing and repeating each Traffic Tip, it soon becomes second nature.

The majority of blogging platforms (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc) give you the ability to put comment forms beneath each of the posts and most blog owners feature this option.  You are able to put your Name, E-mail Address and Your Site URL in the comment form before your post.  If, comment a lot, each post will have your site address and if people think you are worth visiting, they will.

So, take the time to make worthy posts that offer value to the blog readers.  Doing so adds to your credibility and that’s a good thing.  The Blogs you write for will generate visitors when you comment on the blogs in your industry or niche and those readers will visit your blogs out of curiosity or out-right interest.  A residual benefit of all of your comments is that you will building links back to your blog.

Any one of these tips or all of these tips will increase your exposure, audience, sales and profits and most only require that you put the time in to implement them.  Some of the traffic tips mentioned will take time to implement and take some time to see a direct effect and one or two traffic tips will show an almost immediate response.

You pick and choose which ones you’d like to do in any order that you decide.  Each traffic tip is designed to work independently of one another, but as you implement each additional traffic tip, you will build synergy.  You can do them one at a time or several at a time, but if you choose to all the tips mentioned, you will benefit beyond your wildest dream.

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