Effective Web Promotion Techniques For Small Online Businesses by: Douglas Jerome

May 23rd, 2009

After setting up the look of your small business website, uploading its written content, photos, videos, and other files, polishing its web design and navigation, and publishing it to the World Wide Web, the next step you should do is web promotion. Since people don’t have any idea that your website exists, you must spread the good news as extensively as possible. You may begin by submitting the link of your web address to the major search engines, Yahoo!, MSN and Google. Just find their link submission page. Upon submission, search engines will review your website and include it in relevant search results. This is not automatic, however, and your inclusion to search results may take from 7 days to 3 weeks.

Of course, you should also do web promotion to the people within your network. Friends, families, classmates, people from work, online friends–every agent that can market your small business website on your behalf is important. Up to now, word of mouth is still the most powerful form of promotion, so ask people that you personally know to encourage other people to visit your site. If possible, you may send them a PR letter which they can copy and paste to their online profiles, blogs, journals, among others.

Building a small business website entails a lot of work: you have to purchase a domain name, subscribe to a web hosting provider, manage your web content, web design, submit your site to search engines, build links, and do other web promotion strategies. This is grueling, especially when your products are ready and they just have to be sold. But actually you don’t have to wait too long to get your website done. As an alternative, you can create a small business blog for your company.

Unlike websites that call for a lot of intricate processes before reaching publication, in blogs, you just have to put your content in an online writing tool and in just one click your message is ready for the whole wide world to read. To create a blog, you just have tosign up for an account in any blogging site and in less than 5 minutes, you’re free to do your web promotion and sales campaigns.

In running a small business blog, you don’t have to pay the services of a web developer just to maintain your site. The online writing software programs of blogging sites are so easy to navigate, and do not need any editing of html, css, and other computer codes. Web design too, is effortless, and open to be explored. There are a lot of web design templates to choose from, and all of their elements, color, and style can be modified, arranged and matched according to your preferences.

Most of all, blogs can reach to more people than websites, because blogs are primarily social. Blog sites gather different web pages with the same topic and content, and they deliver them to online readers who have interest in such subjects. So whether you’re selling bags, clothes, books, or anything, the blogs that you will write about your company will be promoted to people who have the strong inclination to the products you’re offering.

In relation to blogs and journals, it is also better if you have your company blog aside from your official small business website. In your company blog, you can put articles on events happened just recently, like a specific product launching night, participation of your business in a trade show, etc. You can also put informative articles that are related to your product. For instance, if you are selling bags, you can feature articles on bag maintenance, guide to shopping for bags, where to purchase good bags, among others. In these articles you can mention, but not obviously, the products that you’re selling. Make sure that the content of your articles is focused on giving reader helpful tips and instructions, and not encouraging them to buy your products. This can be very annoying to readers. You should not forget of course to advance the web promotion of your official website by putting a link.

Building links is a major component in web promotion of Internet small business. Visit websites, blogs, and forums that are related to the products that you are selling, and paste the web address of your site therein. If the site is personal, ask the permission of the owner to exchange links. By doing these, you can magnify the traffic of users to your website.

Paid Traffic vs Free Traffic Through Social Media by: Nathan Holland

May 23rd, 2009

With the increasing popularity of social media sites, the use of social traffic to drive visitors to sites, blogs or online stores is also gaining attention. Before the explosion of social media websites, such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, many online marketers focused on paid traffic in order to significantly boost the number of people visiting their websites. There is really nothing wrong with paid traffic strategies. In fact, these strategies can be very effective. However, they can be quite expensive. If you want your paid campaign to have an impact in your business, you may have to spend hundreds of dollars a day.

But with the social traffic solution, you will make use of social media sites that are free. All you need to do is invest a little of your time and participate in these types of websites. Create good quality materials that will help you maximize your traffic-enhancing strategies. It is important to note that simply having a profile in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other types of social media sites does not guarantee an increase in your Web traffic. You need to know how to make your profile attractive to the people who matter, the ones that belong to your target market.

Another advantage of social traffic over paid traffic is the influence that you can gain in social media. As an influencer, you can affect people’s buying decisions. In order for your paid traffic to buy from your online store, you need to convince them with a great copy, huge discounts, and a lot of other freebies. But with web traffic coming from social media sites, people learn about you through viral marketing or word of mouth. This means that Web users who go to your site are already partially convinced that your product or service is good because someone from their social media network recommended you.

There is no doubt that paid traffic solutions can effectively encourage people to go to your site. However, this marketing campaign is only good if you have money to pay. Once you no longer have budget for PPC or banner ads, your traffic may also dwindle. The effect of social traffic is different. The efforts that you put in today may not have immediate effects on your traffic now, but it can definitely explode your online presence in the weeks or months to come. As long as you have your profile in social media sites and you continue to participate in such communities, you will experience an increase in your Web traffic.

Why Copywriting Can Dramatically Increase the Readership of Your Blog Posts by: Francis Lui

May 23rd, 2009

It’s important to get people to read your blog posts. Learning a few copywriting techniques can increase your readership. By applying just one copywriting technique, you can boost your readership by up to 100% and more.

For instance, the most important part of the blog post is the title. The title is similar to the headline in copywriting. The title determines whether people actually read your blog post at all. A good title can dramatically boost the number of people who read your post.

By learning how to write a good headline from copywriting, you’ll be able to write good titles for your blog posts. One tip is to include a benefit in your title. Write what the reader will get out of reading your blog post. For instance, “How to Triple Your Productivity” has the benefit that the reader will learn how to triple her productivity if she reads the post.

The next thing is to write a good introduction. In copywriting, this is known as the lead. The lead is important because it determines whether the reader will continue reading. If the lead fails to interest the reader, the reader will stop reading.

This applies to your blog posts too. You’ll need a compelling introduction. You could start your blog post with a compelling story. Debunk a myth. Or use a problem-solution approach: Tell the reader what problem he’s having and show that reading your post will give him the solution.

You also want to make your blog posts easy to read. Just like in copywriitng, you’ll want to write in short paragraphs, use subheads, write in short sentences, and use simple words. If your blog post is difficult to read, you’ll scare your readers away.

Most of your readers are skimmers. By including subheads, you’ll make your blog post “skimming friendly.” The skimmer can read the subheads to see what your blog post is about. If the subheads catch her attention, she’ll take the time to read your post.

Short paragraphs make your blog post visually appealing. If the reader sees a bunch of big blocks of text within the first 5 seconds, it’ll look like a lot of work to read. The reader may not have the time or patience to read the big blocks of text. By writing in short paragraphs, your blog post looks easier to read. And more people will read your post.

The tone of your blog posts is important. A blog has a community atmosphere and lets you interact with your readers through blog comments. So you’ll want to write to them like you’re talking to a friend. Write in a conversational tone, just like in copywriting.

So if you want to increase the readership of your blog, learn a few copywriting techniques. Even just one technique can boost your readership. Learn one technique and apply it today.

How To Promote Your Website And Make It Work For Your Business by: Dillon Activ

May 23rd, 2009

Many small businesses have a website built and never really capitalise on its value to their business.

Most small business websites should do the following:

- Be accurate and informative
- Generate new business
- Help to retain existing business

But, in truth they tend to fail because of:

Be accurate and informative

- Many small business websites are not kept up to date, they have outdated contact details, poor product/service information which in general gives users a bad experience and only has a negative effect on the business.

Generate new business

- People are not directed to the site through online and offline advertising and marketing, meaning that the only people using your website are the ones who already know about you. There are many cost-effective ways to get new business through your website.

Help to retain existing business

- Do you collect their email addresses in your business? Does your website collect your customers email addresses? If you do not constantly keep in touch with your existing clients telling them about events, special offers and promotions you are losing out on profits. There are many ways a website can help your business to retain custom and to increase frequency and value of customer spends without a great cost (If any).

A small business tends to have a website built because ‘Every business needs a website’ but then do little with it, it becomes stale and outdated, a website needs to be an extension of your business and should be part of your advertising and marketing strategy, it should be as important as your premises, your staff, your goods or services!

If you have read to here and are thinking “My website works well for my business and it is something I am very proud of!” then great and congratulations on your achievement, but how many small businesses can honestly say that their website is a profitable and successful part of their business!

There are 2 ways to successfully market a website to existing and potential customers:

- Offline – Newspaper advertising, leaflets, posters, Yellow Pages etc.

Online – Search engines, directory websites, http://Yell.com

But you may be thinking:

Offline – Newspaper advertising, leaflets, posters, Yellow Pages etc – I advertise offline in these places AND promote my website on my advertising, which is great, but you can improve on its effectiveness.

Online – Search engines, directory websites, http://Yell.com etc – I am not sure how these things work and I get bombarded daily with telesales calls about advertising on this website/that website, top results on Google, search engine optimisation for your website etc. It isn’t the minefield you may think it is, there are simple steps to ensure any online promotion you do is cost-effective and will work.

Don’t be scared by the internet, it is a probably the most powerful any small business can utlilise to not only grow their business but also to retain the existing clients they have. The internet is not the confusing place many think it is, the world of websites does not need to fill small business owners with fear!

We have, here at Activ Web Design, helped many small businesses realise the power of the internet and what it can do for their business. We talk to you in a language you understand without all the techno-talk used by traditional web design companies, we are here to help your business succeed online, not to confuse you!

Promoting Your Website by: Brian Holmes

May 23rd, 2009

You might have heard the saying, “If you build it; they will come.” When it comes to building websites, however, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not enough to build a website and then wait for the traffic to arrive, it won’t happen. You must take proactive steps to promote your website, if you ever plan on making sales. There are several ways that you should focus on promoting your website. These are to be listed in the top search engines, to create a newsletter with an opt in list, to advertise your website on forums and in chat rooms, and to offer free promotions on your site.

There are numerous search engines, but only several are the most important to become listed in. In addition to being listed in the search engine, directories are also important. By being listed in directories you’ll see an increase in your website’s traffic. The best way to ensure that you have good placement in search engines is by having an easy to navigate website. Your site should have a good design, plenty of fresh, keyword rich content, and enable your visitors to easily sign up for your newsletter.

Your newsletter or mailing list is a great promotional tool. By including freebies and providing text at the bottom of the newsletter that encourages readers to forward your newsletter to others. Include areas that will encourage people to return to your website as well. You can include a special coupon or code in your newsletter that will encourage visitors to return to your site, enter the code, and download a free product. Always have free offers available on your website as this will cause repeat visitors. In addition to these methods, you’ll find that by creating a signature tag with a link back to your site, and by engaging in conversations on forums and chat rooms, you can easily promote your site and increase affiliate sales.

Article written by Brian Holmes
Knowledge for You

Fast Traffic Generation For Your MLM Business by: Innocent Chukwudi

May 23rd, 2009

The following tips are essential in fast traffic generation viz:

The bum marketing strategy: Bum marketing involves the use of articles to generate traffic. These articles should be on the area of interest such as travel, health and tips, forex, hyips, and so on. These articles must be original and should also be submitted to article directories for indexing. This sounds cumbersome but the benefits are great. The use of keywords and paragraphing should not be neglected.

Forum strategy: This simply entails creating a forum on the area of interest or expertise. You can also employ the use of search engines to find similar forums on your area of interest such as mlm, forex, hyip, health, travel, sports and so on. You should try to find out the active forums, sign up and participate in their forum trends. You should also leave a link to your blog, website, or affiliate programmes in your forum signature.

A webpage is needed. The webpage enables you to introduce yourself, business and expertise. Also put into consideration the needs of your readers and post regularly on your webpage. Post informative and educative contents on your webpage and get massive traffic for life.

Join blog communities such as blogcatalog, hubpages, mybloglog and so on. Follow the trends in such communities by doing the following: registration, uploading of photographs and banners, writing of profiles and participating actively in group discussions.

Utilize search engines. These have the ability of generating massive traffic. You can also make use of tags or keywords; check your ranking through the use of sites such as Alexa.com. You need to also filter your tags and constantly update the content of your webpage so that visitors to your webpage can find your site interesting, educative and informative.

The use of free and paid classified adverts should not be neglected. There are lots of sites where you can place free adverts or pay for your adverts. Examples include linkreferral.com, yahoo.com, msn.com, tao01.com, ablewise.com, warriorforum.com, and so on.

Make use of trade links. The use of trade links is also a good strategy for traffic generation. If you have a webpage with good content, you could persuade other webmasters to trade links with you. The secret to achieving this is to visit other websites and networking groups, send out personalized emails to the webmasters requesting them to link to your webpage.

Giving out free reports and stuffs is a fast traffic-generation method. These could come in various formats such as ebooks, downloads, ecourse, coaching, subscription, tutorials, templates and so on.

These methods are effective and result-oriented. They generate massive traffic non-stop.

How To Promote Your Payday Loan, Mortgage, And Credit Refinance Blog Or Website by: Raden Payas

May 23rd, 2009

Payday loan, credit refinance, mortgage, real estate, and other related websites and blogs are hard to promote because of the very tight competition. This high paying niche is a favorite of everyone who is making money online through blogging adsense and even in CPA (Cost per action) programs. It is very easy to create a payday loan website but I can assure you that the promotion is really hard if you have no budget to compete with PPC (pay per click advertising).

But for some people like me who have been in web promotion for several years, promoting such websites is not a big deal. There are a lot of ways promoting your payday loan blog or credit repair business for free. Especially if you have time to do it with yourself, the result will be more exciting.

Joining in payday loan forums, credit repair online communities, mortgage forums, and other finance forums is the first step. There are a lot of highly-populated loan forums where you can introduce your blog or website for free. But of course you must follow the particular forums rules before jumping into posting that may lead you to having banned due to spamming.

Posting in related forums results not only backlinks but immediate traffic. A lot of borrowers and people who have bad credits are looking for some advice in forums. You can post your site in your signatures or you can post the link directly if a member is asking for a specific question and you think your blog or website can answer.

If have no time to do it, instead of paying for an expensive PPC, I would better suggest you to hire a freelancer from India or from Philippines and have him post your link in forums where you want your ad to appear. Indians and Filipinos are hardworking people and you can expect cheaper service with high quality output.

3 Simple Strategies to Promote Your Blog by: Shannon Herod

May 23rd, 2009

In order to have a profitable blog you need to promote that blog properly. Without traffic there is no way you can make money. It is just common sense. You need traffic in order to make money. Not only will advertisers not want to advertise, but you are not going to get affiliate clicks and things of that nature. So, I think it is safe to say that it is absolutely necessary that you learn to drive traffic to your site.

So, today I want to lay out three simple steps you can take in order to help drive traffic to your blogs. These are simple to follow steps and you can start implementing them today. So, if you want to start driving traffic to your blogs, pay attention to the following paragraphs.

1. Search Engine Optimization

It is absolutely necessary that you search engines optimize your blog. The best way to do that is to start with the right platform. WordPress is the only platform to use when it comes to blogging in my opinion. WordPress puts you above the rest to start with. But, there are a couple other tweaks you should make. Like you should make sure you set up your permalinks. This will make your blog links very search engine friendly.

2. Write Articles

Writing articles is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your site. Articles can drive traffic, but they also serve a different purpose. You can use articles to build back links to your site. Google and other search engine companies use back links to determine the quality of a site. So, you want to make sure you have plenty of back links.

3. RSS Submission

Submitting your blog’s RSS feed is a fantastic way to drive traffic., doing this can be very time consuming. So, it depends on the type of time you have. If you have time to go to a bunch of sites and submit your RSS feed I would highly suggest doing that. If you do not have the time, there are plenty of tools that are available to help you do this. Actually, I will be talking about one in the very next paragraph.

Importance of Building Backlinks for Targeted Website Traffic by: Niche Naidu

May 23rd, 2009

If you have gained an insight into the SEO world, you would have come across the word “backlinks” several times. For those new to the SEO industry, you might wonder what backlinks are and how essential they are for the success of websites.

In short, a Backlink indicates a link from another site to your website. These are also known as inbound links and their number indicates the popularity of the website. Backlinks are considered as votes by search engines: more the number of votes (backlinks) your website has, and based on the importance of websites linking back to yours, your site is assigned a trust rank.

Backlinks today are an important part of the SEO process because when you build quality backlinks, your website stands a higher chance of getting indexed faster by the search engines. Also, from the long term perspective, it will help in boosting quality traffic to your site. Apart from this, building backlinks serves your bottom-line of website visibility by improving your page ranking and ultimately you’re ranking in the search engines.

Additionally, it is not just enough to have lots of backlinks, but, it’s also the quality of backlinks that helps in achieving a better ranking in search engines. When calculating the relevance of a website to a particular keyword, search engines usually take into consideration the number of quality backlinks to that website.

Search engines like Google give a lot of importance to websites that contain more number of quality backlinks and also consider those websites as more relevant when compared to others in search results.

A backlink is considered as a quality link if:

a) It links back to your site with the keyword which you are optimizing for.

b) The website linking back to yours has the same theme as your website – this means that when your website contains an inbound link from another site, and that site has content related to your website, this inbound link will be considered as more relevant to your website. However, if this inbound link comes from a site that is totally unrelated to your site content, then it is considered as a less relevant backlink. Therefore, higher the relevancy of backlinks, the greater will be their quality.

For instance, if you have a website about furniture and you receive an inbound link from another website also containing furniture, then this backlink will be considered more relevant and of higher quality when compared to a backlink from a florist website.

Today, search engines watch out for websites that build quality backlinks slowly over time. Though it is quite easy to maneuver links on webpage’s in order to attain a high ranking, it is much tougher to manipulate search engines with inbound links from other sites. This is also one of the reasons for backlinks gaining increased importance in search engine algorithms. Recently, search engines assessment for quality backlinks has become even tougher as there are many webmasters out there who make use of unethical techniques and deceive search engines to attain a higher ranking. These techniques are not only illegitimate but can also lead to your site getting banned.

Lastly, building quality backlinks could be a very time consuming and tedious process requiring a lot of patience, efforts, and also funds. However, it is a crucial step in creating blogs or any website since the quality and relevancy of backlinks can determine the success or failure of the site. Therefore, it is very important that you prioritize this in your SEO activity and hire professional SEO experts to whom you can outsource this task and achieve a better search engine ranking.

Web Traffic for the New Website or Blog Owner by: Bart Rudzinski

May 23rd, 2009

Web Traffic for the New Website or Blog Owner - By: Bart Rudzinski

So you built a new website or started a new blog on Wordpress or Blogger …

Nobody is visiting your site or blog and you’ve spent hours making it great and it seems like nobody cares !!! A few weeks go by and still nothing… no visitors!

I know, you feel lost! You have Googled “web traffic” and got a gazzilion sites selling you traffic or SEO Services or “FREE Website Traffic” in exchange for xyz. Everybody wants something, right?

Well hopefully this will help get your site / blog going:

There are a few things you absolutely must do:

Before we begin, if you’re not using Firefox as your browser, get it now and forget all the others: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Ok let’s start :-)

1) Get a Google account. If you don’t have one, get one here -> http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

2) Add your site / blog to your webmaster account and follow the steps provided by Google.

3) Create a sitemap of your site. If you don’t have a sitemap tool then here is a great free one written in Java: http://www.auditmypc.com/xml-sitemap.asp

4) Add your sitemap to your Google webmaster account for your site.

5) To get indexed quickly by Google, get yourself a SpicyPage account here: http://spicypage.com and add your site. Please vote for LinkChili.com too ;-)

6) Get yourself some backlinks. You can get your first one from Linkchili.com (this is a good starting point, especially if you do not already have any links. Be aware that generally linkfarms cannot provide quality links. By “quality links” I mean links that are contextually relevant to the content of your site and have a minimum “Page Rank” (PR) of 4)

Ok, now some stuff about your site.

Have you set your title tags?

SELECTING A TITLE TAG

This lets the search engines know what your site/blog is all about. A title tag is the first thing a search engine will see and it will be judged upon the relevancy it has to the content of your website. It is highly recommended to ensure that your most important keywords are located in the title tag to increase the relevancy between the site and the title.

A title tag example for this Article would be: Web Traffic for the New Website or Blog Owner

What do your Keywords look like?

MONITOR YOUR KEYWORD DENSITY

The keywords you select should all be relevant to the content of your site. Your choice of keywords is critical, so be sure there is a DIRECT relationship between these words and your sites purpose.

A keyword example for this Article would be

Close attention should also be paid to the way the words are used within the sites content as well as the frequency of their use. Be sure that your selected keywords are used naturally, as would be the case in a casual conversation, and take note NOT to use them too frequently.

Overuse could get your site penalized by the search engines thereby lowering your search engine rankings. If the need to frequently use some words (due to their relevance) arises, have a list of synonyms available for substitution.

A keyword density of between 2 and 5 percent is a suggestion margin to target, to both accurately reflect your sites content and keep you in ‘good graces’ with search engines.

Wow, that seems like a lot of work! Well there are some free tools that LinkChili.com provide to help you with this task. You will need to register, for free, on LinkChili.com, then login to your profile. Select “Member SEO Tools” and select “Keyword Density Analyser”. Enter your site’s URL (or the web page you want to check) and away you go!

You are making progress! Now you are ready to get some traffic! Remember Google loves content! The more you give it, the more it will come and visit your site, resulting in more frequent crawling and higher indexing. This increases your chances for organic search results.

Organic search results are direct targeted free traffic from a search engine such as Google. Targeted traffic is traffic (people) that have specifically searched for something your site offers. Organic search results do not involve PPC (Pay Per Click) or non-targeted popunder or popup paid traffic, that generate unwanted hits or spam hits.

Next you will need to let “AboutUs” know about your site or blog: So register here: http://www.aboutus.org/. This will help you get “spidered” more quickly.

Have you ever heard of Alexa? Alexa measures your “traffic reach” to internet users. You need to tell Alexa about your site or blog too: http://www.alexa.com/siteowners. Don’t be despondent when in a week’s time you’re still unranked or have a ranking of 30000000 this is normal. It will decrease over time. Your goal is to get your Alexa rating as low as possible and your page rank as high as possible.

Remember you changed your browser to Firefox? Well now you can install the Alexa Toolbar, it is called Alexa Sparky and you can get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5362

Alexa Sparky accompanies you as you surf, providing useful information about the sites you visit without interrupting your web browsing. It also increases the surf trend of your site or blog as you work on it, which in turn reduces your Alexa Rank. :-)

Right, so there is method to all this madness! Now, to get your Alexa rating down you need visitors as your site ages. So you need to start getting some traffic fast. I don’t really like these sites but they work well initially. This site has automatic surfing where u earn credits and in return they display your website to other members who will open your site if it suites them. The traffic is not huge I got around 40 visitors a day. It’s good enough to start off with. Register for a free account here: http://tinyurl.com/dlsk9q. Now you should be in the position where your site is getting some traffic and your Alexa Rank is coming down - as you can see in your Alexa Sparky tool bar.

All the information provided in this article is explained in full detail on http://www.LinkChili.com with tons of great features for members only, membership is free.

Good Luck! All the best with your site / blog may it grow and grow and grow.

___________

Bart
LinkChili.com
http://www.linkchili.com